Sunrise

I was tired. My eyes refused to open more than halfway. I hadn’t slept for at least forty-eight hours, judging by the number of time I had seen the moon and stars since the incident. I was scared. I mean, isn’t it normal to be scared when you’re eleven and a half and you haven’t seen your parents in two days? I just remember…I don’t want to remember, but I remember waking up from my afternoon nap after my baseball game to the sound of my mother’s piercing screams and the sound of rushing water – then nothing; only silence forced by the overwhelming force of 10 meter high waves. I don’t have any memories of what happened for the next few hours because when I woke up, night had descended and only darkness greeted us with a smile.

It was like I had been transported to a foreign territory in my sleep. Maybe this is what the apocalypse looks like? I surveyed the area from a safe spot near the top of the hill where a temporary shelter had been erected. The destruction was everywhere. Trees that before were full of green foliage and blooming with sakuras, now skinned bare with only branches left, sharpened to a point. Houses were shell of their former selves, ground down to their concrete foundations; some were a little better, with some wood and paneling standing so that you might be able to imagine the shape of the house; others, even the concrete was in bad shape. Debris was strewn along the road, now a river of dirty brown water. I could figure out where my family’s home was only because of the new bright yellow roof we had just installed. But it was no longer the bright canary yellow that shined like the sun, but a mustard color tainted with soil, debris, and the dead.

Despite all the warnings I’d been given, I felt a strong urge to see my home…no, to search my home, to see if I could find my parents and to see if there was anything of value left to be salvaged. I made my trek down the rocky slope of the hill slowly, often slipping, other times tripping. I didn’t have shoes on. In the knapsack that they had given us at the shelter, I had packed a flashlight, a banana, and some juice.

It wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself. Not compared to the other homes. I could at least enter the home from the rear entrance, now a large 10 meter wide gap in the wall. After searching inside the house, I had found two things of use – a pair of shoes and my baseball mitt, damp still from the tsunami. The rest had been destroyed beyond recognition or had been rendered subsequently unusable. And not one trace of my parents, except for the broken frame of their wedding photo hanging askew along one side of the bedroom. After exploring the inside of the house, I surveyed the outside. The water came up to my waist, and I could feel the water pulling me towards the center of the current, away from the entrenched land where my feet were planted. I allowed it to pull me briefly.

The river was monotonous. One shade of milk coffee brown. One speed. One flat surface devoid of any contrasting features. Except for that glint in the water. It glimmered like a beacon, bobbing in and out of the sunlight. The orb gradually floated towards me, almost as if magnetized. I picked it up. For being what it was, it was surprisingly heavy and kept slipping from my hands. I was able to tuck it in my knapsack and wade back towards drier land.

Sitting along the bank, I laid out the ball. It brought back memories of dad trying to teach me how to appropriately control the ball speed and direction, but instead falling flat on his butt after missing the kick. Those were great times…Alone, at the bottom of the hill, I started crying. It started in little sniffles and grew to full-fledged sobs. I didn’t want to cry, but the physical and emotional toll was wearing me thin. I sat and cried for what seemed like an entire afternoon because by the time I had returned to the shelter, it was nightfall once more.

I smelled filthy. The combination of dirt, grass, sweat, seawater, and time wasn’t the best combination for my baseball uniform that I had worn to sleep. I lay in bed clutching the soccer ball between my hands, arms extended upwards. It was still shiny after I cleaned it up. Slightly flat, not quite round, with panels of shiny pearl and a huge mitre logo. I moved my fingers along the crevices where the stitches held the leather together.

I thought hard about the object in my hands; it wasn’t a baseball. I couldn’t use my glove to catch it, nor use my hand to throw it. But at least it didn’t need a bat. At least it was a ball. At least it had air and rolled. Not like the rolled buildings that lay in heaps, dusting debris along the cracked paved roads. Not like the extinguished lives buried under the heaps. It wasn’t a sport that I loved but at least it was something I could do to pass the time. It could distract me from the thoughts that I’d been having recently. Besides, it didn’t need to people to play catch with. One was just enough. It would be alright, I thought. This ball would become my companion, my travel mate, my study buddy, and my best listener. With this thought in my head, I fell into a peaceful sleep.

And then the sun came up again.