Scene 1　Not Yet Words

 

 

 

Scene 2　From Underground

 

SHIon

See? Just an empty shell with its heels slipped out. Okotsu to ne, okotsu to ne.

 

Chiaki

An impulse to hang a softly woven purple kimono in an underground hollow, inside the ribs.

 

Mina

My empty shells begin to overlap all at once

 

Chiaki

On the way back from behind, I search for you, wanting to catch sight of the slender shadow of where you have gone. Buried away.

 

Kohei

A silver sun glints on the riverbank, and I feel the melancholy of the Sumida River, flowing relentlessly, indifferent to everything.

 

SHIon

My body, though it encroaches little by little through random movements, cannot reach the Sumida River, blocked by an underground fortress.

 

Seb

As though I had never even held my own sides, as though there had never been a will I could call my own.

 

Kohei

Oyoyo, oyoyo, botoke. Four or five crabs pass through the hollow within me. Delicately, with a faint clatter, I can just barely hear the sound of crab bones from within my own bones.

 

Seb

"It does not decay, but disperses like a fractal — remaining fragmented, yet continuing to move ever so slightly"

 

Kohei

The ground of this bodily cave is soaked in purple water. Someone sits there, facing away, swaying like a small flame. Somehow, that someone feels like the eyeball I had when I was alive. The sound of dripping water comes from nowhere. Welcome to the universe of my imaginary ribs.

 

Chiaki

Microorganisms slowly permeate me. The dry rustle of ants' footsteps. Roots that, before I realize it, have quietly wrapped themselves around me. Within a faint warmth, there is the happiness of being moved by something that is not myself.

 

Seb

"It never came back, did it?"

 

SHIon

I can no longer tell where the boundary lies between seeing and not seeing.

 

Kohei

Across the Sumida River, there are moments when I sense a kamaitachi-like edge in the gap between the floating clouds and the earth beyond. Sometimes, in that instant, I feel an indescribable anguish.

 

Chiaki

With only the slightest tension in my arms, my body gradually caves in, like collapsing rubble. Yet in the faint space along my back drifts a scentless cherry-blossom katabira. Even beneath the earth, I can still imagine the cherry blossoms.

 

SHIon

Lips drawn as a single line. Okotsuki, okotsuki, okotsuku, okotsuchi, kotsuchi, kotsuchi, tsuchi, tsuchi. A gentle road, heard on the way back from behind.

 

Seb

"Impulse is like a single bacterium in a cell suddenly saying, “GoiGoi.”

 

Chiaki

Sensing the surface of my body, I slip out through my hunched back and beyond my body itself. The bliss of leaving my body, even beneath the earth. The self upon the surface quietly watches its own body with the eyes of a mole. Perhaps this is love.

 

Kohei

When the decaying leaves begin to move, their shadows create the illusion of smoke rising. A quiet sense that something is gently lifting.

 

Mina

A richly diagrammed fermentation. How profound the scent of bacteria is. It breaks down all manner of things—the scent at the source of life on Earth. It is ceaselessly writhing. This is where the happiness of my being here resides.

 

 

 

Scene 3　The Emergence of Kotodama

 

Chiaki

My shoulder sounded. On the evening when Hekishikoshiki Nishikishikishikishima no Miyakojima slipped through the Four Seasons, the me coming toward me arrived from beyond the sea.

 

Kohei

Uaowei, uaowei, uaowei. The left side of my waist is trying to obey the space indicated by an arrow reading “that way.” Hokken Hokkyō Hora-Hora-Gami.

 

SHIon

Sūkon Trararikkuwē. Yū Gong Gong. Bōehhen Henhenrū. Sūkon Trararikkuwē.

 

Seb

Wentsu-geology, the spring wind. Zakku-zazakku-zazakku, Baranbo Rental.

Lame-lame Harris Flamentale Anthology.

 

Mina

Sacramento Yellow Somatic Mica, Birkin Impossible, Cyber Side. The S-curve of my left eye writhes, left unattended. Woah—Woah, Birkin.

 

 

 

Scene 4　The Classroom

 

Mina

What memory do you carry with you?

 

SHIon

My home was a place that smelled of iron and machine oil. At midday, the stamping press echoed in a steady rhythm—gashan, gashan. I was always surrounded by the smell of oil.

 

Mina

SHIon, A wind like a great serpent coils around me, from behind my waist to the left front of my chest. With a faint up-and-down motion of the neck, I sense the endless duration of the great serpent passing through.

 

Chiaki

Then, SHIon, Then, when Kohei reads your memory and it is taken away from you, do you feel as though something is falling upon you?

