Fiction

WHEN BLOSSOMS FALL, a novella published in Griffith Review Edition 46: Forgotten Stories, October, 2014

Excerpt:

Today in flower, tomorrow scattered by the wind – Such is our blossom life. How can we think its fragrance lasts forever? 

Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, Imperial Japanese Navy

The day you bring your family to the new home in the new country, your daughter Yuri is in a frenzy, running in and out of the rooms, into the front yard, out to the back, circling the kitchen. Together with your wife – a woman with soft curves and a rolling laugh – they fill up the house with female exuberance. At first you retreat from the shrill air, but you too are quietly excited at the prospect of so much space.

That evening, you show Yuri the Australian moon.

‘Back home, the rabbit in the moon is busy pounding rice cakes. But down here, the rabbit is napping. See how its back is slumped along the edge of the moon?’ you explain.

Yuri is attentive; her face luminous in the moon’s reflected glory, her upturned chin white and delicate like the underbelly of a lily. You might have hugged her then.

Would she have grown up to despise you if you had?

Full story available on Griffith Review website