primalis

It was down to two minutes before the train was leaving but Stella was still fifteen minutes away, waiting for the bus.

"I had a whole extra hour," she thought. "Honestly, what do I do with my time?"

She figured she could blame her tardiness on getting lost since she had never been to Mito before. When she did get there, she found it was all too easy to find the concert hall. It was the biggest thing in town and the only landmark on the map at the station besides the station. There went that excuse.

Turned out, it didn't matter anyway. Her student was happy to see she came at all. He played the French horn in the Mito Municipal Band, and his wife played the piccolo. Apparently, they both met in the school band back in junior high school and had been together ever since. They're now in their fifties.

Since she got there fifteen minutes late, she walked into the hall while the band was playing and what happened next was unexpected. It wasn't some kind of epiphany or life-altering experience, mind you... but rather, a small and sudden whisking away of the heart. The music was different from what she was used to hearing from bands back in the States. It seemed full of life with a touch of primalis. The headache she had been harbouring all day disappeared and she felt happy. Purely happy.

After the concert, Stella waited around to say hello to her student and meet his wife. She was exactly as she had imagined. A short, slender, mousey woman with large, sweet eyes. She didn't speak a lick of English, but Stella couldn't speak Japanese either. The greetings and introductions didn't last long and they almost seemed insignificant. It was time to head back to the station.

Strolling along the small streets of Mito, Stella savoured the solitude of being probably the only foreigner in that town. The harsh Japanese sun was kind to her today. If only every day in Japan was this likeable.