Takeshita

Asumi was in Takeshita with a friend when the ground started moving. Not unusual for Tokyo, but this was different. Longer. Harder. The earth and trees were shaking and people were running out of buildings, and she and her friend stood there not saying anything, just watching everyone else realize what was happening. A man near them said it wasn’t normal.

They got a taxi home as far as they could when the subways closed. Her brother Kotaro was there with a friend, already watching the news. She couldn’t reach her mom at first—the networks were down, then no answer—but when they finally connected, her mom was safe at work, just stranded, no power, trying to find a way back. Kotaro was handling it fine. They’d done earthquake drills at school just the month before, so he knew what to do—ducked under a table when it started, then figured running outside was better.

The aftershocks kept coming. Small ones and big ones mixed in. There was a fire at a refinery in Chiba. The Tokyo Tower had bent at the top. Helicopters circling the city. Everything shut down.

She had relatives in Sapporo she couldn’t reach. Just silence on the other end when she called. That helplessness of calling over and over, no answer, is what stays with me most—not the earthquake itself, but that specific emptiness.

By the time we talked she was planning to stay home and watch the news, wait for updates on the tsunamis and aftershocks coming. There was something calm about it. Japan has survived worse, she said. We’ve survived worse. And somehow that mattered more than the news reports.