Sometimes I'm not even sure we were there at all. Distance and time often give perspective and clarity, but now when I try to call that day to mind, everything is obscured by a thickening curtain of falling snow.
Our train pulled into the station in the blue dusk. Where are we, I wondered. A muffled announcement crackled. The kanji characters on the station's metal sign were obscured by thick wet snow. We stepped out of the train and into the damp cold, where fat snowflakes fell through the glow cast by orange streetlights.
The tracks were buried under a blanket of white, and those behind us were quickly disappearing — it was clear we weren't going anywhere. Snowflakes stuck to my eyelashes as I squinted closely at the sign: Tokamachi (Ten-day Town).