My parents thought it would be a good idea for me to attend my high school field trip the next morning. I wasn’t so sure. Who knows how people would react? Fainting from the top of a bamboo mast is understandable—it’s almost expected of a kid who wears a helmet during Sports Day, but getting hit by a car through a convenience-store window kind of gets people talking.
“Ah, Koda-kun, ohayō gozaimasu.”
“And good morning to you,” I said to a second-year girl I’d never met.
“Ogenki desu ka?” her cute friend asked.
“I’m feeling fine, I guess.”
“Yokatta ne.”
“Yep. Good.”
I took off my street shoes and set them in the cubby with my name on it. I stepped out of the school genkan and into my slippers.
“Oi, Koda.”
I looked up to see Kenji walking straight at me. I braced for impact.
“Soba ni sawaranai ka?”
“What?” I said, opening my eyes. “Like, right now?”
“No, stu— I mean, no, Koda. On the bus. Do you want to sit next to me on the bus?”
I caught our school counselor watching us from the other end of the hall.
“Oh, right. The field trip. I guess so,” I said with a strained grin.
He grunted and lumbered up the stairs.
“Ohayō,” a group of third-year guys said as they passed me on their way to homeroom.
“Genki de ne,” said a gaggle of girls.
Huh. Who’d have thought that the secret to popularity is getting hit by a van? In high school, people will either like you based on your merits or pity you. Hey, you get to the same place either way, right?
“How are you feeling, Koda?” Ino-sensei asked. “Everyone was very worried about you.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s true,” the school counselor said. “Many of the students asked about you.”
“And you had nothing to do with that?”
“I had very little to do with that,” she said, walking me up the stairs. “There are many people here who care about you. That is a wonderful thing.”
“Well, thanks,” I said awkwardly.
After we got to my homeroom, Ino-sensei crossed her arms in front of her and bowed. “Well, you better get inside. Have fun today, Koda.”
I bowed back and then walked inside. The students were sitting around the classroom talking and laughing.
“Don’t forget your bentō lunches,” Shimizu-sensei said from the front of the class. “There will be vending machines, but you will only be allowed to buy drinks. Cookies and Hi-Chew taffy do not constitute a meal. I’m looking at you, Kenji-kun. Stay with a partner, and when you’re ready walk quietly down to the buses.”
As the students filed out, Kenji walked up and got very close to my face. “You have to be my partner.”
“Actually, I already have a partner. Her name is Moya and we’re in love. No, we’re not in love. She’s nice. I like her. It’s complicated. The point is … I have a partner already, so…”
Kenji looked at me for a second and then turned and walked away.
“Koda,” Shimizu-sensei said, “could you stay behind for a few minutes?”
“Okay.”
After everyone left the room, Shimizu-sensei told me to sit on a chair next to his desk.
“Am I in trouble? I just got here.”
“No, it’s nothing like that, Koda. It’s about your accident. I’d like to ask you … what it was like.”
“To get hit by a van?”
“No, not that.” He glanced behind him at an empty corner. “I wanted to know what it was like to leave Kusaka Town.”
“To leave?”
“You had to go to the hospital, didn’t you? In Kōchi City? What did it feel like to finally leave this place?”
“I’ve been outside Kusaka before. You know that, right?”
“Wonderful. Just wonderful. Tell me all about it.”
“I mean, you’ve been outside of Kusaka, too.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I’m pretty sure you have.”
“No,” he said. “In my entire life, I’ve never left this town.”
Except I knew that wasn’t true. Shimizu-sensei’s mother was from the northern island of Hokkaido. Her family tended sheep on a farm, and Shimizu-sensei used to tell stories about spending summers there running through the pastures and the birch wood forests. A faded picture of that farm even hung in an old frame on the wall behind him.
“Tell me what it was like, Koda,” he said. “Please.”
Shimizu-sensei had different-colored eyes. One was brown. The other was light green. How had I never noticed that before?
