SECOND

Saturday morning dawns, I think. Another tetra pack is folded, awaits binding. Three more needed for a brick. I lie on my futon, listening to the rustling. Tiny feet on the plasticised surfaces. It echoes throughout the room. Fills my ears with its randomness. The roaches scurry like the people far below. Hurrying through street markets and across roads. Towards the malls, those beckoning temples of worship. The roaches need the dark and the grime. Requirements for existence. The people need the security of the malls. Reassurance that they are not alone out there. No danger of decision-making here. Just let the brightest lights guide your way. You are not alone.

I often contemplate trapping one of the roaches. Imprisoning it with a glass. Maybe even smashing it with a shoe. The temptation is there, the desire to experience. Seeking power of control over another being. It is a feeling I have never experienced. But I can remember being that roach myself. Too many times. The thought sickens me. Becoming a monster doesn’t banish the others.

She returns with genkiness in her voice. Two feet, two purple and orange cotton socks. The static electricity shicks as she approaches. Her power crackles in the hallway’s chill air.

‘Good Morning, Masa-kun!’
It was.
Could still be if she turns and leaves.
But she won’t.

‘I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Mei-chan.’ Her voice bounces like a labrador puppy’s ears. It skips over each sound and syllable. Only the lightest touch of inflection on each. All bare feet on hot summer concrete. There is a playfulness that betrays her. Without even looking, I know. She won’t be resting on her feet. Tiny hopping from one to the other. Shick, shick, shick. The power is building, humming in the air. Who is she? Is she from one of the ministries. A drug company rep? Is she a freelancer saving the Dream? Someone must be willing to pay her enough? When will she try to lure me out? Back into that world. I have worked so hard to escape it.

“My hobbies is going to shopping and listening music. My favourite bands is Bump of Chicken, SMAP and Morning Musume. I live in Shimokitazawa. I have one brother and sister. I like PARCO shopping and Shibuya One Oh Nine Building.”



Her voice bounces in all the wrong places. Like she went to English class somewhere but not for long enough. One thing I can do well, almost without effort. I never knew why, just accepted it. She must have learned when it was fashionable. Maybe it still is, nothing would surprise me. Except why she is speaking English to me. So it can be our little secret? So my parents cannot understand what we say? Trying to build a bond with me. It takes a lot more than broken Engrish. That shrink tried for hours. Not the universe building one. He gave up quickly. Another one; a rising star from Todai University. He had studied overseas, had learnt about empathy. The most un-Japanese of concepts.

“Tell me how you feel.”
I feel warm, can we open the window?
“That must be hard for you.”
Not as hard as it will be for you.
“You are not alone in this.”
Obviously not if you are here.
“Do you want to talk about it.”
Do I get a choice?
“I am here for you.”
Your choice, not mine.
“I am happy to just listen.”
To the sound of silence?



“I want to share your pain.”
Pass me a nail and turn your cheek this way.
“You can say anything you like to me.”
How about “Leave me alone”?
“You can trust me.”

I trust everyone who I’ve just met that looks like a scruffy academic with a receding hairline who sweats minutely every time I stare at him.

I marked them down as he said them. Every little cliché a point on his score. One hundred and sixty-seven in five hours. Going slowly mad as he repeated them. Him that is, not me. I insisted that we talk about his problems first. Anyone who would volunteer to spend hours talking to me must have more issues to deal with than even I do. He was playing tennis with a brick wall. No matter how hard he hit, the ball came back faster each time. I told him that I thought there might be a chance for me if I could find someone to talk to. He perked up, like an unbelievably gorgeous women had picked him out from all the other sweating losers in a bar and was genuinely interested in him. He sat up straighter, almost balancing on his hind legs like a dog waiting for a choc-coated treat.

I told him that that person would have to be available to talk to me at any time, day or night, and that I had a terrible fear of rejection and would certainly spiral into an irreversible decline if my calls ever went unanswered. His eyes were salivating, maybe he was seeing his head at the top of medical journal articles diagnosing the true cause of the social withdrawal phenomenon sweeping Japan. Public acclaim would follow, tenures, prizes, perhaps even a regular slot on a TV panel show as an informed commentator. He couldn’t write down his work, home and keitai numbers fast enough, and left in the highest of spirits, dreams of a book deal with a publisher no doubt filling his mind. I didn’t call him. He is probably still waiting, trying to convince himself that his ticket to fame and a career as a tarento will ring any moment.

She is still talking in the distance, listing her favourite chocolate bars, rattling off preferred holiday destinations in a measured cadence that is never interrupted by an intake of oxygen. Her intonation is weak and misplaced, and for all the bubbles in her voice her message becomes monotonous, like a phone without voicemail that no-one answers.

Ring ring.
“I love world peace.”
Ring ring.
“My favourite player baseball is Ichiro.”



Ring ring.
“I like eating barbecue with my friends at cherry blossom.”



Ring ring.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
Ring?
“Why won’t you talk to me?”

I try to blank my mind. Give her nothing. But she can hear me thinking even that. See you next time. And she is gone.