 

SHIon

What I can recall, even more faintly, is walking along the Sumida embankment with my grandfather holding my hand on a warm spring day.

 

Mina

SHIon, My body, too, begins to show signs of slowly transforming in parallel into the great serpent. My hips begin to sway from side to side; the toes of my left foot become the serpent’s head and flick out a tongue.

 

Chiaki

SHIon, what happens to you when you lose your subjectivity?

 

Kohei

I think the cherry blossoms were in bloom.

 

Mina

But SHIon, But only for an instant. Every part of the body called “me” begins to respond.

 

Chiaki

SHIon, what words come out at that moment?

 

SHIon

Only then was there no smell of oil. His palm was full and soft, perfectly matching the gentle warmth of spring.

 

Mina

There seems to be something here like a mysterious smoke. Is it steam rising from the earthen floor? Smoke from the Kozukappara execution grounds? Or the mist that occasionally settles in?

 

SHIon

Part of the opposite bank shimmered like a heat haze.

 

Chiaki

How are you now, as a result of the memory that was taken from you?

 

Mina

Together with that steam, a transparent great serpent seems to materialize—a vision. I cannot shake the feeling that something is always rising from the earthen floor.

 

Chiaki

As Kohei reads it, he receives that memory as a lived sensation and implants a new memory within himself.

 

Kohei

Yes!

 

SHIon

And I sat with my grandfather, who was smiling without saying a word, and we looked across to the opposite shore.

 

SHIon

The river is over there, isn't it?

 

Seb

"There is a memory connected to what I said yesterday"

 

Mina

Sometimes, don't you feel a kind of warmth there? Like, the moment you step into that corner, there's just a faint trace of warmth.

 

SHIon

Isn't that what it is?

 

Seb

"There is a memory connected to what I said yesterday"

 

SHIon

Don’t we seem kind of like we’re mirroring each other? Mirroring is like a mirage.

 

Chiaki

Seb, The sense of value gradually becomes a slowly flowing wind—the comfort of lingering, of being sluggish. While the area around the stomach is being gently pulled upward, beneath the navel there is a hollow space where cotton candy seems to be spinning. Your casual hair, as if trying to conceal its intention to spring upward, is attempting to move toward the left. At the door located in the left hamstring, there is the presence of that old man, and I am smiling as I watch his back. The right ankle is moving while dangling a wooden geta sandal.

 

Seb

"Does “ki ga muku” mean that the mind turns once again toward something — consciously reorienting itself and facing in that direction?"

 

Kohei

But even at the very top of the Skytree, don't you feel that there's something?

 

Mina

Whenever we talk about someone, I find myself thinking that someone is watching me from that gap.

 

Seb

"As if traces of the past still lingered somewhere within the floor."

 

Mina

Looking at Asakusa across the river from here, doesn't it somehow feel like a little variety store from the '90s?

 

Kohei

Variety shops mean Harajuku.

 

Seb

"But when it comes to Harajuku and this side of Sumida, Harajuku and Sumida somehow feel more fitting together than Harajuku and Asakusa, don’t they?"

 

Mina

SHIon, The question of staring. The question of staring. The question of staring. The question of staring. The question of staring. Toward what keeps slipping away, everything grows hazy.

 

SHIon

Maybe the backstreets of Kita-Harajuku and Sumida are alike.

 

Chiaki

Those little variety shops are gone now, but along the storefronts of old Harajuku there used to be colorful yellow buckets and things like that, didn’t there?

 

Kohei

Chiaki, A gentle warmth clings to my back from that corner and plays with the bones of my back. It is not exactly itchy; it is as though the space behind my back flickers and shimmers, sensing a blinking so bright it feels like the ceiling light at dusk.

 

Mina

From above my head, the vast surface of a night sea draws near—toward the depth of moving upward, toward the ceiling. The water’s surface comes to rest upon my head, and the waves reach the space between my eyebrows. On the verge of paralysis, I am guided by something like the bobbing head of a turtle—something like an endless, unknowable love.

 

SHIon

I liked swaying as I walked along that narrow road. And in that feeling of simply enjoying walking—suddenly…

 

Chiaki

Like the time, in the warm spring weather, when my grandfather held my hand and we walked together along the Sumida embankment?

 

Kohei

Chiaki, All at once, a pom-pom ball fell from the mezzanine. Then my face became parallel, as though nothing had happened, and before I knew it, moss began to grow on my left knee.Yet, regardless of my will, the moss created a universe fifteen centimeters wide. Every surface of my skin began breathing together with the atmosphere of Sumida.

