This year’s Local Prize was awarded to Lisa Twaronite Sone for her piece “Just the Wind”. The people of Kyoto have always been contemplative of the spirit world. This piece also gives pause and makes us think of our mortality. The judges were intrigued by the “ghost story ending”. The concept of benign, yet mischievous spirits being carried on a ghostly gust or being carried by a prevailing wind, looking down at the goings on of the city is atmospheric, spiritual, and mysterious – and very appropriate for Kyoto.

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Just the Wind

No one can see the wind, but it goes everywhere.

A boy laughs as the wind snatches his father’s hat and tosses it among the mossy gravestones, and together they chase it. Further up the hillside, the trees framing Kiyomizdera’s pillars dance and swirl.

The wind rustles the wrapper of a manju that a woman is about to bite, and she gets a mouthful of paper instead. She tries to spit it into her handkerchief but the wind plucks everything out of her hands, so she has to collect her belongings from the cobblestone street. She should know better than to eat in public like that!

A chubby baby in a stroller wails, until the wind ruffles his hair and puffs up his sleeves like billowing sails. It jangles his rattle until a smile appears between his apple cheeks.

Young tourist girls snap their parasols shut and giggle as they clutch each other for support, swaying as the wind strokes their hair and tweaks their braids. It tugs at the folds of their obi, and lifts the hems of their kimono to tickle them underneath. It whispers in their ears, and caresses the soft curves of their bare necks.

Like the wind, no one can see us, either — and we go everywhere, too. Our bodies are dust under the gravestones, so now we float above the earth we once walked. On glorious gusty days like these, we can touch the living people to our hearts’ content, and they all think it’s just the wind.

We tease them and play with them, we kiss them and embrace their warmth, for they bring back so many precious memories of our own lives long ago.

What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.

Lisa Twaronite Sone grew up in the United States and first came to Kyoto as a student in 1985. She has lived most of her adult life in Tokyo, where she worked as a journalist for several decades. She now divides her time between Tokyo and Kyoto.