Anyway
Twenty-One
It has been many years but it doesn't seem that long. We are all growing up now; I am graduating from the university soon and so are the rest. We all have our lives waiting for us.
And Kurei - who knows where he has gone, or what he is doing now. Now that I think about it, it's amazing how mature he was. Twenty years and running a huge enterprise like the Uruha. I am older than he was then, and I am still at my books. We thought him an adult then - a grown up, mature, capable, competent, accomplished. But really he wasn't. He was a kid then, like we were, like we are now. A child waiting to grow up.
We never thought of ourselves as adults. We still don't. But somehow childhood is slipping off us as we stand by and not notice.
We met up the other day, just for lunch. Hanabishi had some presentation in school that morning, and he came all dressed up in shirt and pants and shiny leather shoes. He looked as if he had come in from the office, as if he were already part of the workforce. He looked smart. It was fun, fun to dress up, fun to act as if he was someone important, a young executive, rushing about with deadlines and clients to meet, grabbing a sandwich from that expensive shop on the corner for a quick bite, going home so late there was no crowd on the train. Fun to pretend.
Soon, we will not be pretending. Soon, we will cast off our jeans and sweaters and sneakers and wear instead trousers and shirts and jackets. Soon, we will have our own offices, our own bosses, our own secretaries. We will be young executives, important people, with important jobs and important worries and important duties. We will walk, in our suits and court shoes, with a sense of consequence, purpose. We will have places to go.
We are growing up soon. Life is waiting for us.
It will be good.
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Thirty-Nine
The alarm goes off, six thirty in the morning, same as always. He groans softly, rolls over and hits the clock. Always there is the urge to sleep in, call in sick, but as always, he gets up anyhow. Untangling his legs from the sheets, he stumbles over to the bathroom and flicks on the light. His eyes are hangover-bloodshot, his two-day stubble coarse as he wipes the toothpaste foam from his mouth. Monday again.
There's nothing much in the fridge besides the beer - must remember to stop by the grocery store on the way home from work. He grabs a slice of bread, spreading some jam on it. The jam is a new brand, not the usual one. Good to have a change once in a while.
His socks are getting thin. There's almost a hole in the heel, but it's okay for now. He notices they are the wrong colour just as he is leaving the apartment, but never mind, nobody will notice. No clients' meetings today. His shirt is a little crumpled, but he has a jacket on, so nobody will notice that either. His paunch pushes against the belly of his shirt.
On the train he manages to grab a pole, so at least there's something to hang on to in the rush hour crowd. The crush of people makes him remember, as it does every morning, the name of a book he read in the university - Far From the Madding Crowd. But he doesn't remember what it's about. It's been too long. It's not important anyway.
He nods to his secretary as he enters the office. She is wearing a nice dress today, and she greets him before turning back to her conversation with the other secretaries. He wonders, briefly, what they are gossiping about, but doesn't ask. Probably some pop star getting married or some drama serial.
He powers up his computer, logs on to the company intranet. Three new mails - one from his boss, asking for the file he was working on the previous Friday, one from a client, wanting to know whether he received the document that was faxed over on Thursday, and one from HR, reminding him that his paycheck has been entered into his bank account.
He checks the calendar on his MS Outlook and his PDA - nothing urgent scheduled for today, but he has to complete the draft agreement for Mitsushita Corp by Wednesday. For a moment he wonders what happened to it, but remembers that he asked Tanaka, his legal assistant, to run through the draft on Friday. He drops a mail to the boy asking for the amendments.
An envelope blinks in the toolbar - new mail. He opens it, it's Kirisawa. She's a lawyer too, working in the same firm, in fact, but while he's in Corporate and Banking, she's in Litigation. She wants to have lunch. Why not, he replies. He sees her sometimes in the lift, but they don't meet up much. The Liti people keep to themselves mostly.
It's drizzling slightly as they leave, at twelve fifty, for lunch. They're senior enough now that they can leave ten minutes early without anyone batting an eyelid. Kirisawa has an umbrella, but doesn't open it. It's not far to the ramen joint, and it's sheltered most of the way. They push the door open, it's crowded as usual. Hot, steamy air wafts out into the autumn rain, bringing the lunchtime chatter with it.
