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Ruder than Weirds
Yokohama Station, West Exit.
Nine o’clock’s approaching and the mad dash is on.
I’m at Joinus, on the corner between the Sotetsu-sen and Yokohama Blue Line, watching the morning, the day, this so-called life unfold…
…The old retirees in front of Daiwa Securities anxious for the share price boards to begin predicting their futures; the blatantly smoking in front of no smoking signs; the Red Cross bus pulling in and setting up shop; passersby talking too loud at their mobiles or else with their stares glued to their screens, others with their heads buried in manga.
Counting how many people enter a nearby kōban (always to ask for help, always directions). Counting how many people stop by kiosks to pick up breakfast or lunch. Counting the number of beelines to work, faces blank, expressions lost…Counting the number of occupations walking past, identifying them by their uniforms and dress: salarymen, delivery men, school girls, OL’s, hairstylists, grocers, florists, yobikomi, shinnyū-shain, pachinko parlour staff, food service clerks, department store employees – and the list forever never ends…
Watching city workers in matching creme-coloured baseball caps and pine green shirts stooped over, pecking about like pigeons with tongs, picking up cigarette butts and trash. Wondering how long after they stop the streets will take to become littered again.
So many different lives preoccupied with as many singular worlds, the city’s everyday morning rush metastability. It’d take a natural disaster to make them stop, take notice, see there’s others besides themselves with places to go, things to do, people to see.
The old versus young, the local versus lost. The already drunk or otherwise drinking. Couples spending time together, the homeless and alone. Students skipping school, workers enjoying the day off. The things people do when nobody’s looking, and the things people do pretending others are. Everyone getting in someone else’s way while going about their own.
Leaning against a wall, watching it all unfold – feels like I’m on some surreal holiday, or in exile, and the world’s slowed down to prove it. Everything moving at half-speed, in stop-motion, so I don’t miss the bigger picture; bringing me closer to my calculations’ terrible secret, a most terrifying truth.
Posted by Invisibleye in: Experiences 
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13 May, 2008 
Tags: Yokohama, Yokohama Station