Doing What I Do: Twenty Years of WorldCon

At the end of August this year, I attended L.A.Con V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon.  

It was an anniversary for me.  Coming full circle.  Twenty years previously, in 2006 I had briefly attended the 64th WorldCon, L.A.Con IV, which was held at the Anaheim Convention Center, same as this year.  It was what happened at that convention that set the pattern for the next two decades.  

I guess it really started when I was 13 years old.  I was a huge bookworm back then.  I still like to read, even today, but I don’t devour books the way I did then.  Thirteen was a special age because I encountered several books that changed me in profound ways.  

One was Tunnels in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein.  A friend at school had a copy of one of Heinlein’s books that I saw in his hands.  Something with a strange cover.  I asked him what it was about and was told it was “science fiction.”  I asked him, “What’s science fiction?”  Before this moment my main reading was books on history and science, and my mom’s historical romances. The friend told me the school library had a big science fiction section and where to find it.  The book he had wasn’t on the shelf.  But Tunnels in the Sky was.  I borrowed it.  Stayed up all night in bed to read it all at once.  The next day I returned it, went to the “As” and got a book by Isaac Asimov, a collection of short stories, “Twice Twenty-Two,” which included Nightfall.  By the end of the year, I tried to check out Damnation Alley, by Roger Zelazny, but they wouldn’t let me because the school year was ending that week.  

Another book I read at that time was Shogun, the best seller by James Clavell.  As I mentioned before in previous posts, it was the book that created an interest in Japanese history and culture in me, which led to watching Japanese samurai movies, anime, and reading manga, and eventually, in 2006, starting to study Japanese.  

By 2006, I had attended a number of conventions.  I had been going to ComicCon in San Diego every year, along with my creative partner, William Ruzicka, who also prompted me to start learning Japanese, to get our comics published, along with other comic book conventions, like WonderCon.  I had also been to several Star Trek conventions, whenever one of them was in the area.  But I had never been to a WorldCon.  And that was starting to feel like an oversight.  Science fiction and fantasy were what got me into comic books.  And not attending the one major convention that was focused on that literature felt like a slight.  

The problem was that WorldCons were held “elsewhere.”  Places far from me.  The one the year before was in Glasgow, Scotland.  The one before that was Boston.  And before that, Toronto.  

And I wasn’t a person who “traveled.”  One of the reasons I liked reading was how it gave me the feeling of being to places I wouldn’t go to.  Other countries.  Other times.  Traveling around the world was something “other people” did.  It was a given when I was 13 years old.  By 2006 I hadn’t gotten over it.  

But that year, WorldCon would be close.  The Los Angeles Science Fiction convention had won the bid to host it, and it would be at the Anaheim Convention Center.  A relatively short drive away.  This would be my chance.  

Unfortunately, my employer thought otherwise.  I wasn’t given permission to take time off that week.  I can’t remember for which client, but there was a lot of work that had to get done and they couldn’t afford to have me take off for a week.  On top of that, I would need to come into the office on Saturday to finish up, which meant that even going on the convention’s final weekend was out.  

I was determined, though.  I had no idea where it was going to be next.  To spend any time at a WorldCon, even if I couldn’t attend all of it, this could be my last chance for…  Who knew how long.  

So I went to the office early in the morning and worked for about four hours to get everything finished.  Then, around noon, I started my drive from Calabasas, in the Valley, to Anaheim.  

It was a long drive and traffic was heavy.  When I arrived, late in the afternoon, I parked my car and found the registration table at the convention.  I asked a guy there how much time was left for the convention that day and how much would it cost?  

His answers weren’t good.  There were only 2-3 hours left in the day’s programming.  A one-day membership would cost $75.  

The guy saw the wince on my face.  He then gave me another option.  They had something called a “Taster’s Membership.”  For $20, they would give me a badge for a one-day Membership.  If I brought it back within three hours, it wouldn’t cost any more.  If I stayed longer, I’d automatically get charged for a full day, $75.  

I paid for the Taster Membership.  I asked the guy if I had to return it to him when I came back.  He shrugged.  The registration desk was going to close in about an hour anyway.  I didn’t need to return. 