 

Mina

SHIoni, suddenly, something slipped away. The itch in my left hand sharply intensified, and through that itch I could feel my bones. My mouth opened on its own, regardless of my will.

 

SHIon

I seem to have a habit of connecting the slightly shadowed darkness of Kita-Harajuku with Sumida, no matter what.

 

Chiaki

Do you feel a road here? See—you were walking parallel to that ceiling, weren’t you? I simply cannot forget the smell of oil from my grandfather’s body.

 

Seb

"I know, I know — Sumida does feel kind of dark, doesn’t it?" “Let me spread both hands out parallel like this. The eyes move at a speed of 0.7 meters per second. Hahaha, the head is coming. Becoming conscious of the head turning once again, toward that side…”

 

Kohei

That darkness in Sumida carries a quiet melancholy. It's always a place where willow trees belong.

 

Kohei

There was a time when my grandfather stood for hours at the entrance to the factory. Of course, his face was stained with oil. And yet, only his eyes looked like those of a man in his twenties. Perhaps it seemed that way because, that day, they weren't as covered in oil. The spring wind was blowing gently then, too. As though the eyes on my back are watching that very moment.

 

Mina

Seb, The shape of the character ‘mo’ brushed against my ribs. At the tip of my right hand, a gesture of questioning begins, and my chin is lifted upward with a  blank, puzzled look. The fingertips of both hands tremble faintly from side to side.

 

SHIon

Whenever I talk about someone, I start to feel like someone is watching me through that gap over there.

 

Chiaki

As if some trace of sound were still lingering somewhere on the floor.

 

Mina

In an instant, both knees come together, the pelvis tilts, and bubble-like foam rises upward from the  right shoulder. At the same time, the knees separate and the left foot flexes. The upper body shifts, and the entire body begins to tilt. Everything is released with gravity through both hands. Quietly, I begin to feel the ground.

 

Seb

“Places like that—dark places where a relationship with the location itself still hasn’t quite emerged—somehow tend to have the best little variety shops, don’t they?”

 

Mina

Is it the small variety　store? At the corner.

 

SHIon

Kohei's sobbing face slips into the pit of my stomach. The ground beneath my feet becomes one with countless sobbing faces. From there, roots quickly begin to grow, covering my ribs. Yet there is something unsettling precisely because none of them are smiling. Then, unexpectedly, one face suddenly leaps out, leaving behind a line that evokes the movement of a grasshopper. My face suddenly begins to sway, becoming strangely light. "Ha." My legs begin to move endlessly, against my own will. As if trying to assert a will of their own—or perhaps to stop themselves—my hips rise and fall again and again. From the fingers of both my hands, Kohei's face suddenly emerges.

 

Kohei

Don't you think there's something strangely similar about a little roadside shrine and a neighborhood variety store?

 

Chiaki

Minacchi, Above my knees, the wind grass sways. I let myself drift with it. Both elbows adhere to my ribs, and that contact makes me aware of the bones beneath them. From those ribs, something like bubbles rises, urging its way toward my throat and the tip of my mouth. To make sure I am truly here, I firmly stretch my mouth wide to the sides and swallow. For an instant, my face begins to okotsuki, and I know once again that this was a classroom. My elbows loosen, and from the fingers of my left hand, signals begin to radiate in every direction. Guided by the slightest direction of my fingers, each part of my body begins to assert itself as an individual.

 

Mina

Have you ever felt that? Maybe that's what it feels like.

 

Chiaki

Those little Jizō statues, wearing red bibs, hidden away in narrow back alleys. They somehow carry the same feeling as the quiet, shadowy little variety stores of Kita-Harajuku.

 

Mina

Even Seijun Suzuki's Zigeunerweisen from the 1980s carries the same presence for me—the feeling of a little shrine hidden in a back alley, and those small variety stores in Kita-Harajuku.

 

Seb

"I feel like this locality and those things together create a kind of unique culture"

 

SHIon

There are so many crabs in the film, aren't there? It feels as though those crabs appear whenever something is deeply felt. I wonder what that feeling is. For some reason, a wrinkled face and a sobbing face have become inseparable to me. They always make me think of Kohei's face.

 

Mina

Those little Jizō statues with their red bibs and the sudden appearance of the crabs somehow feel the same to me. Both seem directly connected to the earth, as though they are being drawn toward the ground. And then there are those moments when, all at once, the light in a room suddenly changes.

 

Seb

"When the crabs appear, does Umewaka also drift around this area?"

 

Kohei

It is not that Umewaka is there because the crabs appear. Rather, the emergence of the crabs calls forth Umewaka's presence. In that moment, Umewaka begins to rise, as though he were somewhere nearby.

