The judges of this year’s competition offer their heartfelt congratulations to Stephen Benfey for his masterful piece “Kyoto Time”, which is full of rich and dramatic imagery depicting an older and quieter Kyoto. The main character seems to embody this aspect of the city herself — multilayered and untouchable by the time that speeds by. The author builds tension and pulls us into the scene with visual details and subject matter that is unusual and fresh.

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Kyoto Time

First light rouses Shizuka from her futon. She dons an indigo kimono. Skirts and blouses are not for her. Maybe, if she had been an actress … Silly thought! Barefoot, she descends the ladder-steep staircase to her speck of a bar just off Pontocho.

Before breakfast every morning, she walks to Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine at the east end of Nishiki-Ichiba — the old market street north of Shijo Dori. There she prays to the god of business acumen. The shrine gates are locked at this hour but Shizuka has a key to the service entrance. The priest’s wife is a friend from childhood.

Her rounded zori sandals tick an adagio tempo on the pavement. Ahead lies Kawaramachi Dori, one of Kyoto’s main north-south thoroughfares. Later in the day, it will be jammed. But now, it is empty, silent.

Shizuka cherishes silence. She loves the hush of the tea ceremony. Silence nourishes her after the nights of music, talk, and laughter.

She steps out onto Kawaramachi — two lanes going south, then two more going north. No lights here, no crosswalk, no traffic. She reaches the first lane marker when an engine’s whine rends the silence. She looks to her right. Two taxis are bearing down on her at full speed. Shizuka turns to face them. She bows deeply in apology — for being a nuisance, the nuisance of an older, quieter, slower Kyoto.

Shizuka relaxes, ready for the “other world.” The cars roar past, their wheels a blur to either side. Shizuka stays bowed in their wake, her kimono still rustling as the exhaust clears.

Is this heaven? But nothing has changed! She rises, slowly. She can see all the way to the mountains.

The taxis have left her alive. Untouched, like the soul of the city itself, by time.

Stephen Benfey, fiction writer, copywriter, and father, lived in Kyoto during the 70s, attending college, helping a Japanese gardener, producing videos, and listening to Osaka blues bands. There, he met his future wife and began writing copy. After raising their children in Tokyo, the couple moved to their current home in a coastal hamlet on the Boso peninsula.

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Congratulations, again, to all winners of the Sixth Annual Writing Competition. Details about the next competition will be posted to the Writers in Kyoto website this autumn. We look forward to receiving many entries in 2022 and having the opportunity to award more wonderful prizes, as well as to sharing the winning submissions within the WiK community and beyond.