Spiro & Junko

A tale of love that transcends the very fabric of the world...

     Haruyuki Ochi was dying. Not that it mattered, for the young man known affectionately to his friends as Spiro had been dead inside for longer than he cared to remember.

     Dishwater daylight bleached Tokyo's night of what scant solace it provided and the night fell in turn, to poison any promise of daylights comfort. Day after day it was the same; torturous, monotonous, empty.

     The box room in which he lay was bathed in a flickering luminescence cast by the off station T.V. The air, muggy in prelude to storm, was filled with the bass-fuelled throb of Denki Groove, a pulsating rhythm that caused the window to rattle in its frame. Spiro seemed not to hear it. His left hand hung uselessly over the edge of the futon where his fingers toiled mechanically in the dwindling mound of tranquillisers piled there. His right clutched the near empty vodka bottle to his heart as if fearing the vessel itself might desert him. His face was a slack and pallid mask, his narrow eyes watery and sightless. Only his lips moved, uttering soundless syllables. He was praying.

     He knew not why.

 

     What sort of God was He to allow such things to occur?

 

     Their funeral had long passed, a quiet morning set adrift in the stillness of the April air, in a simple clearing bordered by cherry blossom. It was as if Mother Nature had paused time itself in order to pose as advocate to bestow her consolations upon their crowns. The Shinto priest had delivered his sermon dispassionately, his words hanging in the haze to be fished out by those gathered. Spiro heard nothing; a hollow outcast clinging to the bole of a tree some distance away, he watched, his bitten nails rasping at its rough bark. Her family, a dark spot in a pool of colour, bent, broken, shuddering. Together.

     He waited silently by the tree and watched them trail away before approaching. Tears ran freely down his cheeks as his legs buckled and he slumped before her photograph, glossy and gleaming against the greyness of the smooth granite.

    

     Spiro you are always such a sad boy, she would say tilting her head to the side, birdlike with her almond eyes glittering. You should carry your heart in your chest, not drag it along the ground like a sack.

    

     Neither he nor Junko had been to a shrine since childhood; hed always viewed religion with barely reserved cynicism and perhaps even a mark of contempt. But now he lay there as the residue of his life slid away and he prayed. Prayer. The last refuge of a scoundrel, his grandfather had said. And he was right.

     It had been two a.m. and the slightest brush of her hand had been enough to waken him, Spiro imagined he felt her breath on his face and her words at his ear; wake up sleepy boy.

 

 

     He sat up, his heart pounding. His mobile buzzed and Junichi waved the thing in his face. 'Get up you idiot! It is Satomi... Junko is having your baby. Get up, get up!'

     Junichi's snarling Honda ate up the neon-lit streets with Spiro clinging to his leathers, his head dipped and his mind whirling. Spiro shut his eyes as downtown Tokyo whipped past in an animation of blazing vibrancy. A baby daughter. A daughter!

     His mobile buzzed angrily again in his pocket.

     He was shaking so much that he could barely power his legs to propel him up the steps. Junichi punched the air in his wake; shouts of good fortune rang in his ears and reverberated through the corridors. Spiro's high tops slapped and squeaked noisily on the linoleum as he fled through the halls, his heart bursting and his eyes flashing.

     He almost bowled Satomi over as he blew through the double doors; her mobile spiralled from her grip and clattered to the floor. He grinned clownishly and seized Junko's childhood friend by her slim shoulders.

     Satomi stared blankly back at him, her mouth working, 'I... I tried to call you Haruyuki I tried but you wouldnt answer...'

     He blinked mechanically, the lopsided smirk freezing on his features as he stared past her to the hunched figure in the hallway. Junko's father sat staring bleakly into space, his dark suit creased, his large hands clasped before him and his face ashen.

     'Satomi?' Spiro licked his lips feeling a coldness crawl. 'Satomi whats wrong?'

     'Haruyuki ... Spiro... I...' Tears spilled from his friend's eyes and her hand went to her mouth as she began to speak.