 

Mina

Somewhere along the line between Harajuku and Sumida lies Jinbōchō. Jinbōchō is filled with bookstores. The excess of consumption in Harajuku, and the shadowy quiet of Kita-Harajuku. Jinbōchō feels like a place where countless memories have accumulated, while Sumida, perhaps because of its many canals, has the atmosphere of a place where things carried by the current eventually drift ashore.

 

Kohei

When I think about Tokyo's topography, I feel there was an inevitability to the rise of the massive Higashi-Shirahige Apartment complex. Consumption. The accumulation of memory. And Sumida, where countless memories drift ashore. It is also a place where so many things continue to accumulate.

 

Seb

"Drifting and drifting, endlessly continuing to drift, slowly streaming farther and farther, while at the same time drifting toward us"

 

Chiaki

It feels as though time has become too dense. I feel like becoming a little more empty.

 

 

 

Scene 5　The Café

 

SHIon

We went to a café yesterday, didn't we?

 

Kohei

Maybe we talked like that.

 

SHIon

How about putting your feet together at the café?

 

Mina

A sudden urge to stand up from the chair and watch the people passing outside.

 

Chiaki

You know, this feels pretty good too.

 

Seb

“Ah—let me try saying it. From the intersection.”

 

Mina

Turning around... it's kind of like what we did yesterday, isn't it?

 

SHIon

This?

 

Kohei

I know. I know.

 

Chiaki

That the bob-haired woman at the Mukōjima Post Office was a trainee.

 

SHIon

Sit down, all by yourself.

 

Kohei

Inhales as if the breath were freezing.

 

Mina

A sudden thought. Shirushiru.

 

Chiaki

When you followed me.

 

Seb

Maybe it was the smiling old man at Horai-ken.

 

Mina

Slowly lifts herself up, then opens her mouth wide without expression.

 

SHIon

Were you sitting by the window over there?

 

Mina

Do you know what it means for nostalgia to be wrapped in plastic wrap, for the red curtains to dissolve into one another?

 

Chiaki

Within the happiness of a zucchini that casts no shadow, the impulse of a blue corrugated metal roof ripples.

 

Kohei

Try placing your feet parallel while you're sitting in the chair. Turn your face toward that corner, and lift your shoulder just once. You know how a cucumber in rice bran pickles sometimes seems to recover?

 

SHIon

Try walking while drawing yourself backward. See? The air begins to howl, and my body starts flowing from above down toward the ground. Crab, crab, crab... walking like a crab.

 

Seb

“My head is talking. My head is talking.My head is talking. Shh, shh, shh—the aluminum foil is talking. A half-eaten raspberry is nice. Don’t you think that the moment you say ‘raspberry,’ a little bit of thought slips in? It feels like there’s some kind of void-like space beyond that.”

 

Kohei

We went to the café yesterday, didn't we? We went... and then returned. It's as though only the part in between is left.

 

Chiaki

You stood up from the window over there and looked this way. You were looking from that window, too. From below. From Nakajima Store, too. It's as though only your gaze is still here.

 

Mina

Do you know that feeling when you move your right shoulder and it gives a little click? The moment the smell of grilled horse mackerel drifted through the air, I found myself taking shelter from the rain beneath a great butterbur leaf. Perhaps there is still a part of me watching.

 

Kohei

To leave the yellow, heart-shaped stain in someone's care. The cherry blossoms were in bloom across the school grounds, and curfew, they said, had become completely absorbed. Then, all at once, it seemed the medaka in the aquarium had been invited from the Taj Mahal.

 

SHIon

The White Rose cabaret was Erika Toda, wasn't it? When I wandered through the back streets, a dandelion was wearing a banana skirt in a small, shadowy alley. Lingering by the roadside—as a gesture.

 

Chiaki

When the engine of the green smoke was switched off, I lost myself. Only a face emerged from an aluminum mandarin orange. The shimmering flutter of carp streamers in May. Hold on, please.

 

Mina

The sturdy line of a cabbage. Shirahige Home Run Bar. Sign, sign. Slip through over there, slip through over here, slip through clearly—and when I try slipping right through. Poko—relax. Only the jaw remains in the future.

 

Chiaki

There are times when the drawing paper floating in midair and being peeled away betrays the reliability of “time and time” from the following day approaching my back, and comes to cover me. On an evening when I trudge along a dotted line, I look anew at the act of writing. I look anew at the act of writing. I look anew at the act of writing. When a photograph floats up flat, I watch the Kamurieri inside my chest drawing a diagram of Murimuri Ōmu. An arbitrary memory of an insect bite becomes glycogen—Omurierio Māru philosophy.

