If I were a janitor in Japan, I would mop the halls at an all-girls’ high school, set up my little yellow caution sign, run my mop back and forth, back and forth.
The girls at the school would wear navy skirts and charming red bowties, tug at their knee socks while kicking their feet off the floor one at a time. The girls at the school would wear their hair long and straight, let it stream down their backs like waterfall. Their bangs would be perfect, lovely lines across their foreheads; their voices would be the twittering of house sparrows.
They wouldn’t look at me.
If I were a janitor in Japan, the girls at the high school would never look at me.
It wouldn’t be like when I was in high school in America, coming out of a bathroom stall to the sound of girls talking about me, why does she dress like that, why does she act like that, why doesn’t she just shut up. It would be more like the moment they fell silent, the moment they realized I’d heard, heard it all, heard everything, gazed coolly back at my reflection in the mirror, washed their hands. Brushed against me on the way out, oh, excuse me, the only thing they ever said to me.
The girls at the school in Japan wouldn’t say anything, ignore my shitsurishimasu when I needed to get by with my mop and bucket and little yellow sign, wouldn’t turn my way. They wouldn’t see me.
The girls at the high school would never see me.
If I were a janitor in Japan, I would have a Japanese boyfriend. He would be perfect, the way I have always imagined the perfect Japanese boy.
He would have glasses that pinched his nose, wear business suits to work, have fingers that were long and thin, like mine. Piano hands, my mother used to call them. Piano hands.
If I were a janitor in Japan, I would go home after work to our empty twelve-tatami apartment. I would keep the lights off, pull my knees up to my chin, curl on the floor, alone, alone, alone.
My Japanese boyfriend would work late; he would go out after work with his fellow employees. This would be expected of him. He would come home smelling of katsudon and shochu, say why are you sitting here in the dark?
He’d say, it’s so dark in here. I could barely see you.
If I were a janitor in Japan, there would be a haunted bathroom stall at the girls’ high school. There would be one in every school, always for the girls, what awful things bathrooms are for girls, little bathroom ghost: Hanako-chan. I would see the girls dare each other to go in, third stall over, see the girls call Hanako-chan, Hanako-chan, Toire no Hanako-chan, trying to tempt the little ghost out.
The girls would stand outside the third stall, wait for breath of wind, pale reaching hand, rustle of red skirt, shake of dark hair. They would wait, they would wait, whisper Hanako-chan?
They wouldn’t see me behind them, wiping the counter with rag, me in my overalls and checkered headband. They would call for Hanako-chan again, sigh, wash their hands, brush against me on the way out.
I would be alone.
If I were a janitor in Japan, I would be alone.
The third stall door would come creaking open, pushed by cream-white hand, Hanako-chan of the third stall, Hanako-chan the bathroom ghost.
She would stand, red-skirted, small, still, quiet, Hanako-chan, Hanako-chan.
I see you, I’d say. I see you, Hanako-chan.
She would dip her chin down, tilt it back up. She would seem like she was smiling, her empty yokai face.
I’d say: I see you, I see you. Do you see me?
I’d reach for her with one hand, thin fingers trembling, say: Please. Please see me.
Cathy Ulrich is the founding editor of Milk Candy Review, a journal of flash fiction. Her work has been published in various journals, including Black Warrior Review, Passages North, and Wigleaf and can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, Best Small Fictions 2019 and Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2017 and 2019. She is the author of the flash fiction collection Ghosts of You (Okay Donkey Press, 2019). She lives in Montana with her daughter and various small animals.