With my badge and an Event Guide I set off.  I picked a couple of panels, which were as interesting as they sounded, and then decided to stroll the dealers' floor before it closed.  

It was cool.  At ComicCon, the dealers’' floor had turned into a thrumming, crammed, loud nerd metropolis.  The WorldCon dealers’' floor was more like a village market for sorcerers, scribes, and adventurers, bustling with all manner of trinkets, armor, tomes, and even food.  

I was swinging around one of the aisles when I saw a banner over a stall that made me stop and stare.  

“Yokohama 2007.”  

I had an immediate guess as to what it was telling me.  I felt myself pulled by the sign to stand before the booth, which was crewed by a group of Japanese people.  

Was the WorldCon going to be held in Japan next year?  Why, yes.  It was.  Here is a flyer with the information.  Would you like to join us?  Yes.  Very much so.  Thanks.  Arigatou gozaimasu.  Ah!  Nihongo ga jyouzu desu ne?

The dealers’' floor was starting to close then.  It was time to head back to my car.  As I walked back to the parking lot, only two thoughts were in my mind.  Chasing each other around, like two dogs chasing each other’s tails.  

In addition to attending a full WorldCon, I had the desire to travel to Japan.  It had felt somewhat impossible.  The cost.  The expense.  Me, being not a person who traveled to places like that.  But “someday,” “If I got the chance,” I really wanted to go.  

Heading to my car, these two desires repeated themselves.  “I want to go to Japan.”  “I want to attend a full WorldCon.”  They started repeating more quickly.  One after the other.  

I want to go to Japan.  I want to attend a WorldCon.  Go to Japan.  Attend a WorldCon.  Go to Japan.  Attend a WorldCon.  Go to Japan and attend a WorldCon.  Go to Japan AND Attend a WorldCon.  Go!  To Japan AND Attend a WorldCon.  

By the time I sat before the steering wheel of my car, my two desires had become a single, undeniable goal.  Go to Japan and attend my first Full WorldCon.  

Which I did.  When I got home I started figuring out what I needed to do and what it would take.  I created a “travel fund” in my list of expenses.  Something I’ve continued since then.  I made myself sign up for a full membership for Yokohama 2007 online.  After the purchase was confirmed, I knew I had to go, or the money would go to waste.  I found out about a couple, Ron and Val Ontell, who had a side venture of arranging tours for other countries where the WorldCon was being held.  I made a down payment for that, driving the momentum to go.  

And I did.  A week on the tour.  A week at the convention.  When I boarded the plane to Japan, I thought my expectations had gotten so high that I was doomed to be disappointed.  

I wasn’t.  In fact, it exceeded all my expectations and remains my favorite trip of all time.  

After that, I kept going.  Denver, Montreal, AUSTRALIA!  Reno, Chicago, San Antonio, LONDON!  Spokane, Kansas City.  

I remember balking at going to Denver.  Then an acquaintance I’d met on my Japan trip told me she was going.  And if she could make it from Tokyo, how hard would it be to get to Denver from Los Angeles?  

I’ve missed a few WorldCons.  Helsinki in 2017.  Because of a big, new client was coming on board and PTO for that month was canceled.  Covid impacted going three years in a row.  And Chengdu was…  Too far, and Too China.  

Recently, though, I’ve been going regularly again.  I went to Chicago for a second WorldCon, then Glasgow, followed by Seattle.  And L.A.Con again.  

I’ve also made side trips to Japan.  To watch baseball games.  And attend HaruCon, a science fiction convention they hold in the Spring.  I was invited by some members from Japan I met on the shuttle bus in Spokane.  I’ve returned to attend HaruCon three more times since then.

I remember a conversation I had with my landlord one year, when letting him know I would be away for a few weeks. It was my trip to Great Britain, for LonCon 3, the WorldCon in London, when I was joining another tour set up by Ron and Val, this one a two-week tour through England and Wales before the convention.  It was the longest vacation of my adult life.  And a close second to my Japan trip in regards to enjoyment. 

