March used to be my least favourite month of the year back home, much due to the sudden influx of humidity and rain which leaves bathrooms and walls never ever properly dry, leaving rather concerning fingers of mold. Nowadays, in this new but historic land, March beckons a final break from the "doom and gloom" of the short, drab, cold days that haunt the conversations of everyone. As the metaphorical (but non-existent) snow thaws, so shall I thaw this long due conversation between myself and myself---and sometimes---the curious face that drops by.
Let's proceed with two short tales from my dreamland. Much of my thoughts have been lost to the material world in the form of some scatter plots, some advertisement about myself, some invvisiible particles, some prospect of unknown stability... let's capture what remains.
1.
18:00. Junction crossing on Argyle Street. 35°C. Overcast. At this moment, he stood still.
The speakers underneath the lights ticked constantly, yet just slightly out of sync of one another. Cars slowly creeping through the thick traffic flashing their yellow and red lights, the semi-defunct neon signs that clung on to its last days of brightness, the mundane content that scrolled past the glowing screens that no one would put down... all blended into one under the mist on his glasses pulsed in and out, as he breathed hard underneath a layer of cloth. All the while, sweat beaded up underneath his nostrils, clinging onto his upper lip until it has gathered enough weight and fell down into his mouth. An uncanny sort of saltiness. Perhaps those were his snot, or his tears, but his face was so thoroughly drenched underneath these millimetres of fabric he hung his health so dearly on that it felt impossible to tell.
As a matter of fact, he knew those weren't his tears. He can't remember since when he tasted his tears... heck the last time tears came out of his eyes, the last time they rolled down his cheekbones, gathered into a reservoir underneath his chin, the last time they broke free of the surface tension and fell down in front of him, in between his shoes. I can't help but try to fault him because of this. If someone were to be in his position, would they have spared a tear or two? Would they have not been this stone statue, standing still obediently in front of the road, while moisture gathered within his bubble of safety?
I would go ahead and talk about his thoughts; if they could be called thoughts. Ramblings; incoherent babblings; irrational mumblings; despicable sputterings; boring dronings... If his life were a movie, it wouldn't be a comedy, but it also wouldn't be a tragedy. It wouldn't be about love, it wouldn't be about hate; wouldn't be about heroism, wouldn't be about villainy, wouldn't be about distance, wouldn't be about closeness, wouldn't be about robots, wouldn't be about dogs, wouldn't be about guns, wouldn't be about peaches. I'm not sure what this film will be about to be frank. It wouldn't even have anyone wanting to watch it, even if I were to give away the tickets for free, even if I were to give out free snacks to go with it.
I suppose it could have this scene: imagine him sitting in a restaurant. It's not a particularly good one, but I insist that it has a grandfather clock that made annoying ticking noises as the cogs clicked against each other (regularly, in sync). He would find this very annoying---and odd in fact: can you even find such a restaurant in this city? In this day and age?
Perhaps you still can, but it is not the same restaurant anymore. As the city collapsed, its buildings remained; its neon lights remained; its fireworks remained; its trains' rumbling remained; its air conditioning remained; its heat remained. But the city has already collapsed. Vowing to never come back to this place again, he took his step. The signal was green.
2.
The pedestrian way of the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo hung underneath another layer of traffic. The traffic rumbled, but the footsteps rumbled louder.
Shaking underneath his feet, he cannot but wonder: At this moment in spacetime, he thought of death. Not as pessimistic as a suicide. A sudden loss of control of one driver on their vehicle. A sudden structural failure of a set of rivets. A sudden strong breeze. A sudden disappearance of the very tile he stood on... It is as swift as that. It might have been for the good. The car speeding past him might have been carrying a would-be criminal. He might be suffering from a long term illness that has brought him much pain. But that did not alleviate his anxiety. The breeze blew all those "rational" thoughts away from him, leaving a trembling, exposed heart. His stance, his sense of balance and objectivity, shaking right underneath his feet as the cold, hard steel structure hummed the tune of resonance, to the chaos of the oncoming traffic, dragging out a trail of red and white, as he held onto the railing, as he looked for the next exit, the next entrace, the next tile, the next checkpoint, the next stairway, the next elevator, the next lane, the next stud, the next rivet, but the fog, but the fog, and the night, the starless night, the night full of stars that are artificial, that do not spin, that affixed themselves on edifices of concrete rationality, reinforced by cold steel, he bent his legs, he knelt down, he crouched down, he covered his eyes, and his ears, and his naked body, his exposed arteries, his exposed nerves, his exposed heart.
失くした言葉を知らないなら 各駅停車に乗り込んで