“Well,” I started, “leaving Kusaka wasn’t so hard. First, I had to find a van that was speeding out of control. Then I had to stand in front of it. For the last part, and this was probably the most important step, I had to stay very still while it attempted to park on my face. The rest was easy. I woke up in a hospital in Kōchi City.”
“Fascinating,” Shimizu-sensei said with exaggerated hand movements. “Just like that, you woke up outside Kusaka Town.”
“Well, yeah, but from the way you’re looking at me, I feel like I have to mention this: There are easier ways to leave Kusaka. A car. Or a train maybe. You don’t even have to get hit by any of those. Just get inside and ride them out.”
“I love it. I really do. Ride them out. Brilliant.”
I thought he was mocking me. But he wasn’t.
“Have you ever tried to leave Kusaka?” I asked him.
“I see where you’re going with this. The short answer is yes. I would like to leave Kusaka.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“The long answer is no. I’ve never been outside.”
How is that the long answer?
I looked up at the picture behind him. Those rolling grassy valleys weren’t from anywhere on this island. “Why have you never left this town, Shimizu-sensei?”
My teacher leaned back in his chair. “No, no, no. That is something I can’t discuss with you, Koda.”
“Well … okay.”
“I cannot talk about it.”
“All right.”
“Even discussing it could put you in great danger.”
“Then let’s definitely not discuss it.”
“The doctors say it’s a condition.”
“I thought we weren’t discussing it.”
“Have you heard of agoraphobia, Koda?”
“Um … no.”
“Agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces or crowded public places, but it’s also a fear of leaving safe places. That’s what the doctors say I have. Agoraphobia. Kusaka is my safe place. Whenever I try to leave it, I feel like my body is melting and coming apart. My brain shuts down. My fingers lock up. My feet stiffen into cement blocks.”
“How would knowing that endanger my life?” I asked.
“Because they’re wrong,” he said, leaning forward. “Kusaka is not my safe place. I hate this place. I hate this town. And I hate this school.”
As a teacher, that’s probably a secret you should keep to yourself, I thought.
“I’ve tried to leave, I really have. I’ve gone to the train station. I’ve sat in a car. I’d crawl out on my hands and knees, but every time I try, they stop me. They are doing this to me. They won’t let me leave.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Which was the worst question I could have possibly asked.
And his answer was probably the worst he could give: “Do you know what happens when you die?”
“Well, I’ve never died before, so … no?”
“I don’t know either. Maybe you’re reborn. Maybe you float up into the sky to meet the sun goddess Amaterasu. Maybe you attain enlightenment and contemplate the cosmos from your castle in the middle of space.”
“I’m pretty sure you made that last one up.”
“But what you don’t do, Koda, what you absolutely should not do under any circumstances, is stay around in the exact same house and torment all of your living relatives that come after. That doesn’t makes sense, does it? Who would want to do something like that? They just showed up one day. Who would want to spend the rest of eternity haunting your own family? It’s crazy! Simply crazy!”
“That is the word that came to mind,” I said.
“What if I needed to go to the hospital? Did they ever stop to think about that? What if someone put me into an ambulance and just drove me out of town? Would my body tear apart? Would my brain melt into a puddle? Would my ancestors actually let me die?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. But if you’re thinking of getting hit by a car so you can leave town, my recommendation would be not to do that.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
“Okay.”
“No. Not you, Koda. Them.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m with a student. You know that. You can see him.” His greenish eye drifted off a bit.
I looked behind him. No one was in that corner. “If you have company, I can go,” I said, backing away ever so slowly.
“He doesn’t know how we can leave. I already asked him. He said ride a train. Of course I know that’s a stupid idea. I know we would have tried it before. What do you want me to do? Punish him? Give him more homework? He isn’t the key to anything. You were wrong! I hate you! I hate all of you!”
“I would like to go on my field trip now,” I said.
Shimizu-sensei’s one creepy eye drifted back over to me again. “Yes. The field trip. Ikeda-sensei will be waiting. Go now. Please shut the door on your way out.”
I bowed and quickly left the room.
“The door, Koda. Please. You’ll let the crows in.”
I ran back and slid the door closed.