They exchange pleasantries over bowls of noodles, squeezed onto wooden chairs at a small table in the corner. Kirisawa's son is almost ten, and she's thinking of having a birthday party for him. He might be too old for parties though. What does Raiha think? She shrugs, she doesn't know. Raiha doesn't really worry about these things.
He nods. Raiha is a good husband, he didn't ask her to stop working when they got married, or when she gave birth. He takes care of her well enough. He doesn't complain when she works late, or suspects her of having an affair. He's not jealous or miserly with the money. He's not perfect - he gets on her nerves sometimes - but all in all he's a good husband.
Kirisawa drinks up the soup in her bowl and insists on paying, but he has already paid. It always comes down to this - who pays what. She wants to repay him, since she was the one who suggested lunch anyway, but he refuses. It doesn't matter anyway.
He finishes work early today, at about six thirty. Most of the younger lawyers are still at work when he leaves, and he decides to drop in on Tanaka, since the boy's office is near his. Tanaka's not a boy really, he's almost thirty, but he's round and childish-looking, and everyone calls him a boy. Tanaka's a quick worker, but he isn't quite done with the Mitsushita draft. No worries, as long as it's done by tomorrow. Tanaka smiles. Another late night.
The train on the way back is crowded, as usual. But his office is near the interchange, and he manages to get a seat by the window. The tracks resonate in their monotonous rhythm as the train passes by the suburbs. It is sunset and the city is bathed in sepia. For a moment he thinks he sees a pond of blood but it's just the dying sun reflecting in a swimming pool. He rubs his face, he is tired. His fingers lift some of the oil off his skin but he still feels grubby.
He ducks into the grocery store a block away from his building. The bells on the door chime. The vegetables are fresh, proclaims the sign over them. He selects some, and a carton of milk as well. He finished the bread this morning, so he buys another loaf too. The vacuum-packed udon looks good, and he gets several packets. They're easy to cook and he can have them with miso. He thinks he still has half a tub of the paste, but he buys more white miso anyway.
He waves to the security guard in his building and collects his mail - a few mailers and a brown package. The bank statement should have come by today but it's late again. He climbs the stairs to his second-floor flat and unlocks the door, dropping the bags of groceries gently between his feet as he fiddles with the keys.
He is tired and hungry but he still has to cook. He showers, quickly, while the water is boiling, flicking the wetness from his hair, which is beginning to thin at the top of his head. The soup is slightly salty today, too much miso, so he adds more water. Finally done, he settles in front of the television with the pot of noodles. He doesn't bother transferring it to a bowl - that would just mean more dishes to wash later on.
The screen flickers slightly in the darkened room as the newsreader glares at him. He tears open the brown paper package in his mail, tossing the wrapping into the bin. He misses. There's a photo album in the package. He stares at it stupidly for a second, then realises it's his. A letter flutters from the front cover. It's Yanagi, apologising. He had lent her the album years, years ago, but when she married Hanabishi and moved house, it got lost in the mess. She just found it two days ago, and thought she should return it to him.
He shrugs to himself, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter anyway. He's not interested in old photographs of people he cannot remember and places that have since changed. Or people who have since changed and places he cannot remember. Nevertheless, he flips through the album for want of something to do.
Some high school pictures. The first page is a picture of him and the girl he brought to the senior prom. He vaguely remembers being surprised he brought a girl. (She asked him, he didn't ask her.) He vaguely remembers being surprised he went in the first place. He looks closer, she's actually quite pretty. He wonders what she is doing now. He wonders what her name is.
A photo of the gang is on the next page. So many years, and he still thinks of them as the gang. This was the photo taken after the Ura Batou Satsujin - he has not forgotten that. He doesn't think he ever will.
He remembers how young they were then. So young, and too cocky, too proud, too silly.
Back then life was different. They were young and they had their future stretching out in front of them. Things mattered. Breakfast mattered, because they needed the energy to fight, and because it might be their last. Dinner mattered, because eating together meant that one more day was over without any casualty. There was an urgency in their actions because they didn't know what would be coming next. They lived on a razor's edge.
