Treni ya mwisho

Tomas alitazama simu yake na akahisi tumbo likimchoma. Ilikuwa saa sita na dakika kumi usiku, na malango ya stesheni yalikuwa yanafungwa. Tokyo, treni hazisafiri usiku kucha. Treni ya mwisho kwenye njia nyingi huondoka karibu na usiku wa manane, na kila mtu jijini anajua saa kamili ya treni yake. Tomas, aliyekuwa nchini humo kwa siku nne, hakujua.

Tomas looked at his phone and felt his stomach drop. It was twelve ten in the morning, and the station gates were closing. In Tokyo, the trains do not run all night. The last train on most lines leaves around midnight, and everyone in the city knows the exact time of theirs. Tomas, who had been in the country for four days, did not.

Teksi kuvuka jiji ingegharimu zaidi ya chumba chake cha hoteli. Mfanyakazi wa stesheni aliona sura yake na akaonyesha mbali barabarani. Hapo, kati ya duka la vitu mbalimbali na mkahawa wa tambi, iliangaza alama ya hoteli ya vidonge. Tomas alilipa kwenye mashine, akachukua ufunguo wa kabati, na akalala ndani ya kidonge safi cha plastiki chenye ukubwa wa kitanda kimoja, katika chumba kimya kilichojaa watu wengine waliokosa pia treni zao.

A taxi across the city would cost more than his hotel room. A station worker saw his face and pointed down the street. There, between a convenience store and a noodle shop, glowed a sign for a capsule hotel. Tomas paid at a machine, took a locker key, and slept in a clean plastic pod the size of a single bed, in a quiet room full of other people who had also missed their trains.

Asubuhi alinunua kahawa kutoka kwenye mashine na akapanda treni ya kwanza kwenda nyumbani, akiwa mpya na mwenye kiburi kidogo. Sasa anaangalia jambo moja kabla ya jioni yoyote nje huko Japani: si menyu, si ramani, bali saa ya treni ya mwisho.

In the morning he bought coffee from a vending machine and took the first train home, fresh and slightly proud. Now he checks one thing before any evening out in Japan: not the menu, not the map, but the time of the last train.