Missing You

Mieko remembered many things. She remembered crying, laughing, holding a thin, delicate body in her arms. She could vividly recall the overwhelming joy when his fragile, infant body was placed into her arms. But the thing she remembered most was the way his sobs echo in her ears.

But even now, that sort of thing was very far away. With its departure, Mieko chased everything else away from her heart. Her friends, her family, her husband, her job, her life.

Nothing mattered anymore.

"Are you still thinking about him?"

Rose petals danced across the floor.

An empty room, an empty heart. Everything around her was empty. It was the only thing known to her now. But, that was all right.

Naked arms wrapped around her chest. Mieko didn't feel anything but his breath on her neck. Her sense of touch was long forgotten.

"When is he getting home today?"

The man who once mattered flashed in her mind. Blinking, Mieko dismissed any thoughts of him. "Three hours."

"Oh?" she could not feel the amusement in his laugher. "Let's go another round!"

When the stranger took Mieko in his arms, Mieko did her best to smile like the way she remembered. He led her out of the empty room and held her close. The way he pushed against her made Mieko remember warm, fleeting emotions she once held in her heart. Overwhelmed, she clung to his body in desperation.

That sort of thing frightened her now. That was why she couldn't look him in the eyes. She could only watch as the trail of rose petals disappeared.


"So, how did he go?"

"Don't go through my photographs."

"What was the kid's name?"

"Shut your mouth!"

The images scattered on the floor were the pieces of Mieko's broken heart. The diminished woman kneeled before them and cursed the smiles and the laughter and the pain.

"Shit!"

Rolling her eyes, Mieko turned to him. "Help me pick these up, you-"

"He's home early today!"

Rose petals crinkled under bare feet. Mieko chased the faceless stranger out through the back and tossed his clothes. She turned the faucet in the shower to rid of the filth.

He didn't discover a thing.


"I told you to keep that door locked!"

Mieko's only remembrance now was pain and frustration and guilt and anger. He never used to be this way when their son was alive. "It's just an empty room-"

"But what used to be in that room-"

"-is gone now, Dear-"

"But you know how you get-"

"How I get?" Pain and anger and guilt. "How dare you-"

"Honey, it brings back the memories-"

Mieko shattered the second vase of roses that day. "WHAT memories?! You were NEVER there to see him cry, to see him suffer!" She remembered a young boy's screaming. "YOU COWARD!"

Wilting rose petals were all that was left.


In the middle of the lonely room, she cried. That man had left her heart long ago when he never visited the hospital and arrived an hour too late and only held her when she cried in front of the family. He wasn't worth it after he yelled at her for quitting her job and for wanting to hold onto her son's things and to pretend that everything was normal.

It was very easy to remember what hate was like when they were in the same room. She did like him in the photographs, though. He was nice to her back then.


Mieko used to accept death. Now, she didn't believe there was such a thing. Her son did not die. He only went away. That's right. He just went to some far away school. He was doing a good job over there, so it was okay to trust him at such a distance.

Mieko still worried about him though. It was a mother's duty, you know. It was dangerous for boys his age to be out after dark.

She was even more worried about his return. His idiot father took his furniture out and gave away his clothes and his toys and that game they bought him for his tenth birthday. It wasn't right. Her son was going to return, he needed his things. He was going to be angry when his game was gone.

Someday, he would return. Someday, he would. Definitely.


"You should make this our play room."

Mieko separated from that nameless body. "No. I remember him this way."

"You get pretty crazy about him, you know that? I mean, how long has it been?"

"…five years."

"That long?!"

Pain, anger, guilt and something like the sort of thing she saw on television called violence. "Don't speak like that about him!"

"But, he's-"

"He'll come back. Don't worry, I know he will. He'll fill everything up again."

"You're crazy!"

This time, Mieko believed him.


That night, Mieko crushed rose petals between her fingers. She thought of how much she truly hated emptiness and hated hate and hated anger and hated all that she could no longer feel. Emptiness was the worst since her child was no longer there to fill it.

She could remember the happiness, the laughter, and the crying. Even the tears back then were not as tragic as those that stained her face and made her eyes red and made her ugly now. She was empty like his room, like the meaning of marriage, the meaning of life. Even deep, deep down, the thought that her son was going to return was also just as hollow.

And that night, the drawer that hid her husband's gun was empty too.