My landlord asked me where I was going, “this time.”  When I asked what he meant, he told me, “You’re one of those people that just Goes Places.”  

I thought about it and realized he was right.  I do go places.  It’s what I do.  

And it started twenty years ago this year.  At WorldCon. 

Memories of 9/11

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”

~George Santayana

Last week, I listened to the various news stories on the radio commemorating the anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001.  I paid more attention to them than in recent years when one of the stories pointed out that that a large number of people, young adults and children had no direct, personal memories of the events that took place that day.  Being too young to recall, or not having been born when it took place.  

It made me think of my memories of 9/11.  Specifically, three things that I saw, experienced, and heard.  

The first was going to work that morning.  As I got ready to go to work, I was listening to the news on the radio.  Something I had done for years before and still do today.  Just before leaving I heard the news of the first plane striking one of the towers.  A weird, freakish, and tragic accident by the sound of it.  By the time I got to the office, the second plane struck the remaining tower, and immediately all the news stories were saying it had to be a purposeful attack.  

Nothing was getting done in the office.  Everyone was standing in their cubicles, talking with their neighbors, or clustering in the aisles, to talk about the events.  Repeating all the questions that were being asked on the news.  Who had done this?  Why?  What was going to happen next?

A new sales rep arrived late.  Acting more dazed and confused than the rest of us.  He apologized for being late and went to the office he was borrowing where he just sat down at the desk and stared out into space.  

A few of us talked to him and he revealed to us that he was worried about his brother.  He was a NYFD fireman.  His mother had called to tell him that his brother was listed as MIA after the towers collapsed.  No one knew where he was or his state of being.  

Several of us asked him at the same time, “Why are you here?”  We told him he needed to go home.  Get in touch with his mother and his family.  Do what he could to be with them.  He agreed, put away his laptop, and left the office.  

A few days later he quit the company to go back to New York.  A few days later, he sent us a message, thanking us for our concern, and letting us know that they’d found his brother.  Alive.  Trapped under a metal beam that fell on his chest.  At that time, he was the last survivor found in the rubble after the collapse.  

Shortly after the sales rep left, the company told everyone to go home.  I drove home listening to the news on the radio.  Listening to them repeating the same recap of events, talking to “experts,” asking the same question over and over again.  Who?  Why?  What next?  

I missed my normal offramp going home.  I took the next one, which would make me cut through Old Town of Pasadena.  Stopping at each intersection to wait for the light.  

I was waiting at an intersection to cross Colorado Boulevard, waiting for the light to change, when I started wondering what it would have been like.  If I had been one of the people working in the towers.  Sitting at my desk.  Logging into my computer.  Starting my work day.  Then, turning to look out my window to see one of the planes heading straight toward me…

The next thing I knew, I was accelerating through the red light.  I had slammed my foot on the accelerator.  Fortunately, no one was crossing from either direction.  When I got to the other side, I pulled over.  I stopped.  Put the car in park and sat there.  I waited for any policeman on patrol that had seen what I’d done to pull over, talk to me, and give me a ticket.  

I had wanted to escape.  Seeing that plane in my imagination, bearing down on me…  I had felt trapped.  Wanting to escape.  Even though it was too late.  

No policeman pulled up behind me.  After calming down, I put the car into gear and drove home.  Taking care to drive slowly and carefully.  Just thinking about getting home.  

In a very real way, I believe that all of us are still running away from that moment.  Changing the context to be angry rather than afraid.  

Anger and Fear are the same emotion.  Based on the flight or fight instinct all animals have.  When something threatens us and we decide to run, we call it “Fear.”  If we are threatened or attacked, and decide to fight back, we call it “Anger.”  

The third thing I remember from that day came from the news stories I listened to.  Several people repeated the same observation about what happened.  That it created a new world.  The world of “After 9/11.”  Verses the world we had before.  

There was unity after the attack.  And there was also a righteous anger.  We would go to wherever those that had done this to us and do something to them.  To keep the “Fear” at bay, we decided to embrace “Anger.”  

