"Phantom faces on the windows,
phantom shadows on the walls,
empty chairs at empty tables,
now my friends will meet no more."
Les Miserables Broadway Musical
They are only chairs. Drawn in a tight circle around worn tables. Some are scratched, the wood faded. If you look under the last one in the far right, the one with the cushion that is old and thinning, you can find a little word scratched out in it. Yamucha.
From when they would all lie on the floor and talk well into the night, watching the shadows grow deep and long. Their voices hushed, they would talk about life. Every day things. Simple and domestic worries: The car they could not fix, the lawn they had neglected to mow, the letters to old friends that had not been answered yet.
Silent, deep nights. Nights when I could just lie on the wood floor, the smells of the ocean, swaying gently outside, drifting around me, lulling me into peaceful rest while I'd listen to their deep and soothing voices. There was no need to be anyone then. Every one of us could be sublime. All of us could be human.
And they had carved out that name under the chair because none of them could beat him in that card game they had stretched well past a whole day. That monumental card game that had made a hero of him.
Now his chair, this wooden diary, this trophy for the number one member of the Unproclaimed Kame House Bachelors Club, just stands by its companion table. Waiting for a new card game. A new endless night, coloured by grey smoke from cigarettes bought cheap before coming over to play, and red winning chips stacked high in the corner of the lucky, and silver stars winking drowsily in the still night air.
There was a picture tacked up once on the small bulletin board next to the table. An old picture. They all just stood before the Budokai building. The tallest figure had a towel draped across his shoulders. His smile was tired but genuine. Beside him, looking a little perplexed, a young man held hands with a pretty brunette in a Chinese dress. Two short boys, who almost looked like children, stood at the front and held up their thumbs victoriously. The second boy, on the left, grinned from side to side. Behind them, a young man with a scar in his face wrapped his arms around a thin, smiling girlfriend. A blond girl next to them grinned tightly at the camera, almost malevolently. To her side, and old man with a loose Hawaiian shirt and straw hat held up a rather short, disgruntled pig man in a neat pin stripe suit. A cat-folk hovered over them, smiling widely. They were all so happy.
I remember when they tacked a new picture on that bulletin board. They were all in the picture once again, gathered around a messy mattress placed on the floor; smiling joyfully at the camera. I had been leaning on a wall, a pillow propped up behind me. I gazed at the camera with a mixture of weary apprehension and total peace. I remember why I looked that way. I had just arrived for the second time, and I had been solemnly perplexed by all the happiness I found there, among this people. This group of old friends.
That picture is not there today. There are no pictures in the bulletin board. The chairs are empty. There will be no one to sit in them anymore. The smiling people in those old photographs are not here now. In a way, they were never here.
They were from a past that will hopefully grow into a future very unlike the one I live in. They are the friends I made. The friends I left behind.
Left behind in a bright and promising world, to return to a tired, broken existence.
Their chairs are still here, though. This chairs are much older than even the oldest among them was. They stood in their silent circle before those good friends came together, and they will remain here until some new friends gather round their table. To play cards and laugh, to make rowdy jokes and tease one another, to make shy boys blush and help them clear their troubled heads.
Empty, they will wait. The champions of a thousand memories. Monuments to the unsung heroes of this world. Empty for my eyes to behold. Eyes brimmed by tears.
I try to wipe them away with the back of my hands, but acknowledging them only manages to make them come quicker. Sliding down my cheeks. Tasting of salt.
Those friends will never return to me. I am left alone here, with only their empty chairs and empty table to bear me company. I let them keep my picture because I wanted them to remember me always. I brought nothing with me that would remind me of them.
It was only today, as I came into the old Kame House, unopened for years now, that I discovered these chairs and their table. Everything was exactly as it had been 20 years ago. Reminding me of the days I spent as one of them. God knows they were not happy days.
But I was not alone then. I was not one against this overwhelming presence of their spirits.
Slowly, I let my head fall into my hands. For a while, my whole body shakes with sobs. I cry until I am too tired to cry anymore, until I have shed all the tears I can shed for now. My heart feels heavy and sore, and my chest rises and falls painfully with every torturous breath I take. It takes me along while before I can steady myself.
With the tears still glistening in my cheeks, I let my hand reach out slowly to touch the worn wood of the chair nearest me. I run my fingers across it in a soft caress. I can feel the chipped supports, the splinters, the sea salt, encrusted there after years of living near the ocean. The wood feels smooth to my skin. It takes me what little will I have left to not cry again.
Empty chairs at an empty table. Here I saw my friends talk about living and surviving. From here they had risen to fight. Because I had asked them to. Because a half-slip of a boy had arrived before them one day, hoping to warn them about the nightmare that was his world, their world if nothing was done. Hoping that by doing this they at least would not have to endure what he had.
So that he could return to that nightmare world. And miss them. My mother's friends. The people I had idealized for so long, now not merely legends and heroes, but real people. True friends.
I let my hand fall to my side. Heavily, unwillingly, I draw my eyes away from those chairs. I begin to walk towards the door slowly, listening to my measured steps echo across the empty floor. Trying not to look back.
If I do, if I look back, I will see those chairs framed against the deepening shadows of the house. Like they used to be when my friends were still with me. Or when I was still with them. It does not matter which way it was now. Today, they are empty chairs at an empty table.
None of my friends are here anymore. They all died, years ago. Only their souls are left me now, wrapping around me in silence. I can do no more than permit them to reach me. To try to comfort me.
I have made sure that their deaths were not in vain. I destroyed the Jinzouningen, and avenged my friend's spirits. I can only hope that their souls will remain with me always. To wipe away the tears, and laugh away my fears. My friends. I can almost hear your voices now, calling out to me to come out into the sun and relax, praising and encouraging me, drawing me close to the warmth of your circle.
It saddens me to know that I will never see you again. Mine is a grief too deep for words. I know I am crying for you again, even now. Even though I have told myself not to.
But my tears are not tears of pain now. I know, deep inside my soul, that these chairs are not really empty. For, as long as I live, your memory will live in me.
As long as I'm here, these chairs will not remain empty forever.
My friends. I alone am here.
Alone. But always with
you.