i haven't dreamed of flying for a while

by taichi yamada.

i miss japanese literature - the quaint sentences, descriptive nuances, all painting a city of lost souls, of quiet efficacy on the surface and wanton loves on the inside.

and sunday night before we embark on yet another week. i'm not feeling the dread that used to envelope me on sundays last year. neither am i feeling the flighty joy of embarking on yet another week of challenges. life is and will be as it will be. sundays a year ago - bright skies and hot afternoons. how the thought of work would pass a damper on my soul and how my tired self sought sleep in the afternoons. and of how the street lights would already be bright by the time i woke up. and along with that, a sense of losing grip on time, on life itself, and perhaps, on myself.

but i digress, as always i do.

i don't want tomorrow to come because it will mean that the magical weekend has come to a close. that magical weekend where i felt alive. am i?

of you.

for want of words, we stare at the menu. nuances, i see how light bounces off the plastic surface. what used to be a pristine white, now lightly smudged with matted oil prints. - per 100grams, per serving - my mind searches for what can be said, words to fill up the empty spaces between, but i come up with nothing. i summon enough courage to look at you, you whose eyes are search your menu as well. i stare at the tinted glass windows and wonder if the skies are really grey. i look around me and spy - executives clinking their wine glasses, red wine on a Monday afternoon, giggly girls in a corner, a waitress with bad skin balancing empty bowls on a tray. the words - this moment is your life - come to mind. oh that the posterity of each moment could be captured, blended into immaculate perfection in mind's eye. i look at the clean plates in front of me, chopsticks and spoon placed equidistant from the plates and wonder what good it would be trying to grasp fleeting moments of being tongue-tied?

i sit on the cold, hard seats. on a night like this, the night sky could only be pitch-black. no clouds would deign to traipse across the sky for this very night. your form trudges out of the gate, just as i have envisioned, and you sit beside me without a word. my head tilts to the right where it rests on the soft of your neck. your neck is softer than i imagined, your shoulders slightly sloping. no words need transpire.

the empty feeling on the train - i took a seat in the middle, flanked by empty seats. ahead i watch the lifeless view of the black of the tunnels flash across the windows, my form staring back at me without emotion. of course i could stare at myself forever and wonder if it were really me. and i was to cross my bridge of dreams again, but inertia let loose of me and drew me to the bright lights of the city.

how do i condense tonight into words? it is impossible. swinging my arms, delirium.

i felt completely nothing when i saw you, and this aroused apathy for myself. for what joy would there to be had in life if nothing could possibly stir me?
i felt nothing.

but wait. wasn't it the most natural thing in the world? to whiz into a bookstore on a lonely night and to see you there, flipping through a book that i would expect you to? and didn't it seem - it wasn't serendipty, it wasn't chance, nor luck. it was just something that would have had happened. something that didn't warrant rejoicing because i knew when i left that i would see you again.

i told you that i was so tired of being tired. and rested my head on your shoulders again.

i try and try to remember the exact moment that i set eyes on you.

can you have a sandwich? i'll have my puff and we'll look at each other with glimmers in our eyes and we'll go up to the stone benches and eat in silence. people-watch.