 

 

 

Scene 6　Melancholy Sumida

 

Mina

How often do you look toward the opposite shore? And when you went down the slope, you walked with tiny, tottering steps.

 

Chiaki

That feels like heading toward the wetlands.

 

Seb

“But somehow, I still end up feeling the warmth of spring”

 

Kohei

But somehow, Sumida is melancholy.

 

SHIon

The warmth of spring, the melancholy of Sumida, and a rabbit beneath the willow?

 

Mina

Every day, without asking, I carry on a conversation with you. But the instant the conversation ends, it becomes an object, peeled away and erased by the waves of the Sumida River.

 

SHIon

Looking toward Kozukappara from here in Mukōjima, I have the impression that the river is forever flooding, and that in the wetlands things are not so much being reborn as drifting things being slowly absorbed into the ground and the surface of the water. What is the difference between over there and here?

 

Chiaki

And yet, while floating on the river, a familiar group from a vision is coming toward us in a half-crouch.

 

Seb

"Beyond lies a darkness that evokes death"

 

Kohei

For what purpose are they coming toward us?

 

Mina

A peculiar wind, like a gathering of winds, swirls; at certain moments, when it overlaps with the climate, it comes toward us.

 

Chiaki

Sometimes smoke rises. We sit cross-legged, lower our heads, and wait. The wind passes through our backs, dodges us, and enters our bodies from behind, balancing them.

 

SHIon

In a sense, this is a place of “hare,” while over there is “ke”; through changes in the weather, they circulate without end.

 

Seb

The Sumida River as that boundary?

 

Mina

And yet Umewaka died on the opposite shore, crossed the Sumida River, was buried at Mokuboji, enshrined, and now rests here as a place of memorial.

 

Chiaki

The mother crossed the Sumida River—the boundary—and arrived in this land of “hare.”

 

Kohei

In the marshlands, I feel as though countless cocoon-like forms, barely retaining their shape, are floating.

 

SHIon

A woman’s voice can be faintly heard—from beyond four imaginary doorframes, slightly open over there. I cannot tell what emotion it carries.

 

Mina

The impulse to go. The impulse not to go. Between the two, because nothing happens in the end, a transparent, jagged triangular gas of air begins to emerge. Along with those bubbles, I wonder whether my face should become flat. My body becomes transparent, and newspapers begin to cling to it, swaying.

 

 

 

Scene 7　The Blackboard

 

Kohei

Why do I keep writing on the blackboard without ever stopping? Vibrations from the body release more and more words.

 

Chiaki

Between the blackboard and the body is a blank space, like the narrow gap between a duck’s feet and the surface of the water at the instant the duck takes flight. I feel that this blank space may be regulating language and the body.

 

SHIon

The instant I moved my hand farther away from the blackboard, the words became distant, almost formal—taking on an entirely different sense of distance.

 

Seb

“The moment I turned my back to the blackboard, accumulated memories began rising from my back, like countless spores floating up into the air.”

 

Kohei

Against my own will, I am seized by the impulse to fall. Just when the impulse has almost subsided, I suddenly begin to fall. A body that cannot be adjusted, acting against the will.

 

Chiaki

Is this at least a form of resistance against the hard object of the floor, so that the body may long for objecthood and transform?

 

Seb

“Anyway, I try changing locations until something like particles begins to be released from my body. Falling at the same speed as objects, the object as flesh sometimes smiles toward me.”

 

Chiaki

How many times have I fallen? My legs moved as though octopus tentacles were rapidly pulling free of the ground. My upper body, like the turning neck of a grey heron, responds in every direction to the many signals arriving from around me.

 

Mina

Why did the mother cross by boat from the darkness of the opposite shore and make her way to Umewaka’s mound?

 

Chiaki

How does absence continue to be generated within the present?

 

 

 

Scene 8　A Door Slightly Ajar

 

Mina

I happened to witness the vague intrusion of a cricket through a slightly open door. A faint liveliness drips just a single drop of vanilla essence. My body became a sheet of paper, seeing through an invisible front. A subtle suggestion drifting from shaved ice scented with cool air. A one-story house where no one lives—simply existing. An abandoned game of amidakuji, discarded because no one could understand the result. A psychological battle between wood shavings spreading throughout space. Words that leave no trace, rustling like bamboo grass. To laugh or not to laugh—the ventilation shaft where that gap is fading away. U-words. Sa-words. Na-words. A blinking body of language. Walking the Twilight Zone along a spider’s thread that could snap at any moment. The inevitable dialogue between spoons. Imagining the skin on my back beginning to molt, I simply count the number of bones. Am I myself, or am I an object? Because I cannot fully become an object. Jellyfish Hera Hera, Yukuhaka to Yukuhō... I exhale. Though no one is waiting, I stand leaning against the door. I blow my breath aimlessly. Nothing responds. I laugh on purpose, and realize that it is I who is laughing.