Mostly, they had purpose. It gave them meaning, knowing there was something important in what they did. Something to fight for. They were serious when then trained. He remembers doing his kata in the morning wind, slicing the rays of the dawn sun as it rose. How dangerous it had been. How his senses had been so sharp and so alert, how he almost sliced up a tree because its leaves had rustled. How he faced down the opponents in those nightmare battles, every muscle tensed, knowing this was what he had trained for, what it had all come down to. Knowing Yanagi's freedom and future was at stake.
They lived and they died during those few days. For the future, had been their battle cry. To protect Yanagi's future. To protect their own.
But what a future it is. The dismal autumn rain perhaps sums it up best: it is cold, it is mediocre, it is nothing exceptional. Nothing of the sort they expected when they stood victorious in the ruined Ura hall buoyed up by their immense potential. Now life has fallen far short of the greatness they fought for. They had waited for so much, but this is what they got: a crowded train in the mornings, the garbage to take out, lunch in a too-dark too-crowded place every few weeks, pizza offers (With free home delivery!) in the mail. Office supplies that don't get replenished when they run out, secretaries who wear too much make up and are getting fat. They are getting fat too. What Hanabishi had joked were Kirisawa's child-bearing hips have borne a child. Yanagi's have borne two.
He thinks of Yanagi, sadly. He thinks he still likes her, a bit. He never got married, but not for lack of trying. None of the girls he dated, though, could hold a candle to her. He thinks of her gentleness sometimes, the way she holds her children when they cry and the love in her eyes as she looks at Hanabishi. He gets her cards every new year in the mail, and the invitations every few months to meet up. He goes sometimes, but doesn't stay long. He always has work to do. Some nights as he lies alone he thinks of her, and him, and cries a little, but the morning always comes and the tears always dry up.
Sometimes he wonders what it would have been like if Yanagi had loved him back. He knows he wouldn't have known how to respond. He isn't the soft quiet sort of lover she is, or the strong understanding husband type Hanabishi is. He still feels slightly awkward around her, but he knows she doesn't suspect that he might still like her. As far as she is concerned, it was just a high school crush that ended there. High school.
His heart lurches as he thinks back to high school. Not for the love that he desired and lost, but for the time that it was. Youth, and all its glory, has long since faded, leaving behind nothing but this residue of a life. And the garbage to take out.
They never wanted to grow old. They never considered it. The things that seemed important to them then, they thought they would have forever. But they do not have them any more. Hanabishi's dragons, which he fought so hard to conquer, are resting dormant in his body. Kirisawa's Fuujin was thrown into storage with her husband's Raijin, and are now growing dusty. His own Ensui was destroyed years ago, when he decided that the skill - the curse - was not to pass on beyond him. The talents they so painfully cultivated are lost now. His muscles cannot remember the weight of the sword or the movements once burned into their memory. He cannot remember the words to unlock the secrets of the Ensui. His body, which he kept so lithe and supple, he has let grow slow and fat. He doesn't need the muscle now anyway. Not to type on a computer.
He never wanted to grow old. He remembers how fun he thought it would be to be an adult, to be working, to be earning money, to have responsibilities and families and cars. And it was fun, at first. But the fun wanes as the years pass, as one by one the numbers add up and amount to nothing. Day in, day out, the same agreements, the same clauses, the same company incorporations, the same shareholder's terms, the same work, the same drafting, all the responsibilities but no car and no family, and life as an adult begins to lose its glamour. And really it is nothing but mundane.
He remembers how exciting it was at first though. How proud he was to have worked on the letter of understanding between the two big conglomerates that appeared in the news. How fatherly he felt over the hundred-page contracts he crafted from scratch, with each term carefully drafted to protect his client's best interests. But week after week after week of the same M & As, the same ridiculous demands, the same working lunches in the same restaurant, and he began to feel tired. He longs for the greatness he had tasted in childhood. This work, this meaningless, meaningless work, saps at his soul. The work draws him in. Sometimes he feels like quitting to do something else more meaningful, but he keeps putting it off, one day after another after another, and before he knows it years have passed. He doesn't know what he would do anyway.
