“When will that be? What time, which day?”

“Your time will come when your time comes!”

“I don’t understand,” Miki said, glued to Nagare’s leg, refusing to be separated. “When, when, when?”

Just when Nagare’s patience was just about gone... “Miki, your turn will come too...” said Kazu, joining the conversation. She moved close to Miki and crouched down so she was at eye level with her.

“When you turn seven,” she whispered gently.

“Really?” Miki asked, gawking straight into Kazu’s eyes.

“Yes, really,” Kazu confirmed.

Miki looked up at Nagare and waited for his answer.

By his expression, Nagare didn’t seem fond of the idea, but in the end, he let out a sigh of resignation.

“Okay,” he answered, and nodded a couple of times.

“Yippee, hooray!” Miki was instantly over the moon with joy. She skipped and jumped with everything she had, and scuttled away into the back room.

Shaking his head, he muttered, “What have I gone and said,” and chased after her.

Left behind, Kazu was silently looking at the woman in the dress reading her novel.

“I’m sorry, Mum, I still...” she suddenly whispered.

The ticking of the three wall clocks reverberated loudly as if in tune with Kazu.

Always...

Always...

ii

Mother and Son

Nothing makes you think, Ah, autumn has arrived, more than hearing the chirp-chirp of the suzumushi, the bell cricket.

Such warm feeling toward insects, however, is a unique cultural phenomenon. Beyond Japan and Polynesia, the chirping of insects tends to be described as a complete racket. According to one theory, both the Japanese and Polynesian peoples originally traveled south from Mongolia. The phonetics of Samoan, one Polynesian language, are similar to Japanese. Both have vowels comprising the five tones of “a,” “i,” “u,” “e,” and “o,” and the words of both languages are expressed using consonants and vowels, or vowels alone.

Japanese also has onomatopoeic expressions to communicate sounds, and mimetic expressions to convey states that do not produce sounds. But whether it’s the onomatopoeic sala-sala sloshing of the flowing river and the byuu-byuu blowing of the wind, or the mimetic shin-shin to describe the quiet settling snow and kan-kan that expresses the beating down of the sun’s rays, all these words evoke the mood of the world around us.

These words come alive in the Japanese comics of today, where they appear directly over the illustrations outside the caption bubbles. When a character strikes a dramatic pose, ZUBAAN! is added for emphasis, or DOHN! is added to intensify the crashing of a heavy object. Sulu-sulu adds texture to a slippery surface, and the quality of silence is encapsulated by shin. When these comics use glyphs in this way, it heightens the reality of the moment.

There is a song often sung in school music classes that is full of these expressions.

I can hear the pine cricket chirp!

Chin-chillo chin-chillo chin-chillo-lin

I can hear the bell cricket chirp!

Lin-lin lin-lin lin-lin.