Read Grandpa's Journal for Free Online Page B

English. “Your Grandpa is well. Take soleus in that.”
    “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I think I bowed, it seemed like it was appropriate but only seemed to scowl more.
    “Do not thank me. We are not friends. I did what was right. That is all.”
    “Well he did say you owed him. That’s something I guess.”
    “You presume too much.” Hanako helped him to his feet. Shakely, he was directed to another room. “He has been repaid ten times over for bringing back my precious flower. I have only done what is right. Eat. When he awakens, leave and never return.”
    The food that sat there was cold and most likely had been sitting out for some time. It was the most delicious meal I’ve had in a long LONG time.
    When I finished Hanako returned to retrieve the bowl. “Can I see him, Miss?” I asked her, grabbing her arm. I didn’t mean to but I just had to know.
    “My name is Hanako.” She smiled at me. “Please follow me and I’ll take you to him.”
    She spelled her and her Father’s names for me as she took me down a hallway.
    Grandpa was out cold but he was breathing. He was wrapped in bandages, and lots of red stains all over him but he was and is alive.
    When I thanked her, Hanako was already gone.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Edo Period??? Day 4
     
    Somethings not right. Am I even in Japan????
    Yesterday I sat with Grandpa all day. It was sunny and we had a great view of the valley and flowers. It was boring but at least I was there for him. Hanako came to bring me food but that’s when the weird started.
    Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw….something. A plane?  A jet? A dragon?? Some sort of streak in the sky. Yet when I looked all I saw was a butterfly. I asked Hanako if she saw it but all she said was. “Time alone brings great turmoil to a silent mind. Perhaps a walk will help.” She suggested in perfect English.
    Now that I think about it I haven’t heard one bit of Japanese all the time I’ve been here. Sure those people we scared were yelling stuff but I’m not even sure if that WAS Japanese. Am I reading too much into this?
    I did go for a walk but that only lasted a good ten or fifteen minutes before I offered to help her again. She thought it was funny. I wasn’t laughing.
    She did accept the help.
    She had me chop onions for dinner that night. So of course I was tearing up.
    “It’s okay.” She told me and hugged me. She hugged me. Held me tight. “It’s okay.”
    I was shaking so much the knife was near impossible to hold on to. She held my head as I cried the last few weeks of my life over and over again into her shoulder then he lap. I couldn’t hold back anything. I think I even mumbled a lot of it between sobs.
    Some might think it’s not manly to admit all this but the truth is I can no longer have a normal life. All this. Would anyone believe me? A time machine exists and all I have are my ramblings as I stumble through all these events in history.
    And I could have died, Grandpa could have died. How many times has he done this? How can he live with himself?
    I had dinner in Grandpa’s room.
    Hours later, I was awoken with the moon shining through the open doorway. Hanako had a lantern and she directed me deep into the forest behind the Temple without a word.
    I think I saw a deer and a fox out there.
    It wasn’t till she parted some brush that a great pool of spring water that she directed me to remove my clothing.
    “You haven’t bathed in days. It’ll take far too long for the soiled water to exit the spring. It cannot be helped.” Yukio was already in the water, sipping on a small dish of I’m guessing alcohol?
    Neither of them watched as I undressed and slipped into the water. My clothes soon disappeared and I was alone with Yukio. “Relax.” He directed but didn’t offer a drink for me.
    “I could say the same about you.”
    “So much spite behind your words. Have I done you wrong?”
    “….no.”
    “Yet you despise me because I asked for