You awake past midnight.
You look to your right and see the pale orange light of your laptop blink in your locker shelf. You lie back down. What would you have done as a priest caught in rural Japan for promulgating the faith? Would you publicly recant or suffer punishment until death? The sadist authorities crucified priests in the sea. Would you endure that for anything?
You decide not to take your laptop tomorrow. It is better if you simply use a notepad. It is better for your memory if you write things down. It doesn’t matter if you lose it, or they take it away.
You are intrigued. How did Japan start again after the Black Ships destroyed their closed country policy? And how could a country and a people transform to protect and preserve their way of life?
You unlock your room and take a shower in the collective pen. No one is around at this time of the night on a weekday. You take your time: a full fifteen minutes. You walk back and catch a couple walking back to their room. You wait for them to pass and for the air to clear before you change and walk back.
You enter your room and take a nap. You wake and watch the morning sun rise in the smoggy air. The smoke from the autumnal wildfires still hangs over the city. You look in the mirror, put on clothes, don your mask, and debate whether to take your phone. Just don’t make a fuss, that’ll be worse. You grab it and rush to catch the first, empty bus to the library complex. You hop on and scan your phone at the entrance and take a seat.
You exit and nod to the front of the automated bus out of habit. You wait outside the library. When it opens an hour later, you walk the stairs back up to the fourth floor. You grab the history and the book about Japanese literature that were still sideways on a bookshelf. You are determined to get through a chunk today and find an answer to your questions.