Return

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Yellow and pink grapefruits made a pretty addition to the produce display. Cheryl was sure her district would win this year as the theme was so topical with its multicultural theme. “Australia – Home To All Nations” was the theme, and the yellow and pink grapefruits made up the kimono on the Japanese women she had worked so hard to create.

It hadn't been easy getting some of the older members of the group to accept any figure from Japan amongst the many different nationalities that made up the montage. Many of the older men still remembered the horrors of World War II, fighting with their mates in the jungles of South East Asia, or time spent in prison camps. Others remembered fathers who come home from the war, distant, their eyes dulled with some unspeakable horror, and something irrevocably broken deep inside.

Eventually, they had agreed to a Japanese woman. After all, the women stayed at home and did not fight. Many of them lost husbands and sons. They did not run the prison camps, and would possibly have been horrified to know such atrocities were being committed by their loved ones. So Cheryl had poured a great deal of love into her creation, wanting to honour all those of Japanese descent whose hearts bowed in sorrow for the actions of their ancestors.

“Hey, Chezza!”

Cheryl turned to Tommy Biggs striding toward her, cheery to the point of stupidity.

“Got ya chink chick looking spiffy, haven't ya?”

Her heart sank. She closed her eyes and prayed for a reprieve. Please, please, please, let me be somewhere else, away from these morons. A cool breeze, redolent with the sweet smell of blossoms, ruffled her hair. She opened her eyes to behold a garden full of pink cherry blossoms and yellow chrysanthemums. To her right was an exquisite zen garden being raked by a Japanese man who seemed vaguely familiar.

“Chiyo-san! You have returned!”

Cheryl was about to protest that she was not named Chiyo when she realised that she was, and always had been. What on earth was happening to her?

Inspired by a prompt from Cynthia Morris in her quarterly Free Write Fling.