To this day, we still are.  After the attack, we started a war against those protecting the people that had done it.  A war I supported, wholeheartedly.  Then we expanded it to a “War on Terror.”  “Terror” being an extreme form of Fear.  We went looking for the weapons they might use for a subsequent attack, WMDs, Weapons of Mass Destruction.  

The cycle as continued.  We’re still there, fully involved in the region.  Still attacking enemies.  Looking for the weapons they might use against us.  Still fighting the Fear.  Still embracing Anger.  To the point where the Anger has expanded.  Toward people fleeing that area and the wars we’ve been involved in.  Toward people that look like them.  Toward each other, for not being as resolute in the embrace of Anger.  

For the people that don’t remember the day, this is all they have to experience.  Just listen to the news we have today.  

In fiction writing, there is a point where the protagonist, the “Hero,” has to make a choice.  When they reach the point in the story where they feel as far from their goal as they can possibly be.  When they have done their best, tried everything, given all they have to give, and can no longer see a way to achieve their goal.  

At this point, what I’ll call the Crisis of Faith, they have a choice between two directions.  The first one is to, “Keep the Faith.”  Believe in the path they’ve taken.  Redouble their efforts.  Dig down deeper than they think they have resources or resolve, and try again.  One last charge to overcome the obstacles and succeed.  

The second option I call, “A Leap of Faith.”  A decision to recognize that what you’ve done time and time again isn’t working.  You’ve tweaked it, revamped it, gave it your all, but it simply hasn’t worked.  It’s a decision to stop the exercise of insanity, trying the same thing again and again, expecting a better result.  A decision to try something else.  Something that at least has the benefit of not having been tried before.  

I do not dare to listen any possibilities.  I’m no expert.  Anything I might suggest will be filled with pitfalls and obstacles I can’t imagine.  Any choice would give rise to legions of people who will cry out that we MUST KEEP GOING.  And believe in the cause.  Otherwise we’re doomed to failure and our enemies will win.  

To that, I have only one response.  And that is to remind them of a more famous quote by Santayana than the one I used at the top of this posting.

“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”  

Three Things & A Belief in Nasu

There is a writing prompt I use occasionally when trying to generate a story based on things that have happened to me.  I don’t remember whose book on writing I got it from.  I don’t remember what the author of the book called it.  Since learning it, I’ve referred to it as “Three Things & a Belief.”  

Rather than explain it.  I’ll give you a demonstration.  I use a day from my most recent visit to Japan.  A day I spent in Nasu, a town in Tochigi Prefecture, attending a festival called the Gojinkasai. 

I’ve written about the Gojinkasai in a previous posting.  This is mainly about what happened before, and what happened afterwards.  And how they connected with my reason for being there.

Thing #1: The Lady with the Umbrella

It happened in the late morning.  I was walking down the road from the ryokan I was staying at.  The day was warm, but the road was lined with trees providing plenty of shade to cool the day. 

After a long, slow curve in the road I saw someone that grabbed my attention.  A woman, dressed in a stylish kimono  One that shimmered like silk when the light found a way through the trees to highlight it.  Clusters of pink, like cherry blossoms, with brown and green cutting through the clouds of sakura, marking the branches and leaves of the design.  On her shoulder, covering her head and shoulders, was a traditional Japanese umbrella.  It was bright red, like the rising sun on the Japanese flag.

I wanted to have a picture of her in her kimono, and pulled my phone out to take it.  I stopped myself.  I got the feeling I should ask permission first.  I kept my phone in hand, as I followed her down the hill, slowly catching up.  

As we walked along, I wondered where she came from.  The few houses this high up the road looked empty.  Vacation homes waiting for a holiday, I imagined.  So…  She must have come for the same ryokan I was staying at…?  I hadn’t seen anyone dressed like that during my stay there.

Suddenly, she turned and stepped off the road and into the trees along her side.  She stepped into the shadows under the tree’s foliage, turned her back to the road, and set her umbrella on her shoulder, using it as cover to hide behind.

As I passed her, I wanted one last look.  I turned my head to look over my shoulder.  I saw that she was doing the same thing.  Her umbrella was raised.  Her eyes were turned toward me, looking at me past her shoulder.  I nodded to greet her.  She lowered her umbrella and turned away…

I got a glimpse of her face in profile, which looked…  Odd, to me.