When he was young his body was important. He grew his hair, kept it soft with conditioners. He allowed not an ounce of fat on his frame. He wore sunglasses in the sun. He remember how much he dreaded the signs of age, how he checked for white hairs, how he exercised so much when he thought he was getting fat, how he smoothed moisturiser into his skin every night to keep it supple. But he doesn't care anymore. He can't stop time, or the way his hair is thinning. He doesn't bother going to the gym anymore and threw his sports shoes away when they grew mildewed. (He has no time anyway.) His skin is beginning to wrinkle, and his face as he looks in the mirror is growing old.
He can't remember when he stopped caring. He can't remember when it no longer mattered that his tie was not the latest fashion, or when he started buying shoes because of their comfort rather than because everyone else was wearing them. He sees the older women, some of them dressed as if it were the eighties still, some as if it were the nineties, some as if it was still the turn of the millennium. And he knows that was when they stopped caring too. When the fact that their clothes were ten, twenty, thirty years out of fashion didn't bother them any more. It wasn't important. He directed his energies to worrying about his work, making sure it was properly done. But then he stopped caring about his work too. It wasn't important either. But it was important to his clients, so he still made sure he did a good job.
When they first started working Kirisawa used to drop in to see him once in a while. They would talk, excited at being important people, excited at being in the same company, and discuss their work, discuss the grand things they would do, plan holidays for Christmas. But they soon stopped being excited, they soon forgot their grand plans, and their holidays were always alone, to Okinawa or some other similar place. She stopped dropping in.
He flips the album onto the coffee table, next to the two-day-old newspaper. Time to do the dishes stacked in the sink. Monday is always a day to do many dishes, because he doesn't bother doing them on the weekend. Most Saturdays he is in the office, and when he comes home it's late. Sundays, he is always at a loss as to what to do. Sometimes he goes in to finish up on this or that document, but more often he stays home. He plans to go to the park to jog but doesn't have jogging shoes anymore. So he doesn't exercise. Mostly, he ends up drinking in front of the television. There's nothing else to do.
Maybe the beer helps him forget the emptiness of the apartment and the holes in his heart. Year after year after year of solitude and isolation should make him get used to the loneliness but it doesn't. He hates going to Yanagi's little gatherings because it reminds him of how unsatisfactory his life is. At least the rest, even Ishijima, have gotten married. Somehow they find meaning in their children. But he who has always been alone continues to be so, and loneliness can be a hard companion.
Even the glory of his youth is no comfort. At that time, Hanabishi likened them to soldiers, fighting for the freedom of their country and for a chance at a future. But soldiers have fought and soldiers have died, with only a remembrance in the history books and perhaps a monument in a quiet field somewhere to recognise their sacrifice. Yet he does not have even that. He will not be remembered for his skills, or his Ensui, or his discipline and sacrifice and courage. He will simply not be remembered. All that pain and bloodshed, all the calluses from sword-handling, all the hours spend wrapped in the cold of ice or the scalding heat of steam - all for nothing. Life moves on, and so must he.
When he was young, he thought that he should not hold on to the desires of his youth. These were childish things, wanting to be the best swordsman, wanting to fulfil his quests, wanting all these silly grandiose things. He thought that he might find them stupid once he grew up and saw the world as an adult. But now these things matter to him. To once again be idealistic, to once again hope and dream, to once again know of the potential that lay in him - to be young again. When things were simpler and more complicated, life was better living.
They spoke of death and decay in their youth, reaching for each in twisted desire, but death and decay is not so desirable once it settles in the face that is the reflection in the mirror each morning. These things are no longer romantic, no longer heroic. Perhaps it would have been better, he thinks, to have died then. Because he can't see anything in this life that he thinks is worth living for. Mediocre. Unsatisfactory.
When he started out he thought things would be different. He wanted to be a hotshot lawyer, named in the Legal500 list, wheeling and dealing with the very best of them. He wanted to help his clients, protect their interests, craft finely-worded documents. He wanted to keep fit, to not give up like he saw the older lawyers did and not care about his body. He wanted to learn a third language in his free time and travel the world. He wanted to meet a smart beautiful young girl, get married and have many children, all of whom would do well in school and be well-liked by their peers.
