Home to Fukushima

Home to Fukushima

by A.H. Robinson

His voice is like broken bits of crackle black, in a white sea of static.

“Where to?”

The question is a crashing wave of uneven noise, cresting into the back seat of this cab, mixing into the ocean sounds just outside my cracked window.

“Home.” I say. “Fukushima.”

It has been forever since I’ve seen my bed. Too tired to even remember what stole my rest last night: Minoru kicking in his sleep or Kogi hopping up and down when his food bowl was empty?

This morning was too long ago. I barely recall lunch, bitter & sweet kiwi to end the meal. The taste is still with me, but I don’t remember when I finished.

I must have sat for ages. The icy spray from the surf embedded in my sweater so thoroughly, it seems that my flesh is part of the sea.

Gravity wrapped around my body like a sodden blanket, 200 yards to the parking garage too epic of a journey: The hourly commuter bus too long of a wait. I crave the overheated cavern of a taxi.

My arm rises up like a cloud to hail a passing driver.

We head toward the bridge, to my home on the other side of the bay. But the bridge is gone. So are all the houses on the shore.

He asks again for my address. His words turn blue and float through the static toward the back of the cab. He is far away and I start to fade again.

I see the black, cross-grain of the seat’s fabric through my legs.

Then I remember:

The wave that held the top of the tallest building in its fist before it pounded down on me, my kiwi, my park bench. The cars that swam over me in the ocean that day, before my breath changed to salt water.

I have to know, before I am swept back to nothing. I ask the man.

“Have I died?”

But he is gone and I am part of the foamy sea again.

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A.H. Robinson
A.H. Robinson writes poems and flash fiction. She has been published in Pearl, Origami Condom, and The Great American Poetry show. Amy has studied writing with Maureen McHugh Ron Koertge, and Cat Rambo. Amy is surrounded by cats and ghosts, and lives in a small house by the sea. She rambles on a bit at https://stinkyjr.wordpress.com

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