I Did NOT Kill Myself

Three months before I moved to Japan in 2017, a teacher from my dispatch company checked into a hotel and committed suicide. Everyone was quite shocked because, by all accounts, he was a cheerful guy always ready with a smile. He had been featured in some of the company’s promotional videos. When I was applying for my job, I saw him on the website not knowing that he had just died.

Apparently, this has scarred Ochiai-san, the company owner. Every time she calls me and I don’t answer right away, she freaks out. She calls my neighbor, my school, my friend, anyone who she thinks might know where I am. Yesterday I woke up to five missed calls and a text from her. Since it was winter break, I’d indulged my natural night owl tendencies and had gone to bed late. Of course, that meant that I was still sleeping when almost everyone else was out and about. Also, I don’t sleep with my phone. It’s left charging in the living room. I had barely finished peeing when my doorbell starts ringing. I can see it’s her on the intercom screen. Before I made it across my small place to the front door, she had already started banging on the door and yelling out my name.

Turns out, it was the first day back to school. I’d misread the schedule and thought that it was the next day. I saw no classes on the schedule (the first day of a semester is just ceremonies and meetings), so I thought there was no school. “The school is worried!” She said. “Really?” I asked on the verge of sarcasm. This is the school where they’ve been hostile to me since day one. She was the one worried, not them. She told me to get dressed and she’d drive me to school. I told her that I needed to shower first. Okay, twenty minutes. She’d wait in my building’s parking lot. I looked at the clock as I undressed. Ninety minutes had passed between the first missed call and her showing up at my door.

Please know this: I love life. There is so much that I want to do and learn. So many places that I’d like to see. So many wonderful people I want to see again, and so many amazing ones I haven’t met yet. My death will NOT be self-inflicted.  

January 9, 2020