But the first week in his job, he got saddled with three files and five contracts to comb over, and he stayed till eleven at least every night, weekend included. And the second week, and the third, and the fourth. There was no time to learn a language, or even to go to the gym. Week after week, month after month, and so the years passed in this manner. Before he realised it, he is here pushing forty. But it doesn't matter anyway.
The greatness he yearned for did not materialise, not in the way he expected. He supposes his career is a semi-success, but the success does not matter any longer. This sum total of his existence amounts to. nothing much. The alarm clock in the morning and the garbage to take out. Habits that formed without him realising it, that became his life. The dishes to wash and the TV set that needs fixing.
He used to think he was special, that he was somehow better than his friends in school, that he was headed for better and bigger things than the rest. But it all boils down to the garbage to take out and the dishes to wash in the end. Nothing exceptional, he is part of the humdrum crowd he sought to escape.
This has become his life, his apartment with the little rooms, the office with the coffee stain on the carpet. His work that means nothing to him but is everything he has. Friends once in a while, golf every few months, the Tokyo Bar dinner every Christmas. This is nothing - nothing - nothing. A life that is filled with making ends meet, the ends of his youth and the ends of his age. He frets about the way the colours of the curtain are fading and his paunch and his bald spot. This life, with its petty worries and its petty joys, he does not care much for it but it is all he has. He shrugs, as if not-apologising for the way it has turned out.
So he is as he is now, with a reasonably successful career and a reasonably nice apartment in a reasonably expensive neighbourhood. He is reasonably well-kept (not through any effort of his own) and still has a reasonable amount of hair left. The only glory of his reasonably average life is the fights of his youth. But that has passed and he is left with what is reasonable for any average man to reasonably expect. The most he can get, the best he can grasp. What he takes when 'it doesn't matter anyway'. His existence; the anyways, the cast-offs, the things that don't matter.
He is pushing forty and this is his life. Somehow he thought it would have been something more.
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. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got
And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.
Philip Larkin, "Dockery and Son"
Twenty-One
It has been many years but it doesn't seem that long. We are all growing up now; I am graduating from the university soon and so are the rest. We all have our lives waiting for us.
And Kurei - who knows where he has gone, or what he is doing now. Now that I think about it, it's amazing how mature he was. Twenty years and running a huge enterprise like the Uruha. I am older than he was then, and I am still at my books. We thought him an adult then - a grown up, mature, capable, competent, accomplished. But really he wasn't. He was a kid then, like we were, like we are now. A child waiting to grow up.
We never thought of ourselves as adults. We still don't. But somehow childhood is slipping off us as we stand by and not notice.
We met up the other day, just for lunch. Hanabishi had some presentation in school that morning, and he came all dressed up in shirt and pants and shiny leather shoes. He looked as if he had come in from the office, as if he were already part of the workforce. He looked smart. It was fun, fun to dress up, fun to act as if he was someone important, a young executive, rushing about with deadlines and clients to meet, grabbing a sandwich from that expensive shop on the corner for a quick bite, going home so late there was no crowd on the train. Fun to pretend.
Soon, we will not be pretending. Soon, we will cast off our jeans and sweaters and sneakers and wear instead trousers and shirts and jackets. Soon, we will have our own offices, our own bosses, our own secretaries. We will be young executives, important people, with important jobs and important worries and important duties. We will walk, in our suits and court shoes, with a sense of consequence, purpose. We will have places to go.
We are growing up soon. Life is waiting for us.
It will be good.
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Thirty-Nine
The alarm goes off, six thirty in the morning, same as always. He groans softly, rolls over and hits the clock. Always there is the urge to sleep in, call in sick, but as always, he gets up anyhow. Untangling his legs from the sheets, he stumbles over to the bathroom and flicks on the light. His eyes are hangover-bloodshot, his two-day stubble coarse as he wipes the toothpaste foam from his mouth. Monday again.
There's nothing much in the fridge besides the beer - must remember to stop by the grocery store on the way home from work. He grabs a slice of bread, spreading some jam on it. The jam is a new brand, not the usual one. Good to have a change once in a while.
His socks are getting thin. There's almost a hole in the heel, but it's okay for now. He notices they are the wrong colour just as he is leaving the apartment, but never mind, nobody will notice. No clients' meetings today. His shirt is a little crumpled, but he has a jacket on, so nobody will notice that either. His paunch pushes against the belly of his shirt.
