About a hundred meters away from my apartment, between two groves of trees and a red-shingled temple, is a bakery that has been shuttered for eight years, ever since the owner hung herself from a second-floor beam. This revelation is available to unsuspecting members of the public in the form of a brutally crude, unpunctuated, one-star online review. Oh, Google Maps, how did it end up like this? Did you expect to be the bearer of such news? Huffing, puffing, energetic information engine, then giant of advertising, and now painful prophet, dressed in babyish, primary colors.
At the local sushi joint, sat on a bar stool upholstered in soft-touch, brown plastic, I read the specials: fatty tuna, sweet shrimp, abalone. I strip the paper packaging from a pair of disposable chopsticks. A cracked speaker above a humming fridge bleeds floaty, 2000s-style synth-pop. I order shochu and watch my ego deflate on the counter. An octogenarian in a square white cap scrapes scales off a body and then hoses down the counter. The restaurant swims with odors.
I watch myself in the mirrored wall opposite. I watch myself, watching myself.
Online, I look up photos: cropped bob on a long face, crown of thorns. Lying on the couch, my feet against the wall, I nurse a tension headache. I feel like I’ve swallowed the full moon. It bumps up against the crevices inside my skull, unhappily. It has the beady eyes of a Lovecraftian infant, peering wetly from over the bassinet. “Can saints be made in these circumstances? Can souls be saved?” it hisses contemptuously. I pat its tender head. So much fear is disguised as scorn. Don’t ask me how I know. Wait, please come back. I’m dying for someone to ask me this question, or any question.
On the weekend, walking under the triple-laned overpass that connects Tokyo Bay’s manmade islands to the mainland, feeling the breeze and the blue-toned light compete for my attention. The gray concrete beams that hold up the road are unashamed of their unconventional beauty. The asphalt is painted in black, white and goldenrod. In this city, hours like these are ruled by the ram, ruled by the red planet, as I am. I have a feeling like I’m playing hide-and-seek, and have yet to be found.
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