Hiroko’s Soul is Trapped in a Teacup
By Emma Phillips
After the atom bomb, people said you could see souls etched into walls. “Your body,” Hiroko’s mother told her, “is concrete, finite, but your soul is fluid and eternal.” Hiroko remembers the Obon festival when she’d asked her mother how they’d know if their ancestor’s souls had returned, and she’d said it would be obvious, although they only knew her father was back from the office when he dropped his keys into the bowl and called Tadaima! “Someday you’ll understand,” her mother explained, as they cast paper lanterns on the water. After lighting the way for their ancestors, Hiroko had searched for a sign.
Nowadays, she finds souls everywhere. Hiroko feels the spirit of her grandfather in the crunch of Autumn leaves, senses the breath of a school friend at her shoulder by a crossing. Yet Hiroko’s soul is rebellious: no matter how hard she tries to suppress it, it keeps escaping.
In winter, as she presses uniform and starches her husband’s shirts, it slips under the heated table where her children like to warm their feet, then curls into a ball, as if to hibernate. When she visits the temple on auspicious days, her soul refuses to join her and scampers into the gravel instead, where it rolls on its back like a dog. Hiroko’s soul is unruly. The more she tries to anchor it or encourage it home to roost, the more her soul eludes her. Sometimes, she feels it mocking.
When Hiroko’s soul takes the shape of her cup during tea ceremony and refuses to budge, she knows it will offset the Wa and the Sei. Harmony and purity seem of no concern to her soul, which bathes and splashes in the matcha. She places the cup to her lips and bids it to stop. Her soul makes itself at home in the glaze.
Cupped in her palm, Hiroko wishes she could bend it to her will or fling it far from the pavilion. Sometimes, her soul is vulgar. During tea ceremony, Hiroko is bound to the moment. She must not disturb the peace. She would like to turn her cup over and tip her soul onto the tatami, where she would cover it with her foot to avenge her embarrassment. Hiroko feels expectation upon her: she should be a rose and not a thorn. For the sake of tradition, she tips back her head and drinks.
Emma Phillips lives and works by the M5 in Devon, which sometimes lures her away in search of adventure. Her words have been published in print and online in various places and her flash collection Not Visiting the SS Great Britain is available from Alien Buddha Press.