Distant Memories

The other day, the first class reunion since we graduated middle school was held. Many I was meeting again for the first time in some thirty-odd years, and though face and name were slow to match up, along with the expressions and events lingering as distant images in my head, my memories gradually came drifting back.

Otake, Wacchin, Secchan, Turbo… good grown adults calling each other, before we knew it, by the nicknames of those days—a relationship free of any self-interest. For a while we forgot even the passing of time, as talk of old memories came into bloom. Turn to the present and the future, though, and there were those whose values had drifted far from mine—and the blossom folds back into bud. But everyone has become a middle-aged man or woman, and is doing well. That alone made me feel happy.

What had become of the memorial cherry tree we all planted together as a class on graduation day? Suddenly curious, I slipped out of the gathering, and my feet turned toward my old school.