     The first things he felt as the words trickled from her lips were the mechanical shaking of his head and the burning behind his eyes. He was suddenly staring down upon the scene; at Satomi and the empty shell who was denying all that he was being told. None of this was actually happening. The girl's stilted words fell broken about his ears after hammering uselessly at his head in an effort to enter and bite and tear at his numbed mind. Her final words were the only ones he could later recall.

 

     And there was nothing they could do...

    

     The swing doors up ahead thumped open and a surgeon emerged, his face drawn and his scrubs showing sweat marks at the neck and arm pits. Spiro pushed past Junko's friend.

     'You you are a Doctor right? What is wrong with Junko?'

     The surgeon's tired eyes drifted wordlessly towards Junko's father. The heavyset man remained unmoving his eyes locked onto a spot on the floor.

     'Tell me, she is having my daughter, my baby, do you understand? Look at me!'

      Spiro grasped the surgeon's shoulder as the man's eyes returned slowly to him.

     'You do something, do you hear me? You get back in there and you do something!' The words caught in his tightening throat as the surgeon placed a hand gently over his.

     No.

     Spiro clenched his teeth and screwed tight his eyes; shut it out, shut it out - its not happening. The muscles bunched at his jaw and his lips trembled. 'Get back in there get b-'

     The surgeon shook his head slowly, the tolling of the bell. 'I am so sorry.'

     'Please...' He pleaded brokenly.

     Suddenly all his strength fled and his legs gave way, he had the vaguest sensation of calling voices and the coolness of the corridor floor pressing against his cheek.

     'Not gone ... no. Not ... gone... lying.'

     He was sick then and faded away into darkness as hot, stinging tears pricked and burned in his eyes to blur everything away.

     He stared about, feeling the closeness of his room at home and seeing the flowered wallpaper that Junko had chosen and felt the sleeping warmth of her form curled beside him. Her hand on his arm, her breath on his cheek and her voice, husky in the half-light. Something snagged in the back of his mind, the thread of his belief that all was safe was severed and he felt the wetness on his cheeks. The walls were bleached suddenly of their floral designs replaced by the cold, flaking magnolia of the hospital passageway and the warmth of the kneeling nurse at his side was then a mockery of all that he had lost.

     'Oh no...' he choked. Everything was gone, he realised as memory shook him from his reverie and cast his heart in stone. From then on he wished for nothing less than death and release...

 

 

     Now his eyelids grew heavy and he knew that he had little time remaining. All was set, soon they would be together, reunited; Spiro and his girl and his daughter. Junko and Kyoko. He rolled his eyes heavenward as warmth encompassed him and darkness slipped across his vision like the disc of the moon across the face of the sun.

 

     One more chance, I've done nothing wrong in my life. Youve taken my life so I offer what is left to you. Please, just one last chance, I must see her again ... please one more. Junko...

 

     His strength had fled and it was with one final, monumental effort that he reached for her photograph, just to graze her image with his fingertips would be enough. In the last moments with his vision fading and his fingers curling in the empty air, Haruyuki Ochi died...

 

 

     Voices.

     Muffled and distant but very definitely voices. Surely Junichi and Satomi, concerned as much for their own sakes as for his safety, would not deny him this. He could see nothing and he felt hot and drowsy, perhaps it would be too late.

     Oh let me die! 

     Things were becoming confused now and he felt a physical pain to match his mental anguish; he could not breathe and could not move but strangely felt no panic. After all, this was the process for dying.

    

     A piercing light hurt his eyes; he squinted against it and cried out, the sound driving the very last phantoms of his memory from his mind. Coldness touched his skin and filled him with an insecure dread that he couldn't comprehend. Strong hands grasped him and he opened his eyes, vision swam into focus and he found himself staring into a face that he felt he should know. Something familiar. Then the notion was gone.

     The white floor swung about to meet him as he stared up at it and he coughed and spluttered the last of the mucus from out of his lungs. A muffled voice reached his ears but he could not hope to understand what it was or what it said.

