The stick dangles on a key chain. Swaying on my fingers, before my eyes. Something in me resents this. I want the next picture instead. I was in the middle of something there. The stick has a silver metal casing. Same size, same looks as a bullet. I think she wants to get my attention.
The work station accepts the tiny offering. Food for the electronic gods inside. The top of my desk is sticky. Dirt fights shadows in the gloom. The screen throws it ghostly light. The dirt is only fighting itself. The shadows are grime. My mind skips through them. Hopping from clear patches to clarity. She must feel my impatience. This will be the rest of the photos. Or maybe just one. One of all of her. I need to see her, need to know. I can’t go much longer without her image. My imagination is exhausted and fading. The photos last forever. Stuck to the wall by the window. A figure growing up. But only part of figure. It lacks depth and dimensions. Not hollow but not alive either. Light dancing two steps at a time. Not yet the whole routine. More rehearsal is required. My fingers tiptoe up the left leg.
Pause and turn at the stomach. Wandering across and treading water on the colours. Keeping afloat but not moving forwards. There is nowhere left to go right now. Blank wall above and right leg below. My fingers will creep down, they always do. It is a well-travelled path holding no surprises. The novelty is wearing off but promises more.
A new icon in the file manager. K drive available and open to visitors. One word title and unlimited potential. Somehow I knew we would go there eventually. Eight letters or four characters: Harajuku.
Fingers tapping mouse buttons, expanding files and horizons. One movie file; no pictures. No name, just numbers:
0.0 – 0.58 Black screen. Just words creeping out, fighting the traffic soundtrack. Her voice, young and vulnerable. It battles along with a purpose. There is a direction in her words. She is speaking to a lecture hall. To an audience of one.
“This is the prison yard, the showcase, the cathedral, the high temple of Japanese zeitgeist. A concrete plaza over a bridge beside a station in the most fashionable place on Earth: Harajuku. For five days each week it is home to transiting pedestrians, office workers and schoolchildren, but on weekends it becomes the inexplicable. This space should not be filled in this way, not in a society of suicidal work ethics, of conformity, of teahouse rituals. There should not be this freewill, this radical departure from the mainstream, this counter-cultural shock therapy playing in surround sound by the Yamanote Line. Just metres away is Yoyogi Park, home to both the dancing Elvises and the Meiji Jingu Shrine, where the souls of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken are enshrined. Harajuku is a Mecca of shopping and fashion, of anime and music, of religion and contemplation. It is here that East and West collide and breed, producing the children of the future world.”
I pause the recording. This does not sound like her. She’s reading from a script, not the heart. She is telling me things I know about. I have lived in Tokyo all my life. Does repetition give authority? Does it? Play.
0.59 – 1.19 “This is not about a place, Masa-kun, it is about people. Places are fixed, people have freedom to move wherever they need to go. We move from place to place and maybe take a little of each for ourselves, building and improving, growing inside as out. Some places offer more than most.”
Silence and black screen. File still running as seconds tick by. There are stories here, I can feel them. So many stories but my time is precious.
1.27-1.48 “Cultural phenomena are the world’s new insurgents. Forget terrorists creeping across midnight borders; witness the power and influence of the media and the internet. In 2004, an Australian man began a campaign in a shopping mall. In 2006 it hit YouTube and exploded. Now, it has made it to Harajuku.”
Just another item to be received. The crowd goes mild. The flow of ideas and cultures unabated. Filling up the islands, replacing the old ways. The before shots are in black and white. This new after image is technicolour. Matter-of-fact reporting as we succumb to the inescapable. The future is being recorded. We have little choice in the programming.
She sounds like a newsreader. That is a dangerous person to be. So much power and detachment. This is nothing like she should be. More words, hurried and almost apologetic. As if she has forgotten something important. An afterthought creating context after the image. They mean nothing without it.
1.48-2.25 “These, surely, are your people if ever there are to be any. They come here to be different, to stand out, to be admired for their courage. Homage is quickly snapped photos, is being asked to pose by fashion magazine snappers, is being on the other side of the camera for once. They might pop up on a news-stand in a foreign city, or just in the holiday slide shows and Facebook albums of the fat Western tourists who piggyback the consent given to the professionals. They are the suns rather than the moons for a change, and every hour of preparation becomes worthwhile. So many faces and looks to choose from, but I will start with the standout, the mass appeal candidate who could not have come from anywhere but here.”
Black screen again. Two words loom in white letters: “Pink Man”.
Now there is colour and life. Vision from the bridge. She describes what she sees. Doesn’t matter that I can see it too.
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