On the train he manages to grab a pole, so at least there's something to hang on to in the rush hour crowd. The crush of people makes him remember, as it does every morning, the name of a book he read in the university - Far From the Madding Crowd. But he doesn't remember what it's about. It's been too long. It's not important anyway.
He nods to his secretary as he enters the office. She is wearing a nice dress today, and she greets him before turning back to her conversation with the other secretaries. He wonders, briefly, what they are gossiping about, but doesn't ask. Probably some pop star getting married or some drama serial.
He powers up his computer, logs on to the company intranet. Three new mails - one from his boss, asking for the file he was working on the previous Friday, one from a client, wanting to know whether he received the document that was faxed over on Thursday, and one from HR, reminding him that his paycheck has been entered into his bank account.
He checks the calendar on his MS Outlook and his PDA - nothing urgent scheduled for today, but he has to complete the draft agreement for Mitsushita Corp by Wednesday. For a moment he wonders what happened to it, but remembers that he asked Tanaka, his legal assistant, to run through the draft on Friday. He drops a mail to the boy asking for the amendments.
An envelope blinks in the toolbar - new mail. He opens it, it's Kirisawa. She's a lawyer too, working in the same firm, in fact, but while he's in Corporate and Banking, she's in Litigation. She wants to have lunch. Why not, he replies. He sees her sometimes in the lift, but they don't meet up much. The Liti people keep to themselves mostly.
It's drizzling slightly as they leave, at twelve fifty, for lunch. They're senior enough now that they can leave ten minutes early without anyone batting an eyelid. Kirisawa has an umbrella, but doesn't open it. It's not far to the ramen joint, and it's sheltered most of the way. They push the door open, it's crowded as usual. Hot, steamy air wafts out into the autumn rain, bringing the lunchtime chatter with it.
They exchange pleasantries over bowls of noodles, squeezed onto wooden chairs at a small table in the corner. Kirisawa's son is almost ten, and she's thinking of having a birthday party for him. He might be too old for parties though. What does Raiha think? She shrugs, she doesn't know. Raiha doesn't really worry about these things.
He nods. Raiha is a good husband, he didn't ask her to stop working when they got married, or when she gave birth. He takes care of her well enough. He doesn't complain when she works late, or suspects her of having an affair. He's not jealous or miserly with the money. He's not perfect - he gets on her nerves sometimes - but all in all he's a good husband.
Kirisawa drinks up the soup in her bowl and insists on paying, but he has already paid. It always comes down to this - who pays what. She wants to repay him, since she was the one who suggested lunch anyway, but he refuses. It doesn't matter anyway.
He finishes work early today, at about six thirty. Most of the younger lawyers are still at work when he leaves, and he decides to drop in on Tanaka, since the boy's office is near his. Tanaka's not a boy really, he's almost thirty, but he's round and childish-looking, and everyone calls him a boy. Tanaka's a quick worker, but he isn't quite done with the Mitsushita draft. No worries, as long as it's done by tomorrow. Tanaka smiles. Another late night.
The train on the way back is crowded, as usual. But his office is near the interchange, and he manages to get a seat by the window. The tracks resonate in their monotonous rhythm as the train passes by the suburbs. It is sunset and the city is bathed in sepia. For a moment he thinks he sees a pond of blood but it's just the dying sun reflecting in a swimming pool. He rubs his face, he is tired. His fingers lift some of the oil off his skin but he still feels grubby.
He ducks into the grocery store a block away from his building. The bells on the door chime. The vegetables are fresh, proclaims the sign over them. He selects some, and a carton of milk as well. He finished the bread this morning, so he buys another loaf too. The vacuum-packed udon looks good, and he gets several packets. They're easy to cook and he can have them with miso. He thinks he still has half a tub of the paste, but he buys more white miso anyway.
He waves to the security guard in his building and collects his mail - a few mailers and a brown package. The bank statement should have come by today but it's late again. He climbs the stairs to his second-floor flat and unlocks the door, dropping the bags of groceries gently between his feet as he fiddles with the keys.
