"I am Samantha Kurosawa and I am freezing. The winter wind cuts through me like a guillotine but I trudge onwards with relentless stubbornness. I will not be stopped tonight."
"The blizzard is as bad as the weather people said it would be. I've already passed two stop signs blown over by the weight of the wind. This does not bode well for my plans tonight."
"The streets are empty and apart from a few stragglers who carefully drive home with last minute supplies, Berkley Heights is a ghost town tonight. All the stores have shut down early and the mayors and governors are calling on their citizens to stay indoors until the storm passes."
"Fat chance, I said and set out through through whiteout conditions like a wandering Yuletide phantom. Now my fingers feel frozen and I can barely keep open my eyes long enough to see where I'm going without getting a faceful of ice. My fourteen year old frame wasn't meant for this kind of brutality."
"The time is 8:00pm. My friends and I have agreed to rendezvous with my cousin Hana at the Henderson Hall Boxing Gymnasium in another half an hour. Now this blizzard has doubting whether anyone else will show."
"I turn a corner and find myself alone on a Main Street that is typically awash in activity. Instead the store shutters are all down. It's just me and this storm out here tonight. The gym's only another ten minutes away."
"Tonight is the anniversary of the day that my grandmother died. It was a year ago today that I stood at the bedside of the woman who I loved more than any on Earth and watched as her final breath slipped away from her."
"Deep inside I'm a wreck. I spent the entire day at school crying in silence away from the prying eyes of my classmates. The shock of losing her has only been replaced by a grief that has failed to subside over the past 365 days."
"I sink my face into my jacket and weep. I feel like collapsing against a store shutter and letting my my emotions get the best fo me but my feet never stop moving. I won't be late."
"I bite my lip hard and draw blood. The pain helps keep my mind together and I refocus on the goal: the Henderson Hall Boxing Gymnasium."
"I glance up at the glowing lampposts on Main Street and think of how beautiful the snow looks juxtaposed against the night sky. Then I shuffle hands tightly under my arms and wander off into the whiteness."
"I hope my friends come... I hope they aren't late..."

#SCENE02 - FLASHBACK

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"My grandmother's name was Takako Matsu. She was born in 1936 and died last winter due to complications stemming from diabetes."
"Every summer for eleven years I flew to Japan to be with her.  At first with my family. Then by myself because my parents became too bogged down by work to make the trip."
"They debated letting a six year old fly to Japan all alone but I wouldn't agree to going the summer without seeing her. My grandmother felt the same and eventually my parents relented to us."
"The flights were dreadful. The long travel, the snoring passengers, and the cramped quarters made me anxious each time I boarded a 747. But soon I'd be counting down the minutes until the plane landed and I was running into her open arms."

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"I remember one visit to the Jigokudani Monkey Park where the wild snow monkeys climb down from the mountains to relax in the hot springs like pink faced Yakuza. I pulled away from my grandmother to get a closer look at the curious creatures."
"I grossly underestimated how slippery the wet rocks would be however. One minute I was kneeling atop them cooing the monkeys over. The next I was sliding off screaming into the hot springs."

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"Time slowed down for everything but the monkeys, the quick little fuckers. They were gone the second I lost my balance."
"I tried to catch myself on the rocks but couldn't land a grip and tumbled head-first into the hot springs. The water shot straight up my nose and I inhaled what must have been a gallon of water. "

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"The next thing I knew a hand reached into the water and took hold of my collar. With a great big tug it yanked me out from the hot springs."
"Of course the hand belonged to my grandmother. But rather than feign the concern or anger that any other parent might have, she laughed and laughed and laughed at me."
"This embarrassed me to no end. A year didn't pass where she wouldn't remind me of the time I decided to go swimming with the monkeys. I'd grumble and wish she'd finally shut up about it."
"Now she was dead... and I only wish I could hear her tell the story just one more time..."

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"One morning my grandmother woke me up especially early. I yawned and rubbed my eyes wondering what was going on. The sun looked like it had only just risen."
"My grandmother was unusually somber. She laid out a kimono for me on my bed and softly spoke of our destination. We were going to a cemetery."
"A few hours of train-riding through the countryside of Japan saw me standing in front of a pair of graves whose names I couldn't read. The cemetery appeared peculiar to me at first because it didn't meet my westernized expectations of what a cemetery should look like."
"Rather than the cross shaped stone headstones I was accustomed to seeing in the States, the tombstones of Japan look like stacked blocks with the name of the deceased written vertically across them. A lantern shaped top would cap off these headstones. As a kid it was all very eerie to me."

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"I looked down the row of graves to my left and right and saw that flowers had been placed for each of these headstones. A strange sense of reverence swelled up inside me and I instinctively gripped my grandmother's frail hand tightly."
"My grandmother instructed me to bow. I quietly did as I was told and then looked up to her for further instruction. Instead my grandmother had begun speaking to the graves."
"At first her words were doubtful. As tightly as I had gripped her hand, she gripped mine twice as hard when her words turned into uncontrollable sobbing."

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"I'd never seen my grandmother like this. In fact this was the first time I'd ever seen her cry apart from the hellos and goodbyes we shared at the airport."
"I attempted to understand what she was saying to the graves but I had difficulty in keeping up with her words. She spoke too quickly."
"Soon though she was finished and turned to me. She took me by the shoulders and positioned me in front of her."
"I was told to introduce myself to the graves and to tell the people lying there more about myself."
"At first I was astonished by the request and stood silently while my grandmother waited patiently for me to speak. I spit out my name and my relationship to my grandmother."
"The entire experience was like being put on in front of a stage of the dead."

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"On the train ride home my grandmother explained that the graves we had spoken to belonged to her parents, my great-grandparents."
"In the years before I started visiting, my grandmother had stopped paying her respects to the gravestones of her dead parents out of a crippling shame of having done nothing with her life. She was just a lonely widow who would go days alone at home without ever speaking to another human being. My grandmother didn't want her parents to see her like that."
"This was the first time she had visited their graves in over a decade."
"All of this was difficult at the time for my eight year old mind to comprehend at the time but I understand now what my grandmother must have felt as I march onwards towards my own friends with the goal of introducing them to my grandmother in her own grave."
"It wasn't only a matter of respect but a matter of pride and shame. No one wants to walk in front of their loved ones head hung down as a loser. Friends are achievements. Love is an achievement. They are showcases of a life well lived and my grandmother feared that she had nothing to show."
"In the year since my grandmother died I've made a host of new friends in High School and have began a relationship with my first boyfriend, Corey. I intend to introduce these members of my new social circle to my grandmother tonight in the hopes that she will be proud of the life I am living."