…a come-and-get-it code.

Candied perfumes and colognes mingle and collide, competing with an ever lingering rust-tinged stink. Neither masks the whispery drafts of charcoal-flavoured food, though. And nothing can erase the musk of sweat stuck to the skin. Obscene pouring pitter-patter…the rampant flickering of plastic sheets and streaks of glaucous lightning. Impossible to evade the wet or outrun the boom of Asian thunder. I watch the chase and crush and keen…

I am somewhere else, alone in a nowhere place I swear I’ve been before. Am I remembering..? Or simply here again..? I am somewhere else, but I am not myself.

“We tried to warn you, what did we tell you? We said we knew you wouldn’t last. We knew you’d crumble and give in. Now welcome to daytime – figure it out. How long did it take to forget who you are? We tried to warn you, what did we tell you?”

They lead me to a nowhere somewhere on their barren frontier, and I take notice of the sky for the first time. I have never seen daylight as clear as this, and am astonished that it doesn’t hurt my eyes. So I stare into sapphire blue, and the warmth of the sun begins to heat my face…singe my face…burn my face as my sweat starts to boil and smoke my skin. The foxes suddenly whip and I turn to look-

Where?

But they have all disappeared.

I stand in place, dumbfounded. In a few minutes I hear the rustling of magnetic wind, it is strong enough to jostle small rocks on the ground. There I see the shadow of a skeleton moon, and the scent of nutmeg drifts in upon the weather.

Where am I?

Soon there are peals of thunder, as clouds hurry together, cling and balloon. A storm is approaching so I vet the perimeter, hoping to radar the foxes; but instead, I behold silhouettes distributed along the length of the horizon – a caravan has gathered…unrecognizable shapes with unknown baggage – all regarding me.

Fear.

The wind’s ruckus crescendos into an ominous mantra, and the riders on their camels lend their voices to it – a haunting didgeridoo-like chant; their baritone song causes the desert floor to quake.

Then the rain begins, flinging sheets of virulent wet across magenta ground, and through the deluge I can see the riders break to depart. The skies crack open as the thunderclouds boom, and the rainfall sluices. It is hot against my leathery skin. All at once the skies tear apart, detonating the heavens. I cover my ears to shield them from the noise while dropping to my knees and body stiffen. A valorous sun tries to pierce the dark, but cannot – and the chanting continues.

I’m in Hell, aren’t I?

The thunder answers with a deafening roar…

“大丈夫ですか？”

Somehow he answered, but he didn’t know how. Again, it didn’t seem matter. Did anybody care?

“You’ve been standing there since before class started and haven’t said a word.” Once more he heard them. A voice, but not one of his. “Is this another lesson for us to figure out?”

Somebody laughed. Maybe more. To him the noise complimented the sound of the empty canvas before him stretching itself used to nails.

…like when screams become song and you start to scream along.

“Paint with a brush too large, lose your perspective of detail.”

Class was finally over when he realized he was the only one left.

Déjà vu back into limbo all over again. He almost remembers he once was never here.

Time travels slowly during moments like this, so rot about in silence for a spell.

Last night at the studio, painting until the vodka began to decide his brushstrokes – and the light became intolerable to bear. Not since before October, and the sudden realization made him feel very, very disappointed with himself.

“Yes, I know the sadness that all is fleeting, but I did not mean that you should hear my sighs.”

Say as much with as little as you can.

Only then will it matter if they’re listening.

At thirty-one he thought he’d finally get it right. But after waking up stuporous from several bottles of wine and sleeping pills, he wondered if next time he might have a go at an even numbered year.

Now he’s forty and sitting at the bar at a Pronto in Ginza, killing an hour before a date. He’s listening to two half-drunk women arguing the good and bad, mostly bad, about Japanese men. They’re both apparently still single, and way too picky, then he discovers they’re much older than they look.

As they whinge and groan and laughingly complain, he’s amazed how the women can believe the drivel slurring from their tongues. And when they leave, leaving a complete mess for the waitress to deal with, he muses if this year might be the one.

Funny, the things you remember while trying to forget…

Kiyo digs his hands deeper into his pockets to protect them from the drizzle and cold. He isn’t hungover, but he might as well be; the problems with his company’s mail servers would drive anyone to drink themselves sick. Had to pull another all-nighter because they went off line again, doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

Shuffling down towards Shibuya station, Kiyo’s never seen the area so quiet -so dead- before. Hard to imagine just hours ago these same streets were impossibly packed and noisier than a Gojira panic.

Where does everybody go?

The drizzle becomes a light downpour, Kiyo grumbles. As he passes a Lawson, he takes an umbrella hanging from an abandoned bicycle. Then he starts his shortcut through Dogenzaka, aware that he’s still stressed out about work. And cold. Really fucking cold.

Why should I be the one punished because our servers always crash? They haven’t been upgraded in years!

The rain’s really starting to come down now, so Kiyo picks up his pace. But he slows to a stop, finds shelter under an awning, when he sees the queue outside a grey, dilapidated building covered in webs of utility wires. At least fifteen people are waiting there, some apparently salarymen; those not leaning upright against the wall are shagande iru, sitting squat bent at the knees.

Kiyo shakes his head in distaste, never understood the allure of pachinko. What a bunch of losers, he thinks.

But then the building’s marquee catches his eye and he looks again, realizes it’s not a pachinko parlour at all.

He stares through the rain until the scene registers.

A porn cinema?

Kiyo blinks his eyes, regards the men in their dark trench coats, all holding cheap white-handled see-through umbrellas.

At six in the morning?

He does a double take. Reminds himself he was only going back to his apartment, no one or plans waiting for him there.

What the hell…

Then reluctantly, Kiyo gets in queue.

[Continued at: Talking Too Lewd at the Often Seen Obscene]