Jack of Harts

I grew up walking in the grass and sitting in the sand. I felt the wind on my face and the rain in my hair, smelled the musk of soaked skin under moonlit nights. I didn’t like the big cities when I visited. All metal and plastic. Artificial. I couldn’t imagine how people could live there. But I remember a trip to Los Angeles when I was young. Free Japan. New Nippon. Whatever. They rebuilt it like a reflection of the Japan they lost centuries ago. Like a love song to a pretty girl. I met one of them there and fell hard. She had brains and looks and a sense of humor that went on forever. Pretty much the perfect girl, but she didn’t work out. Didn’t want to leave the city. Found out why later on. Seems she was Tai. Yup. New Japan herself. How’s that for irony? I couldn’t stand to be in the big cities, but I fell for the cybernetic heart of one without even knowing it. And that says some interesting things about my life choices in the years since.