I often dream that I am Japanese.
My mornings are cold, dark, tea-swilled, burnt-toast mornings.
In my Japanese dreams, I glide through Tokyo's electric nights waiting for the sun to rise. I am old, serene, patient. I have seen many things. Many beautiful things in my Japanese dreams, but I have yet to see the blossoms fall.
My world is street-lit and red-bricked. Wet, fag-butt-littered, chuddy-splattered streets drift by as I'm bus-shook to work.
Dumped out, spewed into an industrial estateland, I'm fag-gasping into the factory that owns my soul, shrinks my aching Western heart.
Day after day the same. The same day. At work, I hum a little tune. In dreams. At work, I work, I smile, I talk, I work, smile, talk. The same talk. Day after day.
Hello Peter. Hello Peter. Hello Peter.
These are the people. The only people in my life. They walk past with their faces, any face. Just faces on bodies. Walking past in blue overalls. This is the conveyor belt. These are the days of our lives. Hum a little tune. Shall we talk about the weather?
Break. Fag. Tea. Yesterday's conversation repeated, repeated, repeated. Hello Peter.
My work is important. My work is vital. I stand for twelve hours, three days a week. I often work four, sometimes five days, but always twelve hours. I stand next to faces that walk and talk and work like me. I bend, hunch, cramp, and ache over the belt that never stops.
My work is important. My work is vital. We are sorting prawns. For twelve hours.
Lunch. Fag. Greyish-limp-lettuce-thin-wet-bread-plastic-cheese-sandwich. Fag. Tea. Hello Peter.
The clock is my enemy. Hateful. On the belt, it takes hours for minutes to pass. This is my life. Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? All on the belt. At hours for minutes. What else is there? Nothing. Nothing except my Japanese dreams.
Hours for minutes, for twelve hours, for three, four, five days a week, for thirty years. On the belt. Work is important, is vital, is over for one more day. Goodnight Peter.
I arrived in darkness. Worked the belt under artificial light. I travel home in darkness. I will not see the sun until summer.
Bright lit bus, dark out window, dull orange city, fly by, fly by.
These are only faces on bodies hunched up beside me. Movement is good. The throb of engine takes us home. Nodding.
Tired.
The sun rises over the three great Kanzakura trees of Shinjuko Gyoen.
Tired like my street.
Hunched terraced houses elbow each other; they are stack-leaned close and closed curtained snug. The people are higgled and piggled on top of each other. No space. Closed streets. No space to breathe, to live, to dream. Houses full of faces, faces on bodies.
Some of the houses might be homes.
My house is small, walled, neat, neutral. I like the doors closed. The fridge empty. The lights low. The blinds drawn. Shut down tight. It is a house.
I shovel trayed convenience into my silent mouth. Get smacked out on cheap TV dreams and DVDs. Yojimbo or Yokubou, Sanjero or Shall We Dance? Rashomon or Rhapsody in August which Nihon tonight?
TV-tired eyes narrow, almost close, but I will watch the news today, so I can talk about yesterday's news tomorrow. The belt is always waiting.
Everything is switched off. I climb dark stairs to a cold, one-toothbrush bathroom. In the bedroom, I fold dirty clothes; fold clean clothes and fold back bedclothes. Everything is switched off.
I lie, straight, precise, ready for the belt. I stare into darkness, stare into a lifetime of single-bed nights. Hours for minutes.
I will deny myself my dreams. My Japanese Dreams. They are too bright to bear.
Tried. Tired.
Even for an old man, it is a short walk from Shinjuku Gyoen Mae Station to Shinjuku Gyoen. On a sunny, mid March evening, it is also a pleasant walk. As always, I sit by the three great Kanzkura trees, next to the tearoom here in the traditional garden.
There is a carpet of pink blossoms around the trees, but these are not fallen blossoms. No. They are too early to be fallen.
I am watching a parakeet. It is a very happy bird. Yellow-green body, red bill and long tail. Plucking the Kanzakura from the tree, one after another, its bill picking and pecking at pollen-swollen blossom.
This bird and its many brethren are not native, no the parakeets are – Gaijin-san – escaped pets. While I, old and native Japanese, have still not seen the blossom fall, they pick and peck and make a fake fallen carpet of pink Kanzakura.
I leave the park, turn my back on the Parakeets. I will seek another kind of beauty.
Shinjuku streets at night: neon, streaming with youth and purpose, busy busy, moshi moshi, beeps and sirens and faces marching by, all blurs, and me an old man. Serene. I stand and watch and am fulfilled.
I do not go home. Instead, I watch Shinjuku life pass by. People moving together remind me of wind over summer grasses, in my mind, I paint calligraphy, haiku by Bashu, in Kanji.
Before dawn, when the morning night is at its darkest, its coldest, for a beat, just a heartbeat, Shinjuku slows to its lowest pulse. I close my eyes, breathe deeply.
Soon it will blast and blare again, be walk, don't walk with salaryman morning rush, but I will not be there. I have timed my walk back to Shinjuku Gyoen just so.
I will watch the sun rise above the three Kanzakuru trees. There are no parakeets. I am old and I am serene. I have seen many things, but I have not yet seen the blossoms fall.
I kneel, patient like a Sensei.
Pink, the blossoms fall. One by one, a beautiful, slow-twirl fall full of seppuku grace.
But these are not blossoms. These are not Kanzakuru. These are prawns falling from a tree. Hello Peter.
It's dark when I awake. It will be dark when I walk into the factory. It will be dark when I leave. It will be dark for twelve hours, for three, or four, or five days a week for the rest of my life.
I throw back the bedclothes, rip open the curtains. Sit back on the bed. Look out of the window into the street-lamp orange dark.
I pick up the telephone, dial.
"Hello…it’s Peter. No, I won't be coming in today."
Why do we do what we do, instead of what we want to do? Why?
"No, I'm going to sit here until the sun rises."
When do we decide that tomorrow is too late?
"No, I won't be in tomorrow."
How long can we wait?
"Or ever."
Where are our lives going?
"Japan, don't know how long"
They are short you know. Our Lives. Haiku short.
"Goodbye."
(c) Lee Reynoldson, 2007
If you would like to read more stories like this one, please check out Weird Lies, the Arachne Press anthology in which it, and many other fantastical stories from the League archives, appears.
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