Japan Earthquake: Thousands In Shelters Overnight After Tsunami Warnings
Original Story: BBC News
~ The Story of Akira at 37 Years Old ~
___
You are required to work additional hours where necessary, they had said. Your work forms part of a national operation in which there can be no uneccessary delay.
They didn’t let him talk about his mother (who would expect that at a job interview, anyway?), they didn’t let him talk about his home in the Kashihara province, and they didn’t let him talk about the hills. So, naturally, he had had no opportunity to mention the sickness. His mother had urged him on, regardless. He needed the work. It would be good to be in the city. Reliable, useful work… in a reliable company. She had always wished he had had a proper education, but a role in the National Construction Service? Well, that would do.
This was the one thing he could not regret - maybe he had not been there, but at at least he had done what she wanted. To think... despite the many conversations they never did have… that he had acted on the words she had spoken… well, this was a relief. Not complete, by any means… there was something unbelievable about the practicality of her most sincere requests. But he had listened to what she had said, and he had done it. This, he thought, was something good. Despite all of it, this was something he could allow himself to feel proud of.
You are entitled to seventeen days’ annual leave, if approved by both your individual contract manager and the Board of Employee Management.
Of course, he had used these too soon. And Akira was a well-bred man; honest, restrained, and sensible. He had in his youth been quite gifted in mathematics. He was, by any measurement, an adult; a functioning member of an infrastructural society. He was measured in his decision-making, and did wait until November, but as things were… well, he had used up his leave too soon. Even the most sensible of men are hostage to their educated guesses.
Your work will be beneficial not to the NCS; it will be recognised as an instrumental benefit to the greater Japanese populace. Your work and your dedication to your role will embody a sense of obligation and respect towards yourself and your fellow Japanese countrymen.
And so she had passed in December, just as the road surfacing had been complete. He remembered sitting on many barrels, any barrel, staring out at the modern orange of machinery and safety tape, lips wrapped around the end of the nation’s most affordable cigarette. Maybe he did not see what his employers did, but he was, in a smoky, tired sort of way, proud of his work. He was proud of what he and his colleagues achieved. After all, few things in the world lasted longer than roads, and he - Akira - was one of the names that had built them.
We eagerly anticipate your commitment and service as a member of NCS Kyoto. Together, we will build a future that our people can be proud of.
And now, as he strolled along the broken tarmac, his darkened fingers stained by nicotine and tiredness, he did begin to wonder. He had followed her wishes, certainly, certainly. He had, in a sense, played some kind of part in a future that may, once, have been something to be proud of. Really, he was probably just being sentimental, and he knew, fundamentally, this was not a very sensible thing to do. But still he strolled, in early January, over the splits and tears in the concrete. He had perhaps been useful, and nobody could deny that he had been committed.
But now it was January, and somewhere behind his eyes Akira had the impression that - however faintly, however lacking in practicality - a future he could be proud of now needed to be rebuilt. He could not in his mind decide if it was a future that she would want, that she would encourage him towards. He could not, in her absence, decide if it was at all the right thing to do.
But as he walked across the devastated surface, the future he had worked so hard to create, he thought back to his mother and flinched.
Yes, he could not decide now what his future was going to be made of. But the roads were destroyed, and he was a sensible man, so he could decide, at least, on one thing.
The future he was going to build, if it was something he would ever be proud of… well…
… it could not be made out of concrete.
Read the original story (BBC News):
Japan earthquake: Thousands in shelters overnight after tsunami warnings - BBC News
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
Aye, you cannae beat the fiery hand of old mother nature!
As the great Mick Fleetwood almost wrote 'He can go his own way' 🎶