- We attend the same class. My seat offers a perfect view of his, and vice versa. He knows when I don’t want to answer the teacher, and I notice when he finally laughs at a common joke. However, it’s all the same as if we sat in different classrooms. Last night I ran into him at the cafeteria. “What a pleasant surprise”, he exclaimed with a wide smile. We ate together and talked with delight, as if the distance between us were soon to become, once again, kilometric.
- Today, for the first time, I saw a young shaven-headed Japanese man. I couldn’t help staring.
And I don’t feel like studying. However, much to my surprise, I don’t feel depressed at all in this weather. Perhaps it’s because a) it feels a lot like back home, b) this is not winter yet, and c) I slept really well last night.
Coffee/tea/hot chocolate and biscuits, anyone?
I like to ask you about things I already know over and over. I review your invariable answers, intact memories piling up against my window until they break free and force me to start a new collection, a new old question. So many of them have flown that now I find your echo written on the sky, on the leaves that fall, on a sudden inexplicable smile during the darkest of noons.
Over an oozy stream of nightly silence my eardrums vibrate to serene waves which once flowed from your sweet mouth. I’ve seen your still face on a screen; your eyes of quiet forest have crossed twilight and caressed my weary heart. Is this image enough to remember the feeling of a kiss?
I hear you—you see me moving from a morning which has not dawned for you yet. One day the sun will touch our foreheads from the same angle, and I’ll ask you something silly, like the possibility of rain or what happened to the fast food stand which used to be on that corner. Let words or lack thereof trickle then into the space between us. And when that space is no longer possible, let new sounds and sights shine away into a broken horizon, well over the indigo mountains, waiting to reverberate on the cold concrete wall of another lonesome morning.
I have about a week to take two extremely important decisions:
- Should I go see Billy Joel in concert this November?
- The answer is pretty much ‘yes’, I’m just waiting for some sort of push to get my act together and buy the ticket.
- Where am I heading for the winter holidays? I know I’ll spend a couple of days out of Japan, with or without company. My current destination options are:
- Thailand
- Singapore
- Korea
Shouldn’t you be thinking about more serious things, like how to become better at Japanese in order to pass the exams and what university to aim for?
We’re forced to think about that every hour in the hour, so shut up.
Who installed this inner voice in my head? Where does it come from, telling me I’m doing wrong when I’m not studying, scolding me for trying to have fun instead of doing what I’m supposed to do? What is it that I’m supposed to do, anyway?
Study, study, study, says the voice.
Well, whether you like it or not, I know how to do my stuff. And right now I’m getting my camera fixed in Shinjuku.
Man, there is so much to rant about,… is this why I’m kind of avoiding the blog? The fear of endless ranting… Endless…