The stoop light still worked, but had begun blinking and flashing like a disco-era strobe light. Last night we stopped by the electronics shop to pick up a bulb. Back home, I climbed atop the ladder in darkness pleading for my husband to steady it (“You’re fine!”), fingers poking through cobwebs to twist out the bulb. “How many times have we replaced this?” I asked. “Maybe once,” he replied. When will it need replacing again, another fifteen, twenty years? I am irked by the long lifespan, its enduring illumination, for what right does it have to outlast any of us?
Nicole Irizawa grew up in landlocked Ohio and has made Japan her home for over twenty years. She works as a communications professional in Tokyo.