 

 

 

Scene 9　Perhaps Umewaka

 

Chiaki

The bone at the back of my neck begins asserting itself like an Ohmu from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. My head has drooped. The reality of having drooped. The eyes in that hanging face begin slowly rotating. The fingers of my right hand begin moving as though speaking.

 

Kohei

Wo-hendāra himahiru Himalaya—the sensation of spring skin growing young again. Wind slipping through the skin as it passes. My shoulders are making sounds. My shoulders are making sounds. A veil of iPS cells passes through my heart. Uaowei, uaowei, uaowei. My right calf senses an unpleasant space called one-fifth, and it slowly begins to dissolve. Gikko Gitan Batta, Banbara Baran.

 

Seb

“What happened to the lion in the afternoon?” “Beneath the swaying tin roof, there is pale blue soil.” “Try feeling that there is a meadow inside your folded fingers.”

 

Mina

The androgyne of my face laughed. Sacramento Yellow Somatic Mica, Birkin Impossible, Cyber Side. The S-curve of my left eye writhes, left unattended. Woah—Woah, Birkin. From the summit of the unknown above my head, Engelgat Yukikaze becomes a faint warmth: Twilight Helmet.

 

SHIon

I can hear it in Sumida—the character “Za,” arranged in a perfectly ordered, cascading sequence. Garagan Gengorō. Suicide Seaside “J,” “J,” “J,” “J,” “J.” From in front of me: blow, blow, blow. Korementar Mensology.

 

Chiaki

Drawn by the force of a boomerang from the blue sky above Mukōjima Post Office, toward the summit curve of the Arctic Circle—Magnagaru Maguhata Wanchīgōne. It is coming, it is coming: a bear sticks out its backside and comes toward us, walking backward. When I remember peeling away the lion of Orion: Kitakita Kitagaeru, Ūrara Rinrin Phosphorescent Swarm.

 

Kohei

A gap-bag spilling into the mountain road at dusk dangles behind me as it follows—Orange Syndrome. Sitting down: “I’m off for a bit,” and London Boots are lined up with supplementary pairs—Walker Walkshin Survival Assample.

 

Chiaki

My shoulder sounded. On the evening when Hekishikoshiki Nishikishikishikishima no Miyakojima slipped through the Four Seasons, the me coming toward me arrived from beyond the sea. Ha, ha, ha—the road is walking. The fish are walking. The island is walking. Stars cling to me. U-Land, Gorgon Gold Gonzodāra.

 

SHIon

Ambassador Hyucop Greeting in my right ear. The eraser rang. After the grasshopper of condensation on the glass fell—Bling-Bang-Bang-Born, Boyoyo~Born, Bolo-Bolo-Baw. Here it comes: an inverted-triangle Holo-Mexico Ecological Tin Roof—Schumacher, Zambrano, Ringo Starr Juice—and at last the Sumida Hundred-Flowers Honey Project. The more time chews, the wider the road becomes; bees pour out of my mouth—Wakku Warasan Rolling Method. Bees, bees, bees. Kyaran, Kyuran, Churan, Juran, Bungalow. The technique of being there, the technique of not being there, the technique of not looking, the technique of playing, the garlic technique—Bungalow Road, Low Side. During the five hours that have passed, the four doors of uncertainty open and close. Behind those doors, a rhinoceros beetle is watching me.

 

Seb

“I step inside the Snow-White whisper. From the applicant of the shining windmill, a sly grin spills out — warawaki warawaki warawaki — Wonder Thunderbird. Ringing ears, flashes, karakara, kageru, a lingering ringing sensation.”

 

Mina

Witch Grasshopper, slipping cleanly through. Moonlight Record, Bandara Basabasa. Myonghyeon-Mii is moving slowly. Ha ha ha ha—the frontier of emptiness. Modaijini, Nakajima of the sea hail.

 

Chiaki

Do not give up on what lies ahead. The farther you go, the more it changes—unchanging at the moment of change: Okimokimiko, Rakko Hendorocks. Oh, oh, oh. Still walking along Rakan Hayannon Street: Okimokimiko’s Zipper First.

 

Mina

The detached stroke of a single hiragana “hi,” fallen in a corner of the roadside weeds, is sinking into the ground of the wetlands. Tachibana Laundry comes into view. Okimokimiko too—saudade, Bangladesh, Sarugenshu, Burning Love Love Love.

 

Kohei

A transparent velvet morning upon the surface of the Sumida River—Larilolex, Youth Livie. The waves at the pier draw the distance between us closer. Yet somehow, I still cannot confirm that it is me. Yet somehow, I still cannot confirm that it is me. Yet somehow, I still cannot confirm that it is me.

 

SHIon

I slip through the waves in transparent velvet. The feeling of slipping through: bonjiri Essential Backup Dancer, Horoscorpio. Number One of that imaginary Gurrit shortcut stands motionless. Horohoro Parakeet—Uptown, Midtown, Downtown, Tan-Tan Cool Down.

 

Seb

“Pulled by the Human Court, the parallel lines of two corridors, Beriogorose. From this angle, the focus-seesaw startles me. Griggle Grand Term, the prismatized parts of the body. Once again, I ask myself: Sedebasetsu.”

 

Mina

As another strategy toward objects, simply keep looking until the object’s meaning dissolves completely. But then Orengakakuchi Praying Mantis comes walking toward me. The instant I look away from the trauma of that approaching mantis, countless images of visible objects overlap inside my brain. In response, my body disperses like spores and rises into the air—nonlocality sensation, Carmen Zola Somality.

 

SHIon

A little child toddles toward us—little child, little child—translucent, looking this way from the warehouse. When I touch my square, tea-room-like chest, the phenomenon of the Kyōjima Sewing Machine family hangs on the wall of that tiny tea room.

 

Seb

This perspective of the tea room—expand, expand, expand. Now: uiui koikoi suru urusu hera hara sagashi, uiui koikoi suru urusu hera hara sagashi. Before I know it, in the gap called “never having known awakening,” there was the illusion called you.

 

Chiaki

I try answering: the depth of heaviness, Okotoni Orekami, Osumiki Gengorō, Omotashi. Newspaper is about to fall upon the palms held still. Deep inside the belt—deep, deep, deep. Squatting down: the stingy wife’s laughter. Come, come closer. The phenomenon called “arrival” is delayed by about seven seconds.

 

Kohei

Sensing the fleeting dash of a small, swift fish along the late, wet shore—Edge Casablanca Lancasse, Sparkling Yugoslavia, Massadrakan. A velvet-way compass that never becomes a map. Marahiyari Akondaminda Compass. Fractal Frankle Fractalin Korankurin Rank Fractal. Without making a sound, an eyeball frog walks along the horizon.

The Blue Hearts are Brilli-Brilliant Blue Catsburg Oakenheimer Highlight Oppenbloom Blue Group Blueroom, right?

 

Seb

“Schpingel Shpiro, a faintly drifting Chartreuse haze, gorgonzola lipstick, maniac’s appointment. Liking upon liking with no end ahead. Erlanric, the unfastening button, button-bottom.”

 

SHIon

A reply that has not yet arrived has been laughing since this morning. Responsibility, hospitality, paraponbility. Without ever knowing distraction, the sign of a-un. Let’s go, once in a while.

 

Mina

Circling around to the back of emptiness, a tiny bit of Victoria Buobuo Mongoliani. Maeraruku / Korenāni? Leave a blank space at the very instant of “going”—blank blanket.

 

SHIon

Nagoya Castle’s golden shachihoko—Zakku Baran. Dodging Emerald Jewel Beetle Okesa. Hyū Hyura Hyutoton. Akondamimarahyari. Akondamimarahyari. Toward the underground hollow filled with purple water.

 

Seb

“Wentsu-geology, the spring wind. Zakku-zazakku-zazakku, Baranbo Rental. Lame-lame Harris Flamentale Anthology.”

 

Mina

There is no road we came from—ohohoho, Okimental. Cherry blossoms fall; even the blossoms that remain will fall. Maybe I should stop—or maybe I should keep going—Oxiol. The reflected light upon the water: Antoine of The Hairdresser’s Husband, Roben Rogue. Flowing, enduring, becoming mystery, flowing away, the opening spot at the end of the flow.

 

Kohei

Never, ever does it become kyuri. Return the three, and—fragrant olive, Byun-Hare Rabbit, Flying Squirrel Young Gourmet, Sukisugara. Kyuri kyuri kyuri kyuri kyuri. U~ O~ Ha~ hahahahahahahaha. Lamborghini, Lamborghini. Bababababababaan.

 

Chiaki

Return the seven, and when February becomes July, a winter lion wanders through the museum. I have become a fragment of gold dust, gently swaying. Return the eleven, and I become a black mass—a parting gift left behind. Chorumendasu Banjā Anpinta. The question of staring.

 

SHIon

Archaeology Sumida—Sumida Dacchi. Back and forth to Yahiro Hardware Store. Sandan Tenran, Komeri Spitchy. The Hinodewashi eraser. Leave fate to the flying squirrel. Mutchiiku Tyuruku. What lies ahead crosses Sumida Park. A fleeting happiness in the heat of summer: shaved ice. Mamomichi walks in wonder, Mamamomichi, Maramara Kamyu Road.

 

Seb

The bamboo grove of Mukōjima Hyakkaen sways. Having come this far—Karakara Glass. Yū Gong Gong. Bōehhen Henhenrū. Perhaps it is the work of forget-me-nots. Buongirīji, Karakagoto. A fleeting happiness. Sūkon Trararikkuwē. Yū Gong Gong. Bōehhen Henhenrū. Sūkon Trararikkuwē. Azumaya Honjo. Look into a puddle, and before you know it, no one is there—only the gesture of no one being there.

 

SHIon

Kamiosumiki Gengorō Omotashi. The depth of heaviness, Okotoni Ore.

 

Chiaki

Kamiosumiki Gengorō Omotashi, Omotashi.

 

Seb

If from me, then Iyoshirumo.

 

Mina

My reassurance—even I cannot part from it. What I have left behind.

 

Chiaki

Mine. Myself. A puppy. Splitting the bill. Wahahashi.

 

SHIon

Kawatashi. Yet I am Ramishisukiwa. Wakoto Shikishima, my very self.

 

Chiaki

I. We. Wa. I. Myself. Me.

 

Mina

Excitement. U—woaaaaaaa.

 

Seb

Ha. Faa. Wa, watashi.

 

Kohei

Then let me be cut away—me. Me.

 

Mina

To every corner. Parting.

 

Kohei

Parting. Plum.

 

SHIon

Me. We.

 

Seb

Wa. Plum. Parting.

 

Mina

Me. The me who goes away.

 

Kohei

The me who arrives. Then, my me.

 

Chiaki

Me. We.

 

SHIon

Me. Wa. Me.

 

Mina

Me. Come.

 

 

 

Scene 10　Becoming a Magnetic Field

 

SHIon

I remain perfectly still to have my photograph taken.

I remain perfectly still for the festival.

I remain perfectly still so that the bell cricket may come to see me.

I remain perfectly still for an out-of-body experience.

I remain perfectly still until Kokusai Street becomes lively.

I remain perfectly still to feel the changes within my body. Because it was an ordinary place.

I raise my face. My face is A Clockwork Orange.

The back of my face is a riverbank. Behind a face where time never changes.

With the eyes in the back of my head, I observe the movements of people in the distance.

Even facing backward, I walk at exactly the same speed. Perhaps he is Sakaue-kun.

The Tokyo Skytree always invites a feeling of calm.

I arrive at a sandbox that never loses even six millimeters.

A water level that never loses even six millimeters.

The apartment where I once lived, never losing even six millimeters.

Autumn-leaf viewing that never loses even six millimeters.

A coconut cake that never loses even six millimeters.

Running down a hill without losing even six millimeters.

The birdsong of Nakano without losing even six millimeters.

A blank canvas that never loses even six millimeters.

A lawyer’s bearded face that never loses even six millimeters.

The instant a stranger walks by and says, “Ah,” without losing even six millimeters.

A continuous sequence of poses every thirty seconds, never losing even six millimeters.

Because that place was a magnetic field of endless transformation.

 

 

 

Scene 11　Madness Spreads

 

 

 

Scene 12　You Left, Didn’t You?

 

Mina

You left, didn’t you? Particles of 0.6 meters remain and continue to accumulate. I don’t think they ever come closer. No—I don’t think so. But when I feel a mass of wind, they are here. Within the gap called never having known awakening, the illusion called Umewakamaru. A ghost without joints. A breeze stirring from nowhere in particular. When I stand in the blank beneath the willow trees along the Takase River, those particles disappear, leaving only a momentary forgetting. Within the gap called never having known awakening, the illusion called you arrives at any moment. I trudge along the dotted line that follows the contour of the line called you. The lie called windlessness. Dispersing into transparent spores, not even a single spore settles upon that white plate over there, but trembles and disappears. While saying “a transparent future,” those faint spores cross one another, intending to accompany the future called me. The door opens. A tiny cherry glimmers for just an instant and vanishes. In the comfort of air pressure gently loosening after having been ever so slightly lost, my body sways just a little.