With the afternoon sun in my eyes, I peer down the road for the first sight of the taxi. I fidget with my impedimenta: guidebook and dictionary, passport and Japanese banknotes, itinerary and vouchers. I check every item once more. Across the road, Centennial Park is hot and deserted.
A suitcase and a backpack sit on the footpath beside me. To any passer-by, it is obvious I am setting off on a journey. Tomorrow morning I will arrive in Tokyo – a travel-dazed and anonymous stranger in a city I seem unable to imagine.
The taxi should be here by now. I glance at my watch again, and pace up and down the kerb.
I have spent the last couple of days putting my tiny affairs in good order, so the accumulated disarray of their neglect won’t be overwhelming when I return. By doing this I hoped to clear my mind and concentrate my attentions, wholly and continuously, upon Japan.
Lifting the roof of the letterbox, I see just one letter for me, from England, and in a hand I don’t recognise. I push it into a pocket as the taxi finally pulls up at the kerb. I get into the taxi, and by that act, become part of a migratory pattern.
