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Yurakucho Waiting for You

The night a heavy rain danced away. In front of Yurakucho Station. I have a memory of waiting for someone. But who it was — I can no longer recall. Still, one way or another, I was waiting for someone. Maybe I just don't want to remember. That might be all it is. Nothing but lies.

Looking back at my life, all I find are seasons when I wasn't properly working. Being unemployed is a kind of talent, and it's not as easy as people imagine when they envy it. It was probably sometime around then.

That day, a massive puddle had formed in the middle of Yurakucho. People walking around it. People still holding umbrellas even though the rain had stopped. Sparse foot traffic. Everything was doubled, reflected on the water's surface. Buildings, lights, people — everything was doubled.

Mirror images. But sadness was doubled and joy was halved — was it because I was tired? Carrying the seeds of fatigue, making my way through somehow. Faster than walking, slower than a car — and yet, briskly, the wheels turn. Take the person I was waiting for. Let me call them 'you.' If you could wander into the opposite world reflected in the puddle and simply disappear — that would be fine too. I search for you.

No matter how many years pass, the lottery stand right over there never gives me the jackpot — and yes, I was a cinephile, I used to dream of working at a film distribution company nearby.

You are one of the many people who pass through my life, this mobility that cuts through the wind, one of those we cross paths with, syncing as we go. Today too I am myself. But you are not yourself. You are the universe — multivalent, variable, existing everywhere. And yet — I am in Yurakucho. I came by bike today! But every time I ride the Keihin-Tohoku or Yamanote Line and come here, I feel like I remember you and that puddle. I see you.

You have no way of knowing that right now, at this very moment, I am making a work of art in the middle of the night in Yurakucho. Life is desperate. In an instant I learned programming to survive, then became unemployed again, and had barely ever set foot in a museum. And yet somehow I'm making art. I moved to Ogaki City in Gifu Prefecture — a place I had no connection to — and am researching how to read novels while riding a bicycle. Circles and circles of strong ego that easily tramples others' goodwill. And then a certain day in 2024, I came back here. The things I love have grown. And so have the things I hate. Even now, most things — including you — remain something I dislike.

Since then, I've changed so completely — as if every strand of genetic information in my body, my face, my nationality, everything has been replaced — I've become a different person. I'm SHOTA SHIMURA. Google me. The me from back then is inside that puddle. Isn't that right? Without some delusion like that, the nights are too hard to bear.

Through lonely nights bound by deep despair, through lightless mornings entranced by strong resignation, I never stopped writing. This is a mission, a fate, a calling — it was true ten years ago, and the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and today. So it will be true tomorrow, and the day after, and on the day I die.

Tonight, I ride my bicycle through the city. Mobile Literature. Bundles of thought rise and vanish in rapid succession. My bike is faster than a Ferrari. SUPERSONIC MAN OUT OF YOU. I lost you.

Everything sinks into memory! Let me count.

1. A weird sticker. 2. Hoppy. 3. Life's Theater. 4. A mysterious clown. 5. A manhole.

'Only while weaving words like this do I wish that you would be the happiest person on this earth.'

The work on display. A person passing by, unhurried — is that you too?

Excess, increasing entropy. The umwelt of a bicycle at speed. Racing through the realm of carnage. Are you there too?

I may not even be able to leave a scratch on your life. Filled with despair and madness, I sharpen and destructively transform the work. Simply existing brightens the city — everything is dramatic. I search for traces left somewhere. Marking time.

Devoting myself to living until I no longer know who I am or where I am — and it's not just you. If even the fact of being myself is slipping away, that too is absurd.

Ginza Young Carp

Everyone carries a heavy, lead-like solitude inside. From the south side of Kawasaki, but with an empty urban soul. And you — who always dutifully stopped at red lights — were no different. You're not still dragging yourself around like a wet puppy, are you.

You, the best student at university, were best friends with me, a slowpoke. I joined a company armed with a personal statement you'd written. I clocked in and out. The days when you worked, and I'd stop by the Ginza where you lived on my way home, are far away now. A thousand nights and more. When we're together now, we're still uneven. That's fine too, I suppose.

Sometimes I remember and come here. Stop by Starbucks. Get off the train, walk straight ahead, past the coffee shop hidden underground lit by orange light. Turn left there, walk along the road for a while. Turn right, and past a small park was the apartment building where you lived. Imagination runs away with me. That speed is faster than any bicycle.

The day I learned of your pain. I'll never forget it. I'm sorry — until then I thought you were invincible. The strongest. Are you still?

After work, at your place. Turning on the TV. The 2018 FIFA World Cup — the night of the final.

You groaned, fell, were wounded, became ragged, without hope, twisted, suffering, tormented by hours of despair as if morning would never come again. A machine that had lost its heart, moving its body, only laughing. Scrap!

I said 'France won 🇫🇷' and went to the convenience store. Same as today. Night in Ginza. Wandering around for a while. Mbappé finally transferred from Paris to Madrid, and you and I have both switched jobs a few times. Time goes on. You were on the radio, weren't you.

Because that's how it is. You, who could do anything without breaking a sweat. Me, the slowpoke. That pain of yours. I couldn't notice it. As your best friend, I still feel sorry about that. Thanks to you, I barely managed to survive — but was there anything I actually did for you? I wonder. It's embarrassing to say now, so instead I write words like a letter, call it fiction! dress it up as a work of art and make light of it. But I'm not writing any lies.

Congratulations. 🎉 The after-school classroom. Who'd have thought that you — running SWOT analyses — would become a father.

Nothing went according to plan. But that's good too, I think lol

Just wandering Ginza, the poems and stories I used to share with you. Do you remember them? I kept going without giving up — and when I counted, there were four summers when I wasn't working! That's the honest truth. Now I ride my bike. Maybe that's why. Twice as much as before passes me by.

It's been a while. I sing here. Well, to be precise, I'm writing. But I don't mind. Still praying, still offering. To you. To me.

Memory. Slice through it and sorrow peeks out. The accumulation is DRAMA. Maitreya's descent 5.67 billion years from now. Quo Vadis. Warhol and Jobs. Layered and ripened. An ambiguous white space that is neither black nor white. The energy of all and sundry is strong. Simply being alive is admirable. I am still nothing but strong subjects, continuing the pilgrimage, toward an uninhabited flea market. Tonight, I believe in the miracle of words. I think. There were nights I gazed into the infinite. Now I understand a friend's despair. I want to win even by foul means. Today too, life was the best.

Nihonbashi Stations Highway

Every time I cross the Nihonbashi River, I remember. Death is the counterpart of life. Two inseparable territories, forever rubbing against each other.

You, fresh out of surgery. I accompanied your rehabilitation, walking the Tokaido every weekend. Starting from the kirin statue, crawling like ants along National Route 1. Rest when the sun sets. The following week, take the train to where we left off and continue. From a certain end of spring to the end of summer, with the origin of the five provinces and seven roads at our backs, creeping along the blue road signs. All the way to Hakone hot springs. A half-baked, exposed-to-the-elements journey. ...

A twilight I've seen somewhere before. Whether I advance or retreat, the same scenery continues. A journey. Even now I dream of the end of a beginning and the beginning of an end. A longed-for view. I barely remember what we talked about, and even looking back at the photos on my iPhone I can't tell where they were taken. Some sea, some narrow path, displayed on a 5.85-inch screen. Where were they? Somewhere ahead, down this road.

A so-fucking-special world. We who toasted every second, fed on vast quantities of despair, and became who we are now. I think. On the brain. The years since then. I ride a bicycle, you bought a motorcycle. Different speeds. Now alone. Or maybe not quite.

Now that I think about it. As a child, I couldn't help wondering where you'd end up if you walked straight down the road in front of the house. Japan is an island nation, so if you go straight in any direction — north, south, east, west — you must eventually reach the sea. But back then, a mile away felt as distant as the South Pole or the North Pole.