He is tired and hungry but he still has to cook. He showers, quickly, while the water is boiling, flicking the wetness from his hair, which is beginning to thin at the top of his head. The soup is slightly salty today, too much miso, so he adds more water. Finally done, he settles in front of the television with the pot of noodles. He doesn't bother transferring it to a bowl - that would just mean more dishes to wash later on.
The screen flickers slightly in the darkened room as the newsreader glares at him. He tears open the brown paper package in his mail, tossing the wrapping into the bin. He misses. There's a photo album in the package. He stares at it stupidly for a second, then realises it's his. A letter flutters from the front cover. It's Yanagi, apologising. He had lent her the album years, years ago, but when she married Hanabishi and moved house, it got lost in the mess. She just found it two days ago, and thought she should return it to him.
He shrugs to himself, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter anyway. He's not interested in old photographs of people he cannot remember and places that have since changed. Or people who have since changed and places he cannot remember. Nevertheless, he flips through the album for want of something to do.
Some high school pictures. The first page is a picture of him and the girl he brought to the senior prom. He vaguely remembers being surprised he brought a girl. (She asked him, he didn't ask her.) He vaguely remembers being surprised he went in the first place. He looks closer, she's actually quite pretty. He wonders what she is doing now. He wonders what her name is.
A photo of the gang is on the next page. So many years, and he still thinks of them as the gang. This was the photo taken after the Ura Batou Satsujin - he has not forgotten that. He doesn't think he ever will.
He remembers how young they were then. So young, and too cocky, too proud, too silly.
Back then life was different. They were young and they had their future stretching out in front of them. Things mattered. Breakfast mattered, because they needed the energy to fight, and because it might be their last. Dinner mattered, because eating together meant that one more day was over without any casualty. There was an urgency in their actions because they didn't know what would be coming next. They lived on a razor's edge.
Mostly, they had purpose. It gave them meaning, knowing there was something important in what they did. Something to fight for. They were serious when then trained. He remembers doing his kata in the morning wind, slicing the rays of the dawn sun as it rose. How dangerous it had been. How his senses had been so sharp and so alert, how he almost sliced up a tree because its leaves had rustled. How he faced down the opponents in those nightmare battles, every muscle tensed, knowing this was what he had trained for, what it had all come down to. Knowing Yanagi's freedom and future was at stake.
They lived and they died during those few days. For the future, had been their battle cry. To protect Yanagi's future. To protect their own.
But what a future it is. The dismal autumn rain perhaps sums it up best: it is cold, it is mediocre, it is nothing exceptional. Nothing of the sort they expected when they stood victorious in the ruined Ura hall buoyed up by their immense potential. Now life has fallen far short of the greatness they fought for. They had waited for so much, but this is what they got: a crowded train in the mornings, the garbage to take out, lunch in a too-dark too-crowded place every few weeks, pizza offers (With free home delivery!) in the mail. Office supplies that don't get replenished when they run out, secretaries who wear too much make up and are getting fat. They are getting fat too. What Hanabishi had joked were Kirisawa's child-bearing hips have borne a child. Yanagi's have borne two.
He thinks of Yanagi, sadly. He thinks he still likes her, a bit. He never got married, but not for lack of trying. None of the girls he dated, though, could hold a candle to her. He thinks of her gentleness sometimes, the way she holds her children when they cry and the love in her eyes as she looks at Hanabishi. He gets her cards every new year in the mail, and the invitations every few months to meet up. He goes sometimes, but doesn't stay long. He always has work to do. Some nights as he lies alone he thinks of her, and him, and cries a little, but the morning always comes and the tears always dry up.
Sometimes he wonders what it would have been like if Yanagi had loved him back. He knows he wouldn't have known how to respond. He isn't the soft quiet sort of lover she is, or the strong understanding husband type Hanabishi is. He still feels slightly awkward around her, but he knows she doesn't suspect that he might still like her. As far as she is concerned, it was just a high school crush that ended there. High school.
His heart lurches as he thinks back to high school. Not for the love that he desired and lost, but for the time that it was. Youth, and all its glory, has long since faded, leaving behind nothing but this residue of a life. And the garbage to take out.
They never wanted to grow old. They never considered it. The things that seemed important to them then, they thought they would have forever. But they do not have them any more. