The apartment shakes; I can’t immediately tell if it’s another earthquake, or if the downstairs neighbor is running her manically energetic washing machine again. I lie perfectly still, limbs pressed close to my body, preferring to remain immobile amid the jostling of the sheets rather than prepare for the worst. Later, I’ll wonder at the idiocy of that: remaining in a certain mood rather than reacting to imminent danger. Fortunately, after a few seconds, the shaking comes to a sudden stop, and I get up and move to the kitchen; I put the kettle on and examine the state of my nails as the water boils. In the background, NPR plays stories about algae farming, the opium epidemic, and election recounts in Palm Beach, Florida.
Strawberry is at work, and my head aches. I focus on everything, and nothing. I cook elaborate recipes involving seasonally-appropriate vegetables, French sauces, and spices sourced from the burning tropics. Caramelizing onions requires just enough focus that it keeps the mind engaged while still pacifying me like a meditative trance. I think of myself escaping to an astral plane, wooden spoon still in hand, wading knee-deep through the shallows of a world adjacent to our own. Moving farther and farther into the absolute darkness, with my everyday life still preserved behind me, visible through a sheet of cloudy, trembling glass.
We spend 36 hours in Northern Kyoto. The mountains in November are painted in washes of plush, prodigal green, splashed with varying shades of yellowing orange, from apricot to amber. The foliage, its colors dispersed throughout the forest in mottled patches, reminds me of the fur of a tortoiseshell cat. I think of this cat, massive and languorous, extended lazily over the natural landscape like the feline protagonist of a creation myth. Just imagine that cosmology: a fanged predator camouflaged between sea and clouds, ready to swallow the Earth whole, Cronos-style. Imagine venturing outside at night as she stretches, and mistaking her movement for the wind on the mountain, and her reflective eyes for stars and streetlights.
We encounter a spectacular maple, positioned in front of a temple for maximum effect. Its leaves are an uncommon red; too yellow-toned for a crimson, too neon to be blood-red. I smile awkwardly for the camera. I imagine myself later, scrolling through the stream of photos with an inevitable combination of love and disgust for my body immortalized through image, immersed in that wave of confused, eerie melancholy that floods the heart when I look at my face and don’t recognize myself. I feel that wave at other times, too; for instance, I feel it while navigating the digital trove of my writings, that chest of textual keepsakes suspended and preserved in the immortal fluid of the Internet. Intimately identifiable to me, but also hideously foreign, because it was created by an iteration of Emma that no longer exists. I click through Tumblr, Twitter, and other horsemen. My presence on the web, filtered through the prism of social media, feels scattered, desperate, and needy, but also sincere, lucid, and magical. Diaristic entries of the thoughtful and thoughtless varieties. Dialectic cocooned within 140 characters. Soulless, but occasionally soulful, shitposting. The Emma of 201X surprises, horrifies, and enchants. She is utterly pathetic. Oftentimes I believe she does not deserve to live. My cursor hovers, tantalizingly, over the garnet-red “delete” buttons at the corner of every post. But eventually I let her go. 201X Emma is a freak of nature. She is a lamb of God.
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