Things Mayumi’s Mother Packed In Her Bento Box
Things Mayumi’s Mother Packed In Her Bento Box
A Micro Fiction by Emma Phillips
Mayumi’s mother packed her lunches like gifts; folding loneliness into fabric printed with cherry blossoms that fell onto rice balls wrapped in nori. Mayumi prised them apart to find the umeboshi, which she swallowed whole, as if its squishy centre held meaning. Her friends trapped their jealousy in plastic lunchboxes with Disney princesses.
Mayumi’s mother sliced radish into lotuses that she stacked out of sight, like the debt collector’s letters. When Mayumi lifted a layer, she found a garden beside smoked fish. Her mother added blueberries, to ward off sickness, which she left in rows like warnings. Mayumi loved slices of strawberry, cut in the shape of a heart. When she found a peach, round and fleshy as Momo Taro, she bit it carefully in case a boy rolled out.
Mayumi’s father did not enjoy the lunches. He returned late after drinking with colleagues, all the contents of his bento box untouched. Mayumi saw her mother pour his soup down the sink and wondered if their vows could be wiped clean like the pot she placed on the sideboard or the glass he left on a bar, covered in another woman’s kisses. The smoke of the izakaya lived on his suit, but Mayumi could still smell perfume. Her mother’s scent was sandalwood and piety.
Mayumi’s mother placed her love into pots of pickle, like bite sized chunks of hope. She wrapped the seasons between yakitori, made neat parcels of her longing. As she washed salad leaves, she felt the spray of the tap like wind on the deck of a ferry. Mayumi’s mother filled her bento box and left Mayumi’s father’s empty. This was her parting gift: small compartments of air.
Author: Emma Phillips is a teacher from Devon. Her work has been placed in the Bath Flash Fiction Award, Free Flash Fiction Competition and Best Microfiction Anthology 2022. Her novella-in-flash Not Visiting The SS Great Britain is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press in Autumn 2023. She’s quite excited.
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