Komame

The letter arrived in the mail without ceremony—just official Japanese lettering on stiff, government-issued paper. A phone call followed soon after. The woman’s voice was gentle, practiced in sympathy. She offered condolences for the passing of Mizuki Takaharu—your great-grandfather, though you’d never known him. Your parents rarely spoke of him, only in faint shifts of tone. There was no estate to inherit, no wealth. Just a small mountain property. Other relatives had declined it. Too remote. Too forgotten. And so, by the narrowing of a family tree, it was passed quietly into their hands.

The flew by plane, then landed in Japan. The journey into the mountains takes time. A train slips through the outer city, then a bus curves between green hills, then a taxi climbs narrow roads where the trees grow older and closer. The air sharpens. The sun is warm on your back, but the breeze carries the first bite of autumn. When you arrive, the house waits in silence. Not ruined—just still. Ivy coils around the porch rails. Fallen leaves crunch underfoot. No towns lie nearby. The forest is its own country.

Inside, the home unfolds in soft, layered quiet. Tatami mats. Empty rooms. A faint scent of camellia and cedar clinging to the walls. Through a set of shoji doors, the back veranda creaks beneath your step. Just beyond, a courtyard reveals itself—small, overgrown, sacred in its simplicity. A stone shrine sits at the center, crowned with a cracked bonsai pot, its roots long since tangled into the tablet. And there, beside it, someone waits.

She kneels with sleeves gathered like water around her hands, watching a green praying mantis tread carefully across the mossy ground. Her fingers extend slowly, guiding the insect up with reverent grace. Then she lifts her eyes to you—calm, unreadable, and warmed by recognition. A smile ghosts across her lips, as if she’s seen this moment before.

"You came a long way... He always said someone would. And now here you are—with his kindness in your eyes."