It was my first night and we were hunting in vain and in the darkness for my bike I'd never seen, left in some place on the kibbutz-like university campus by an undefined friend. A guard approached with his torch: were we thieves? We weren't. We trudged away on foot to the apartment we were to stay in for a month. Or tried to.
Much of the area of Mitaka city is a suburban labyrinth of tiny houses with a veiny network of small alleyways bearing a constant stream of bikers and the occasional boxy car. We asked for directions in a faux 7-11 with a chicken logo and after intently studying a map found our destination.
Tokyo addresses are a code of numbers referring to sequentially dwindling areas of importance. Head backwards through this one:
1-29-17 Koganei, Higashicho, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo-to, Japan, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way, The Universe, Infinity
I drew a complex series of lines to represent the route. A tragically-mutilated spider. As we trotted past allotments, the occasional Coca-Cola vending machine, and strange dwellings boxed up and stacked against each other, the SILENCE was oppressive. Where were the people? I imagined scores of locals silently pressed up against screens behind closed walls. The heat and humidity were stifling. It was nothing like anything.
The charmingly noisy streets of Buenos Aires, with a fat man in any direction you look shouting affectionate insults at another fat man. The saturated and bubbling people mash of Thailand. These were all far away now. I slapped at my legs. Small, compact mosquitos feasted on fresh blood.
The apartment was a tiny, stifling cardboard box on stilts. The ceiling and the floor had little to keep them apart. A miniscule toy fan pretended to be doing something in the corner. The bathroom was a machine room with a hose. We lay on a futon gasping in despair. Is this life, I wondered?
The next morning we fled to the university to a splendid campus pad. Reborn in Cicada Land.
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