The broad avenue that led down to the riverbank was already closed to traffic. People had spread out until they filled the entire street, and they were walking on toward the river, the fireworks. Everyone was dressed in light cotton kimonos, and they were carrying their kids up on their shoulders, and they were glancing up at the sky, laughing and making noise, and the crowd streamed on like it does at the huge Gion Festival in Kyoto, everyone moving in the same direction. I'd never seen anything like it. I felt a sort of excitement—a great rush. No one had any idea when the fireworks would finally unwind across the sky we were all watching, so we were all filled with expectation. Every face I saw was bright and cheerful.

“There's no way we'll make it to the river. Look at the crowds.”

My boyfriend sounded disappointed. I looked up at his sweaty face.

“That's okay. We'll be able to see at least a little, right?” I said.

“Maybe not. We'd have to be somewhere high up.”

“Well, it doesn't matter. As long as we can hear them.”

If I stood on tiptoe I could see that ahead of us there was a line of people waiting to cross the bridge, and that around the end of the line a massive crowd had gathered. The night sky was bathed in deep indigo, and it was incredibly wide. Police officers stood here and there in the dark. People pressed on as if they were being channeled along by ropes. But my boyfriend and I stopped before we'd even reached the end of the line.

What was important wasn't the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time. It was important that we link our arms and turn our faces up so that we were looking in the same direction as the people around us, and listen to the huge boomings of the fireworks. The rising energy of the crowd prodded me into a state of jittery excitement. At some point along the way my boyfriend had started wanting to see the display, too, really wanting to see it, and looking up at his face I could tell that he could hardly wait for it to start, and somehow it seemed like he'd become young again.

I think that at some point along the way the feeling of being healthy must have come back to me. Even if all this has been nothing but the story of a few small waves that shook me when I lost my friend and wore myself out doing all the little things one does every day, even if all this was nothing but the story of a small resurrection, it still makes me think that people are very strong. I can't remember anymore whether this kind of thing ever happened to me back in the old days, but I know that when I turned to confront the darkness inside me, when somewhere way down deep inside I was really hurting, when I was utterly exhausted, all of a sudden a totally unexpected and inexplicable strength came gushing up within me.