Thing #2: The Gojinkasai

I continued down the road to where it intersected another road that led to the shrine where the Gojinkasai was held.  The shrine’s small parking lot was now filled with stalls.  People were starting to gather.  Traditional Japanese music was playing over load speakers.  

And, there were cosplayers.  Most dressed as kitsune, or Fox Spirits.  Some other types of yokai were represented.  But the majority were Fox Spirits.  

That’s what gave me the answer about what I’d thought I’d seen on the face of the lady with the umbrella.  A fox mask.  A number of the cosplayers were wearing mask that covered half, or all of their faces.  With a fox’s snout over the nose and mouth.  The umbrella lady had been wearing something like that.  I definitely caught a glimpse of what looked like a toothy snarl.  

This meant I might have another chance to take her picture.  She clearly intended to join the gathering crowd to participate in the festivities.  

And festive, it most certainly was.  The list of events, which I found on a big sign in the parking lot, indicated that the festival would start in a couple of hours.  But there was already a growing crowd of people there, a lot of the early arrivals playing the part of kitsune or some other yokai. 

I went to a café I’d spotted earlier a short walk down the highway to wait for the start of the festival.  As I drank my cup of tea a number of Fox Spirit cosplayers entered as well.  The café had a violinist playing music, mostly Disney show tunes, which some of the kids sang along with.  It was when she played a classical piece, Canon by Pachelbel, one of the Fox Spirits jumped up to dance, adapting steps to what looked like a traditional Japanese dance to the music.  As more cosplayers entered, they participated in the impromptu event.  It had an otherworldly feeling.  Like a legend of seeing faeries, or yokai, dancing in the forest.

I I met two of the cosplayers at the counter as I got a refill.  One had a full fox mask covering her entire face, the other a half-mask.  They both had business cards, websites, and social media accounts dedicated to their cosplay.  They stayed in character while I was talking to them. 

I asked them if they went to other festivals to cosplay.  The one in the full mask, who had started the dancing, said she was a “kitsune all the time.”  The other agreed and said she was a kitsune every day.  

“Every day?” I asked.  

“Every day,” she insisted.  

“Even at work?  At the office?”  

She paused a moment and said, “Well… The office is the office…”  And left it at that.  I completely understood.  

I asked them if I could take their pictures and they readily agreed.  

When I returned to the festival, the events had already started.  I saw that the kitsune cosplayers that had formal duties, such as directing people the direction to go, would make the “batsu” sign, crossing their arms in front of themselves, to indicate taking their picture wasn’t allowed.  I looked, but the lady with the umbrella wasn’t with them.

 As the events continued, the feeling from the café grew stronger.  I was in a special place.  An intersection between “Reality” and “Dreams,” where spirits walked the either.  As a dance performance I was watching ended, the woman seated next to me pulled a shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese flute, from her bag and started to play.  Just like that.  There was a “Hyakkiyagyou,” a March of 100 Demons.  A recreation of a legend from the Heian Period, which has become a comical, celebratory procession.  I filmed the entire process.  Unfortunately, the lady with the umbrella wasn’t there. 

Finally, there came the crowning event.  The lightening of the bonfire.  An effort to appease the yokai, Tamamo-no-Mae, inside the Killing Stone to ensure a good harvest.  

I’ve written about the bonfire in a previous posting.  A Moment of Perceptual Change.  It was an eerie, yet strangely moving experience.  It captured my attention.  I got goosebumps when the bonfire was lit.  I watched the entire time, mesmerized by the flames.  And went it collapsed, a felt a sense of accomplishment and applauded with everyone else.

It was done.  It was time to return to the ryokan and carry on.   

My Belief

I’m going to save Thing #3 for last and go to the fourth element of this story prompt, The Belief.

Going to the Gojinkasai was my second trip to Nasu.  The first was in 2023.  Four months after the death of my friend and former creative partner, William Ruzicka.  

