The Moment

 Writer's Note: Ichi-go ichi-e is a Japanese four-character idiom that describes a cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment.

The man pulled the shoebox from a shelf in his bedroom closet. It was heavier than he expected. "Or maybe you're older than expected," his inner voice reminded him. He hadn't opened this box in over five years. Not since his father had passed away.

Turning from the closet and walking to a desk, the man shifted the box from one hand and pulled off the top with the other. Inside were everyday items from a life of an older age. A small black comb. A pocketknife showing signs of age and care. Assorted coins. A neatly folded bright handkerchief. And his father's electric razor.

The man set the box on the table. His father, a man of the modern era, preferred this electric razor over safety blades and lather. He took great care of his "buzzer" as he called it, always keeping it clean. The man thought back over the decades to the many times he would sit on the edge of the bathroom tub while Dad buzzed. They would talk about anything and everything.

Peering down into the box, the razor looked out of place to the man. "The top looks dull, there's stubble in the blades," the judgemental inner voice pointed out. The son decided to clean the buzzer in a tribute to his father and his values. He picked up the razor and inspected it more closely.

By most standards, the razor was already clean; but short of his father's measures. The device was designed to come apart in two pieces for ease of maintenance. Not something cheap and disposable.

This memory was sharp. With one hand and well-practiced dexterity, his father would pop off the razor top, then hold it and the body. Using the other hand, he would clean with a special little brush. Nearly every time he shaved.

"You are a man of the convenience age," quipped the voice. There was a can of compressed air on the table next to the box. A long, thin, red tube was pushed into its nozzle. He picked up the can and walked out of the room with the razor, headed for the garage.

The garage was softly lit by rays of summer afternoon sun through small windows that painted the clean floor in gold rectangles. "Trapezoids,” corrected the editor's voice. The man walked into a shaft of light to get a better view.

The man popped off the razor top with one hand and held it and the body. Using the other hand, he positioned the air can close. The end of the narrow tube was almost touching the exposed small sharp blades of the razor. He pressed the top of the air-can firmly and heard that familiar sound. "Pfft!," added our friendly narrator.

What he witnessed was the creation of a cloud of hair particles. A cloud of incredibly small particles because of the razor's sharpness and its owner's maintenance. "That's Dad," observed the child.

The grains of hair were momentarily suspended by the still warm air, expanding into the beam of sunlight. The man could see sparks of light as tiny surfaces and our sun, 100 million miles away, aligned for an instant and then winked out. The cloud dispersed and started to gradually drift down. Soon it would be scattered across the floor. "This is the last time I'll be with you; Dad," thought the man.

As the very last of his father's cells began their final journey, the man smiled. He stepped forward into his sunbeam father, in the warm garage, on a quiet afternoon, and started to cry. His father would have appreciated this moment.