Author: Olavia Kite

Life used to be quite easy, in terms of likes and dislikes. I used to read whatever came into my hands, following nothing but my heart when I was to choose my next reading companion. I never took heed of big names in order to fall in love with their works, except for Homer. And I couldn’t care less if I simply didn’t like that which I should have adored. Maybe I was too young, maybe I wasn’t made for the big leagues, who knows. Reading, as well as writing and listening to music, was simply a passion — not a golden badge to wear and show off in front of your friends.

Suddenly, the truth was revealed to me: “these are the writers you must read,” “these are the songs you must hum,” “these are the poems you must recite,” “these are the movies you must watch.” Confessing an ignorance became something like stepping on somebody’s brand new carpet with muddy boots. Confessing a dislike made the mudstain permanent.

Where was I when the Basic Knowledge chip was implanted on everybody’s brains?

Am I from another planet, do I speak another language? for those names mean nothing to me, no matter how hard I try to figure them out. No, nothing…

But you know what, people? The more you point at the stains I leave, the harder I will step on that carpet you all dance on with your shiny ballet shoes.

And yes it hurts that I’ve got one less thing in common with you, but that’s how I was engineered. And I can’t help it at all.

I wrote a list of the characteristics that my perfect man should hold. I received some comments about it. While I was reading them, a strange feeling invaded me all of a sudden: the feeling that nobody ever would take my list seriously, that no human being in this country could ever take my words seriously, that I live in the absolute wrong place.

Since then, my smile has faded.

“Lauchan, 99% of the things suck, dakedo, let’s live for 1% of joy!”

Could anything ever give me a brighter gleam of hope?

It was the most amazing thing. A huge distance had been shortened, two sleeves of a sweater met when it was folded. He folded it. I could not see, but my right ear was suddenly filled with a noise I had only seen on tv. “Irasshaimase—!” again, and again, and again. A street market in Ueno. The real street market in the real Ueno in the real Tokyo in the real Japan in real time! The one and only love of my life standing in the middle of the hubbub, a hubbub I long to dive into… Could he picture my awestruck face? Could he picture the silence reigning in the dark living room while that street in the future was ever so lively? Nigiyaka… that’s the word for what I heard, for the mystery that leaked through the lines over the ocean way up on the mountains into my brain. Meanwhile, in the past, birds still dream of flying higher, water slides down the drain pipes, striking them with sounds that remind me of a steeldrum… Shizuka.

Some minutes away from now, birds will come back from their bluer skies, sit on cable spiderwebs, and start a conversation we tend to miss. Drowsy people will pour into a red bus, stuffing it with sneezes and hot breath. I will walk among my own kind of “irasshaimase.” Nigiyaka. He will ride a train into the rice fields that saw him grow. A familiar house will stand alone in the middle of a land that has belonged to them almost forever. The drone of crickets will whisper “oyasuminasai.” Shizuka.

You see us smiling; only will our hearts imitate our faces when our watches are set in the same time, when we stop living in a world of antonyms.