William worked at the same company as me when he was just out of High School. His boss told me about him when he found out we liked the “same stuff.”  It was arranged for us to meet at lunch on a Friday. 

At that first meeting he brought me a sheaf of paper which was a comic that he’d drawn.  He heard I’d been published before.  He loved to draw.  He drew all the time.  He wanted to know if I’d read his comic and gave him feedback.  I agreed.  I took the pages with me to read over the weekend.

The story he created was disjointed.  Derivative.  But his drawings were quite good.  Compelling.  I wrote up my reaction to his his story and printed them out to give him, with his artwork, on Monday.  

On Monday, I read him my notes.  He nodded while I spoke.  When I was done, he looked at me and said, “Thanks.  That was good.  Would you be willing to write the story for me?”  

That began our creative partnership.  We published my re-written version of the story, “Time Venturer,” plus another comic series based on a character he created called Neo-Bioform Go.”  It also started a friendship that lasted until his passing in 2023.  

He eventually decided that his dream was to go into animation.  He broke up our partnership to follow his dream.  We stopped talking for a while.  We patched things up after he invited me to dinner and told me that working on the comics with me taught him that his dream to draw for a living wasn’t a pipe dream.  

William would nudge people to spend their time working on their dream.  The last time we met face to face in person, he gave me a very fine writing journal as a belated Christmas present.  He said as he handed it to me, “This is what you like to do, Write, right?”  

With Willam’s passing, I decided to rewrite a project we’d worked on before.  I created new characters based on us.  I added the story of Tamamo-no-Mae and the Killing Stone as well.  I visited the stone to see it for myself.  I returned after finding out about the Gojinkasai to experience for myself.  

I did this to bring him with me as I tried to move forward on my dream.

Thing #3: Lost on the Mountain

Once the bonfire collapsed everyone headed toward the exit.  I followed them out, heading toward the road that led up the mountain to the ryokan I was staying at. 

I had brought a small flashlight to Japan to use at this time.  In my previous stay in Nasu I saw how dark it could get in the area, even along the highway that ran through the town.  I figured it would help me find the turn I needed to make once it got dark. 

But I realized as I headed to the exit that I had left it in the room back at the ryokan.  I tried to tell myself it should be Ok.  I only had to turn at the correct road heading up the mountain.  After that, I just had to follow the road because it ended at the ryokan’s entrance.  The other paths that turned off of it were narrow, unpaved roads.  It should take me only 30 to 40 minutes to make it back.

Most of the visitors turned left toward the highway at the shrine’s exit.  There was only a handful heading the same way as me.  They all brought flashlights, creating shiny balls of light that rolled up the slope.  I followed them, thinking about my experience.  The chill I got when the bonfire was lit.  The sense that something important had happened.  The growing connection between my reason for coming and that sense of accomplishment.  Walking in the darkness, I had the feeling that I had taken an important step forward toward my goal.  

It would have been better if I had paid more attention to where I was going.  At one point, I noticed that I was alone on the road.  I still hadn’t made the turn up the hill.  It hit me that I was heading the wrong way.  

I stopped and opened the GPS on my phone.  It loaded and told me I was an hour away from the ryokan, and my route was one that twisted back and forth across the mountain before getting to the hotel.

At first, I tried to backtrack.  Get to where I was supposed to turn up the mountain road and follow it to the ryokan.   

Unfortunately, that didn’t work.  When I turned around, and started back the way I came, the route on my GPS kept refreshing and changing, telling me each time it changed I was still an hour away from my destination.  A process of moving forward.  Refreshing.  Finding myself an hour away.  Repeat.   

I began to worry about battery life.  I had a portable battery to keep the phone charged up during the festival.  I also had a portable hotspot I used to give my phone connection while in Japan.  I was doubtful about keeping both my phone and the hotspot charged until I arrived.

I decided to stick with the route I’d mistakenly taken.  I thought that once I got to the road heading to the ryokan, I wouldn’t need either the phone or hotspot to get me there.  I just had to keep trudging along, staying on the paved road, until I got there. 

