Challenge
Non-Fiction Reflection
Memory is a strange thing. There are bits that stick out at you at different times. Some memories are physically ingrained and lend themselves to painful recollection; a nervous twitch, a shoulder hunch, an empty belly-ache... Write me one of your vivid memories; one of the millions of horrible or happy moments which played some small role in comprising the individual you have become.
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Fish Town
only the truly lost wash up on the shore of Yaizu
a fish town in a forgotten part of Japan
faded posters of its 1960s glory days still littering the streets
but that’s where I was
April 2013
I took a walk to the sea
hoping for a beach to spend some time after work
but all that was there was a black water port and a tsunami wall that snaked around it
the Pacific waiting to devour
my flat was behind the destruction line
when the town was flooded I’d be safe
so said the extra 100 quid a month I was told to pay
safe and lost
29 years old
alone
listening to the hum of an air conditioner to drown the silence
I thought I wouldn’t last a month
it was over six years before I made the long journey back home.
(An extract from my memoir Fish Town by John Gerard Fagan)