Staring at the ghosts in the glass, remembering her laugh…that sound that used to make angels stop and listen. Losing myself as I rummage through my variable realities. Sifting through the what IS from the what WAS. Weeding out the what COULD HAVE BEEN from the what WILL NEVER BE. Trying to discern what MIGHT have been from the what’s been MADE UP.

And finally surrender feeling more jaded than before, because…sometimes what IS never WAS, or wasn’t entirely altogether. And maybe…maybe now as I prate and unprofoundly complain, maybe now still ISN’T, and I’m only taking for granted that it is.

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…

Always enjoy the rush hour when the world is rushing the other way. I get on the Tokyu Toyoko-sen, Limited Express, bound for Yokohama. Empty train car, save a sleeping boy cat-stretched across four seats.

Never mind, off we go.

3 minutes later – Naka-Meguro Station. The sleeping boy remains sacked out, slumbering. Passengers glance and frown at him, but soon take their places and feign ignorance. By Jiyugaoka I begin to worry, the sleeping boy hasn’t moved – not a muscle in 9 minutes.

It’s then I notice, beneath his dangling arm, a mobile on the ground. I get up to retrieve it – and then see blood – trickles of it dried down the side of his mouth. Something’s definitely wrong. I feel the stares of others fixed on me – I’m causing a scene. But I tap the sleeping boy on the shoulder anyway, nudge him and ask if he’s all right. No one bothers to offer assistance and I feel angry as I have to ask, “Someone call a station attendant!”

But no one does. No one moves, except to look the other way.

8 minutes later – Hiyoshi Station. Passengers pouring into the train car, passengers streaming out. Everyone jostling for their favourite positions as furtive looks are cast my way. And then out of the blue, a 20-something female acknowledges me. She apologizes as she makes for the doors, says she can’t be late for work but she’ll call for help.

And I’m left in a moment that almost goes on forever…

Until a handful of station attendants appear like whirling dervishes. They scurry inside and methodically proceed. Passengers are ordered to clear the area, and I’m pushed to the side as they identify the sleeping boy and carry his body onto a stretcher. I remember the mobile and attempt to explain, but it’s ripped from my hand as they all whisk away.

In the end an empty train car, save me. Bloody fucking efficient, I think.

…as I feel the cross stares of those who’ve been delayed, inconvenienced by my interference.

Beware when doing good deeds.

Obstreperous invidious individuals.

Resizing Tokyo while art gallery hopping in Shin-Ochanomizu. The parks, markets, and prisons secluded in between. Secret tunnels at the bottom of wells – going down in buckets – ancient rust, historic mold. Hidden keys in stone.

Training in Third World hostage negotiations. Tricking politicians out of their public relations. Nameless faces behind electrified windscreens. The “Don’t Touch Me Nots” and “Stand in the Ways”. Mars under the moon tonight. They keep coming. They keep screaming. I can’t remember what I was for.

Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!

Mosquitoes bite and buzz and back again.

Memories of Amiga parties at Shakey’s Pizza with Goth girls in plaid skirts and Doc Martin boots. “I’m married,” she admitted, but that’s why she sent him on a beer run after inviting me home.

I’ll tell you about the devil that night, but right now I’ve got souls to wake.

I should have been tired…

…I should have felt like sleeping a generation.

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.

Slow moving rivers of people, families, and arm-locked couples meandering aimlessly in-and-out of restaurant-lined alleyways. Bicycles blocking entrances. Letters and numbers scrawled on walls like graffiti secret code.

I’m in a pub hidden on the second floor of a souvenir shop/massage parlour; barely a room that’s overrun with postcards, posters, and photo albums of a recently deceased national opera star. The scent of sandalwood incense carries thick in the air, but not nearly as thick as the different exchanges in as many different Asian languages competing to be heard.

I’m here drinking a beer while listening to a trio of squawking middle-aged women inaccurately regurgitating bits of trivia they obviously heard on a weekly entertainment show. Japancentric opinions conveniently thought up and packaged by television programming directors to be broadcast to the masses for their exact affair: instantly agreeable, inane conversation.

In time I’m also wondering what it is I’m actually doing here; suddenly acutely aware of feeling alone. Almost pathetic in my brooding, scribbling down these notes as another wave of sandalwood permeates the atmosphere. Eventually tuning in to the background music, Bob Marley’s “Natural Mystic”. Slowly, I begin to recall the song’s lyrics, extracting the words from some long lost memory of mine.

Reggae classics in Chinatown – Yokohama, Japan.

“Things are not the way they used to be…”

I finish my beer.

“I won’t tell no lie…”

This is how my night begins.