What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
Nagasaki, 1859. The port has been open sixty-one days, and an interpreter in the magistrate’s office speaks Dutch, English, French, and a dangerous five months of Russian. He carries words between worlds and always leaves something on the other shore. Asked a simple question – what is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you? – he speaks of everything else. The silk tariff. The secretary. A blister. Cold rice. The dam is cracking.
A monologue about translation, silence, and the three minutes in a corridor that lasted twenty years.
The answer, when it comes, is almost nothing. It is enough.
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Bob Lynn | © 2026 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.
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