After ten minutes of walk I reached past the small garden of sasanqua and daffodils... in the backyard of mister kiroku's home with half features of traditional Japanese home. He stood just before shōji.. looking at the persimmons, from gateway.
"Ohayoū gozaimasu,Kiroku-san!" I greeted.
"Ohayoū Mei-chan! You are here."
"Look how thin you've become...come have some breakfast with us...I bet you haven't had any" said Mrs. Kiroku...
Surprisingly she has prepared western style Japanese breakfast, it was rare for her to cook western style food. It had toasted bread, omelet, yogurt, sausage, boiled potato and sweetened Myoga ginger pickle with green tea. Also the side dishes.. in japan we use fruits as dessert so there were salads of both... fruits and veggies.
"It's been quite some time... I haven't had this kind of food that literally concealed that hollow feeling for a while."
"Ikadakimasu"
We gently picked out the persimmons from that old tree...(it must be counting out days left before the life span of 60yrs is over). The tree had lot of persimmons... I kept on thinking about the delicious feast that can be made out of this fruit...persimmon pudding with infused candy caps in rolled pork tenderloin. Yum!!!
By the time we were done it was already noon, we were sitting beside kotatsu table... the fresh fruits of the season were severed with some earl grey tea... Mr.kiroku however chose London fog(earl grey latte). I could never understand him...he looks as though he belongs to the western world.. yet he is meddling his life in traditional Japanese style. This thought made me ask him
"Mr.kiroku why didn't you take part in Tour de France and pursue your dreams? Why would you choose to be a florist in this petty town over your passion?"Those words just came out of my mouth as though I was unconsciously floating in a childish world where curiosity leads the way, while spurting it.
Was it offensive? I wondered.
He gave me this bottled up look... but then decided to disclose himself,"My reason for doing that is the same as why birds with wings won't fly. Its not because the birds are afraid of those flights they were simply captured by comfort. Yeah that zone...where the dream goes to die. Paulo coelho said (in his book- the alchemist) there are four obstacles that one must overcome before confronting their dreams. I had none of those obstacles.My parents raised their child while encouraging us to become a cyclist, there goes the first obstacle. As it often happens, one has to sacrifice something in order to gain the other...if I keep the time I used on learning the required skill for the goal yeah aside, then there wasn't much of anything that I lost in particular. Not only I was an expert in cycling but I had so many advantages over others that the chances of defeats were negligible. The fourth obstacle... the fear of realising the dream for which we have been fighting for all our lives ALSO didn't choose to come to me..."
"What does 'realising dream' mean?" I intruded.