Yurei

This is the story of how I met and fell in love with a yurei - the ghost of a samurai woman born in the fifteenth century. 

The train jolted. I opened my eyes to the sun's glare.
The sun. Setting behind Mt. Fuji, it turned the snowcap gold then dark red.
Heaven and earth blacked out. Yunmen glared at me, his eyes bulging.
I opened my book. It was a book of ancient poems. Everybody who wrote and sang them was dead.
I could hear a poet singing his poem next to a hissing kettle. He was hunched over, freezing cold. Tears flowed from his eyes down his sagging cheeks, as the ancient voice cracked.
I was going to Kyoto to sign books. I was a novelist. Some of my books were popular in Japan.
I wasn't looking forward to the trip before I left San Francisco. But now --

She emerged from the crowd after my reading and touched my elbow. That touch rang through my whole body and mind.
She was elegant looking, in the Japanese way, slim and beautiful, with thin wrists and an oddly rich and thick voice. Ink-black eyes, flashing light. She was wearing a kind of damask jacket, with a tightly woven multicolored pattern that made me think, absurdly, of India. This jacket alone marked her as what I knew she was: an artist. Maybe a musician. Maybe another writer. Maybe a conceptual artist, a ceramicist, or a Butoh dancer.
As our gazes met, I blushed.
I was aware of trembling.
I shook her hand.
We exchanged pleasantries over the hum of the crowd. People were already pushing in close around us, hands touching my sleeves and my shoulders.
She spoke excellent English.
She told me her name: Otsu Kuriyada.
I signed her copy of my book. It was a fresh new copy, as if it had never been opened, as if no pages had been turned.
As I handed the book back to her, our hands touched again. My fingers touched her white, cool fingers. I thrilled.