     Nevertheless the voice had said.

 

     "Congratulations Mrs Sagawa. Its a boy!"

 

 

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Music courtesy of Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats.

Author's Note

This was one of the first stories I wrote when I was trying to break into the short story market - I have no idea why it's set in Tokyo, I guess I just felt like a change of scenery...

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Howie,
How ya' doin,' man? What a great ending to what turns out to be a complex storyline about a man's personal, internal deliberations over his wife going into labor. And how very sneaky of you to lead me on to the notion that our hero Spiro is in mourning and in the process of suicide because he'd lost his wife and child to death, only to join him in the joy of becoming the father of a son!
Brilliant, my friend! First rate dude! BZ

[Doreen]

This story is so real. I felt everything. And what an ending! You have much talent in writing a story. This is absolutely perfect.

[OceanTropic]

Wow. You, my friend, have a gift.

The way you write, the descriptions, the words...the metaphors... everything. I can see everything as if it's in plain sight, and I can smell and feel everything. You truly are a gifted writer. Do NOT give up, you will break into the market and very soon. Forget short stories, you should write novels.

This was very beautiful, and as I was reading the end, I was as confused as the character. Then the whole reincarnation thing happened... wow, so fascinating, totally unexpected. The way you described his death... "darkness slipped across his vision like the disc of the moon across the face of the sun. " Brilliant!!

You are brilliant. This is the best writing I have ever seen by far.

[Adela Muresan]

Wow, nice.
You caught the desperation in a very realistic way, the howl thing truly takes the reader there and makes him feel the inner anguish.

A.M.

[Maria C. Donado]

At first I didn't really get the ending, but then I snapped into it and sort of laughed like crazy. No idea why. This story was wonderful, and I believe it deserves first prize!

[Carla (trying to make e..]

this was a beautifully written story.
I so felt his anguish...
i like the setting being in Japan.
it fits somehow.
loved it.

[Sunny]

Absolutely wonderful. Fantastic imagery. I read it over and over to capture the precise wording. Where was this little gem? I see that Ms. Mirman only saw it a few hours ago therefore it must not have been out long.

My eyes did tear up. Nothing could be more sad than what this poor young man suffered.

I believe good writing changes a person's mood and you certainly did mine.

[Chantal-lise Mirman]

What a wonderful and sad story, Howie! Amazing imagery and free of your trademark cynicism, you describe a lovely relationship, tragically lost. Your introspective hero provides us with all the necessary details in his last hours of painful memories to piece together his life, his friends, his love... It is interesting how you deal with religion and Spiro's last Hail Mary attempt to make some sort of deal with God. And while he IS reincarnated (which sounds like it should be a good thing), he is thereby robbed of the one thing he truly wanted and was willing to die for, being reunited with his lost lost love and daughter.

This story is an absolute gem, with so many exquisitely-crafted lines, starting with:

"Dishwater daylight bleached Tokyo's night of what scant solace it provided "

"a quiet morning set adrift in the stillness of the April air"

through the words of your characters:

"You should carry your heart in your chest, not drag it along the ground like a sack."

"Prayer. The last refuge of a scoundrel, his grandfather had said. And he was right."

to the ominous:

"The first things he felt as the words trickled from her lips "

"as memory shook him from his reverie and cast his heart in stone. "


You've again come up with a twist ending, but with a very different purpose. Instead of thumbing your nose at the readers, it is a natural consequence of your protagonist's life and we are left to ponder the meaning and your message...

You do not disappoint, Howie! Another tale to be treasured and placed in the favorites collection of Howie Masterpieces!

[dawnsue541]

Good story.

[Lucky Me]

Reincarnation huh.... cool. I'm glad you sent this to me. You write so well. Like this sentence for example :
"priest had delivered his sermon dispassionately, his words hanging in the haze to be fished out by those gathered..."
It was great imagry. I really like your style you're so unique.