By Jiawen P.

Nothing was the same to her any longer – rust had turned from red to brown to black, sushi was blown up to XXL in this strange land, and strawberries had lost their delicate blush. She stood stoic in the middle of the kitchen, a fridge standing inauspiciously in the Northern corner, bare feet contacting unfamiliar pinewood, and the displeasing violet-coated wall reflected like cysts in her eyes.
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“Doushite?!” A throttle escaped her, bouncing off the walls and hitting her this way and that, an unwelcome reminder of her current predicament. Glancing around, she let the vastness of the apartment fill her: two more bedrooms than back at home, windows that ran from ceiling to floor, and the high ceilings that could have made up the height of three floors back in the apartment of her youth. All these American things made Japan, the country she had left less than a day ago, seem so surreal and distant – like a childhood memory. She padded across the wooden boards that lined the floor, tensing and flinching whenever one made the slightest creak, in fear that termites would cease to be able to hold her weight and those thin floorboards would deposit her in the apartment below. Reaching out a hesitant hand, she pushed open the windows and breathed, taking in her first breath of American air. It was not beautiful – it was air that smelled of soot, exhaust, metal and concrete. It was fourteen floors down to the rush of yellow taxicabs and humans, like the river’s upper course whose flow of water never slowed. In the apartment across the street, in the window directly opposite, she saw a lady, possibly middle-aged from whatever she could see, plump with a mop of curls and tending to the laundry. Somewhere in the afternoon heat, as cars screeched and women yelled, she heard the faint sounds of children cheering – cheering for freedom, cheering for America.
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She turned her back to the scene and surveyed her apartment once again. When this was all settled she would write postcards and send emails to Okaasan, Otousan – silently, she corrected herself- Mom, Dad, Brother and Sister. What else could she call them in English, for she did not remember the words? She would save the most special postcard of Park Avenue for Jin. And when he came to visit, she would show him the Trump Tower, the Empire State Building, Central Park and SoHo. But first, she had to check those places out herself.
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In a beat, she was at the fridge the previous occupant had left. In one swing of the door, the foul smell of milk encased her and she spluttered, disgusted. After further inspection, she made a list: 1. Smelly milk. 2. Smelly toilet. 3. Smelly laundry basket. 4. Smelly cupboards. 5. Smelly couch (Note: May be food between seats. Must check ASAP! Or ask maintenance guy to do it. Do not sit.)…
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She shook at the number of issues on her list and for the first time in her seven hours in America did she feel overwhelmed. Her eyes turned moist and her throat started to dry, a sickening feeling building up in her stomach. Plopping down on the other sofa that sat beside the windows, she bawled for the first time in twenty-four hours – a sadness she had not felt when her family bid her goodbye at the airport gate, or when the airplane soared over Japanese territory towards America. Tears mixed with her eyeliner, diluted her blusher and thickened her mascara till her eyelashes looked like gunks of black. She screamed to the open windows, at the lady who no longer tended to laundry and to the children who had stopped their cheering long before. Her screams pervaded the traffic below, and pedestrians who, albeit craned their necks in attempts to gaze up the fourteen floors to her open window, never stopped, and the yellow taxi-cabs and cars continued in streams of light.
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Night had tossed a black blanket with little colored spots over Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Brooklyn – over Boston, New Jersey and as far as she could imagine. Halfway across the globe, in Tokyo, the Eastern Sun had only begun its steady ascend towards the sky, painting Japan in red, orange, yellow, and every other color that was only representative in the little balls of light that littered New York – insignificant substitutes for the Japanese sun she would have to wait a little longer to see rise again.
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She wiped the tears from her cheeks, applied fresh makeup, changed into a fresh set of clothes and put on a fresh smile. She dialed +81, remembering the international country code, and awaited a fresh new day in Tokyo. The phone rang, and rang, and rang, New York dissolving into the night behind her.
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“Good morning, good night!”