2011-03-11

東北大震災

Fourteen years! They slipped by almost unnoticed.

I was bored in a meeting today and staring out the window at the Tokyo skyline. An overlong address on the building tannoy irritated me until I realized the male voice was calling for a minute’s silence at 2:46 pm.

I’ll never forget that day although I was far from the flooding and the dying and the quaking and the crying. I stayed on the top floor most of the night. The trains had stopped. The traffic wasn’t moving. Below me a sea of people headed somewhere into the night. The mobile phone networks were unusable but the local Wi-Fi and the internet stayed up. That’s how I was able to stay in contact with my family overseas using Skype. How sad it’s being retired before the year is over.

The meeting ended. The grey sky hung like a shroud and hinted of evening rain. I took the candidate’s resume and shredded it. They look a good fit for the job.

Many lives were shredded that day. And many survivors still struggle with pieces that won’t fit together in ways that make sense.

Please forgive my forgetfulness. Sometimes the jigsaw of life is beyond all understanding.