“Sorry,” Aki says, and stands to leave with Hollywood. I want to run after him, except I have no idea what to say.
Normally, after services like these, we visit Ayano at the high-rise cemetery in Chiba right outside of Tokyo, urn #25679B. I clean up after our guests and find Aki in bed, cradling Hollywood, who seems to be having another fit—random dancing, jumbled audio, the weather forecast frozen in his eyes.
“How long has he been like that?” I ask.
“Few minutes,” Aki says. The fits don’t last long, but they’ve been happening with greater frequency. Aki rocks back and forth as if the motion soothes our robo-dog.
“Have you tried confusing his programming?” I ask. “Sometimes that seems to stop the fits.”
Aki shakes his head and says: “Dance, speak, stay, recharge.” Hollywood continues to flail and beep. “Dance, speak, stay, recharge.” Finally, Hollywood drops his front and hind legs, enters power-down mode.
“Do you still want to go see your mother today?” I ask.
Aki nods, springs out of bed, begins rifling through his closet for a dress shirt and slacks. He grabs Hollywood, and we head to Shinjuku Station to board the express train to the Japan Post Ltd. Funerary Remembrance Complex.
On the train, Aki and I stand, waiting for two passengers to leave before we take their single seats on opposite sides of the car. Everyone is dressed in black, the only voices recorded announcements of each station in English and Japanese— Next stop: Fuji Tech Funerary Mall. Stop here for incense, flowers, and gift stores. Next stop: Lawson’s Funerary Food Square. Stop here for ATMs, hotels, and the City Mortuary Affairs Office. In front of me an elderly woman is holding a small bouquet of white and yellow lilies and chrysanthemums. Beside her, a younger woman wipes away her tears, fixes her makeup. The monitors above our heads advertise catering services, a company that can send a rocket filled with your loved one’s ashes into space, premier packages for holograms of the departed that can be projected from a stainless steel urn. When a couple gets off at the crematorium stop, Aki and I take their seats so we can sit together as we wait for the end of the line, what the locals call the neighborhood of the dead. As we get closer, Aki lifts Hollywood to the window. The two of them gaze out at the skyline, the dark funerary towers casting fingerlike shadows over the temples and rock gardens.
“I thought we were going to buy flowers or something,” Aki says without turning. We’re at the three-story torii gate, signaling that we’re close. Beyond the gate, a rainbow-colored holographic Buddha the size of a bus floats in the middle of a koi pond.
“There’s always a markup at those Yamamoto shops,” I explain. “We’ll get something from one of the private vendors on the street. Much cheaper.”
Aki nods and heads for the doorway, already crowded with people, as the train slows to a stop. Welcome to the Japan Post Ltd. Funerary Remembrance Complex. This is the last stop. Please take all of your belongings.
Outside, orderly lines wrap around the towers like slow-moving eels as people are checked in at the hospitality desks and given a ticket to enter the mortuary suite at their allotted time. Aki and Hollywood hold our place in line while I buy flowers and incense from a janitor selling wares from his cleaning cart. After more than an hour of waiting, we pay our two thousand yen for an hour of suite time and enter our code for the thirty-seventh floor. At first, the room is completely white. Soon, images of the temples outside are projected onto the walls, punctuated occasionally by banner ads offering us an upgrade in services. Aki and I wait on a wooden bench, the only piece of furniture in the room apart from the altar. A robotic arm retrieves Ayano, delivers her to the altar through a tiny elevator. The niche is a simple model—a rosewood box with cherry blossoms carved into it, two clay vases for flowers, a large photo of Ayano above the urn, an incense bowl Aki made in grade school. We change out the flowers and take turns telling her about our lives: school, the likely end of my repair business, the job applications I’m planning to send out. “I wish you were here,” I say. “But we’re doing our best. I’ll keep Aki safe. We’ll make you proud.” Aki has brought the shamisen and begins to play as Hollywood shuffles on the grass—“Rainy Days and Mondays” by the Carpenters. I’m gazing at the photo of Ayano （taken during our honeymoon）， listening to her sing. And then a few seconds of static, the male British voice saying good morning, followed by a techno club beat. Hollywood stumbles in circles. A banner ad on the wall tells us to cherish Ayano’s memory by enjoying life via a buffet at the food court in tower 2.