Persimmon-Leaf Sushi
by Candice Kelsey
The woman enjoyed listening to a Japanese podcast called In Praise of Country Things. As an episode lamenting the growing dependence on electricity in cities like Kyoto ended and the next episode on the unusual foods of small cities such as Fukuyama. Specifically, she is treated to a detailed lesson on how to make persimmon-leaf sushi when she notices a young boy of maybe four years standing on the sidewalk by himself.
A delicate, slim child with an aura of helplessness stood in the shadow of a mailbox on Mullikin Road, a two-lane rural stretch dotted with the occasional Club Car, white-tail deer, and dog walker. It dead-ends at the Savannah River.
This delicacy is enjoyed in the mountains of Yoshino…
She lowered the volume and her passenger side window as she pulled closer to the child.
“Hey there! Are you okay?” she attempted, cognizant of the irony in slowing to make sure he was safe while resembling a predator ready to snatch him off the street.
Startled at first, he answered, “Yes, my brother is up there.” He pointed two-hundred yards ahead toward a larger boy waving a large stick. “My dad dropped us here and went home.”
Every ten parts of rice one part of sake is added just when the water comes to a boil, came faintly from her speakers.
“Where do you live?”
“In that neighborhood down there by my brother.” Suddenly and for no apparent reason, he dropped to his knees and continued moving toward home in a strange crawl-walk hybrid. “I’m so tired of walking” were the last words she heard him say. His brother was now throwing rocks at a nearby house.
She began driving and resumed listening to her podcast. Thin slices of lightly salted salmon are placed on the rice, and each piece is wrapped in a persimmon leaf, the surface of the leaf facing inward. The father never appeared, and as she passed the older brother, she was struck at his disinterest in the car that had been engaging with his little brother. She didn’t give them another thought and enjoyed her evening at home although the frozen spinach lasagna stirred in her a desire for fresh sushi.
The next morning, she awoke to a series of buckshot reverberating from the woods between her fence and the river. This occurrence was nothing new yet no less disconcerting. She unplugged her phone, placed it on the bathroom counter, and began getting ready for work while picking up where she left of in her Country Things podcast. Then in a rice tub or sushi box, the interior of which is perfectly dry, the pieces are packed standing on end so that no space remains between them, and the lid is put in place and weighted with a heavy stone, as in making pickles.
As she drove Mullikin Road toward work each morning, she was vigilant in watching for deer. When she was lucky, she’d see a family a few hundred feet from the shoulder; when she was unlucky, she’d see a carcass blanketing the shoulder. Today she saw two deer carcasses. One was larger than the other, and they were separated by about two hundred yards. She caught her breath. A glance in her rear-view mirror confirmed the grisly site.
Prepared in the evening, the sushi should be ready to eat the next morning. Her mind recoiled to the previous evening when she encountered the strange pair of boys, specifically the younger one who reminded her of thinly sliced salmon. She pulled to the soft shoulder by the entrance to Riverside Elementary, not yet populated with morning bicycle bustle, mom golf carts, or indignant crossing guards. She turned down her podcast and whispered, “Those deer are in the exact same spots as the boys were yesterday.” She turned her car around and drove back to investigate.
Indeed, the smaller deer had been gutted— dressed, the hunters called it— and left on the sidewalk precisely where the smaller boy had randomly dropped to his knees. The larger deer too had been dressed beside the house he pelted with rocks. A large stick rested beside the carcass.
She heard a faint voice explaining A slight bit of vinegar should be sprinkled over each piece with a sprig of bitter nettle just before eating.
Candice Kelsey is an educator and poet living in Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program; her poetry appears in myriad journals including Poets Reading the News and Poet Lore. She is the author of Still I am Pushing (2020) and won the Two Sisters Writing Contest (2021). Recently, she was chosen as a finalist in Cutthroat's Joy Harjo Prize. Find her @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.