The GPS kept giving me whacky directions.  It would tell me to turn left after the next turn, only to leave me facing a wall of trees, with not even a hiking trail to turn left on to.  I would backtrack, try again, and find a road to turn left on to, but it felt like I was being sent in a different direction. 

The worst example took place when I tried restarting both my phone and the hotspot.  When it reloaded, it said I was a mile away from the ryokan, with an ETA of four minutes. 

Four minutes.  To walk, not run, a mile on a dark mountain road.  It felt like it would take a gold medal performance to get back to my room.

I started to wonder if something was being done To Me.  That the Umbrella Lady was more than what she seemed to be.  That I had offended her in some way, and she was taking retribution. 

I felt the impulse to call out in the darkness.  “I think you were framed!  My story will tell the world that you were falsely accused!”  It was part of the premise of the story I was writing.  The Fox Spirit should be pleased either way.  It would be an acknowledgement of her innocence, or an alibi to dissuade guilt.  I didn’t yell out.  Though I was sorely tempted.  Getting lost on a mountain road at night will do that to you.

I continued to follow the four minute mile route.  I kept switching my battery from phone, to hotspot, and back.  I wondered if I should knock on the door of any house with a hint of habitation.  To get directions.  And a chance to charge up devices.  By this point, I was high enough up on the mountain to have only the ryokan left to see.  I worried that I might have to spend the night under a tree after my devices died out.

A light starting shining from behind me.  I could hear the sound of a car engine too.  I stepped to the edge of the drainage ditch by the side of the road to give the car room.  A white, boxy minivan drove past me up the slope.  

After it passed, I thought to myself, “That’s Ok.”  I held no hard feelings.  If In their shoes, I wouldn’t stop either.  To check out a stranger walking on an empty mountain road in the darkness?  Especially if I didn’t know the area?  I didn’t blame them.  I wished them well.  I moved back onto the road and kept going.  

Minutes later, another light, this time coming down the road, around the corner.  I moved to the side of the road once more.  Another white, boxy minivan came around the corner.  

This one pulled to a stop.  I heard the whirr of the driver’s window roll down.  Then a voice in accented English.

“Do you know where you are going?”  

I called back.  I told them I was going to the ryokan at the top of the mountain.  The voice called back.  “We are staying there, too.  Do you want a ride?”  

It was a young married couple.  Takeru and Kinoyo.  They were the same ones that drove past me the first time.  They told me they had asked themselves, “Do you think he has a reason for walking up the mountain at night?”  The other replied, “I don’t know, maybe we should find out.”

Takeru and Kinyo struck me as two, lovely, kind, and caring people that were perfect for each other.  Kinoyo pulled her things from the back seat so I could get in.  When Takeru said, “Anou…” she jumped out to guide him through a multi-point turn around.

“Ike…  Ike…  Ike…”  She called out as the car crept forward.  

“Hai!  Sutopu!  Kite…  Kite… Kite…”  She called out to get him to back up.  

In no time, they had the car facing uphill and moving forward.  

We talked as Takeru drove.  I thanked them profusely.  They asked me what happened.  I told them about missing my turn and the GPS going crazy.  They said, “Waa…” and “Oohhh” together when they heard that.  They told me they were in Nasu for a weekend away to see the Gojinkasai.  I thanked them again.  They told me it was nothing. 

We pulled into the ryokan’s driveway soon after that.  Though it did take longer than the four minutes my GPS said it should.  I thanked them in the parking lot.  And again, in the lobby.  I offered to buy them whatever they wanted from the hotel’s convenience store.  They said it wasn’t necessary.  I told them I didn’t pray much, but I would pray for them because they deserved it.  They thanked me for that.  

I put my stuff in my room.  Then went back downstairs to see if they were still around.  They weren’t.  In the morning, I looked in the parking lot.  Their minivan was gone.  

That’s my story.  My belief tying this all together tells me the Lady with the Umbrella, and the perfect couple, Takeru and Kinoyo, were something more than what they appeared to be.  That I’d been put through some sort of test.  A test of my resolve.  To see if I would give up when things were dark and my way unclear.  Through my resolve, I was able to find my way home.

Or something very much like that.