EKPHRASIS : Art Describing Art : 2015
California Writers Club, Mendocino Branch : A Collaboration : Artists Co-Op of Mendocino
Writers Responding to Visual Artworks
Priscilla Comen “A Japanese Life”
Responded to visual artwork by
Lynne Butler “Geisha”
"A Japanese Life" by Priscilla Comen
My name is Akiko, which means bright or sparkling child. I’m seventeen years old and live in Tokyo, a crowded, busy city in Japan. I adore beautiful clothes and antique painted vases. I wear dresses made of fine silk, woven from the strands of silkworms. I brush my hair a hundred times each night before I go to sleep on my futon. I try not to dream of my grandparents, who seventy years ago, were in Nagasaki when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on their city. My grandma’s hair was burned off and her face was scarred and red for many years. She ran many miles to get away from the roar of the crowd; away from the mushroom cloud that billowed up from the land. People sped as fast as they could to flee the horror they saw around them.
Children ran as flames tore their clothing from their bodies. My mother, who was three at the time, was visiting an aunt in another city. She was lucky. Americans claim that the dropping of the bomb saved many lives, American and Japanese. I don’t know what to believe. Many American children do not know about the bomb that was loosed on us. I think they may not study it in history classes at school That is unfortunate.
I am waiting for my American fiancé to come get me. He will take me to America where we will be married and live happily. This is my dream and I know it will become true. He is a tall, strong man with a good heart. He does not know of my grandparent’s flight to safety. I will tell him tonight before we leave. I am sad, thinking of it.
But wait, there is a courier at the door with a message from my grandmother. She says she will die if I marry an American and move to America. She says the Americans have already done much damage to her life and this will kill her very spirit, to lose me to another country, to the country that dropped the bomb. She is ninety years old and she is near death. I do not know what to do I love her so much but I love my American too. He is everything to me. He is life and I will have no life without him.
I brush my hair, it grows thick and shiny black. In my dreams, my brush becomes a sword and I push it under my kimono into my stomach. Sometimes death is the only way to deal with a difficult situation. My grandmother would miss me, my American will miss me too. But maybe he won’t come for me. I won’t be here for him if he does. Life is a puzzle; I can’t find the missing piece. If I break this ceramic painting, my grandmother and my lover will take the pieces and save them. In that way, they will both have parts of me. I am no longer a sparkling child.
My name is Akiko, which means bright or sparkling child. I’m seventeen years old and live in Tokyo, a crowded, busy city in Japan. I adore beautiful clothes and antique painted vases. I wear dresses made of fine silk, woven from the strands of silkworms. I brush my hair a hundred times each night before I go to sleep on my futon. I try not to dream of my grandparents, who seventy years ago, were in Nagasaki when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on their city. My grandma’s hair was burned off and her face was scarred and red for many years. She ran many miles to get away from the roar of the crowd; away from the mushroom cloud that billowed up from the land. People sped as fast as they could to flee the horror they saw around them.
Children ran as flames tore their clothing from their bodies. My mother, who was three at the time, was visiting an aunt in another city. She was lucky. Americans claim that the dropping of the bomb saved many lives, American and Japanese. I don’t know what to believe. Many American children do not know about the bomb that was loosed on us. I think they may not study it in history classes at school That is unfortunate.
I am waiting for my American fiancé to come get me. He will take me to America where we will be married and live happily. This is my dream and I know it will become true. He is a tall, strong man with a good heart. He does not know of my grandparent’s flight to safety. I will tell him tonight before we leave. I am sad, thinking of it.
But wait, there is a courier at the door with a message from my grandmother. She says she will die if I marry an American and move to America. She says the Americans have already done much damage to her life and this will kill her very spirit, to lose me to another country, to the country that dropped the bomb. She is ninety years old and she is near death. I do not know what to do I love her so much but I love my American too. He is everything to me. He is life and I will have no life without him.
I brush my hair, it grows thick and shiny black. In my dreams, my brush becomes a sword and I push it under my kimono into my stomach. Sometimes death is the only way to deal with a difficult situation. My grandmother would miss me, my American will miss me too. But maybe he won’t come for me. I won’t be here for him if he does. Life is a puzzle; I can’t find the missing piece. If I break this ceramic painting, my grandmother and my lover will take the pieces and save them. In that way, they will both have parts of me. I am no longer a sparkling child.
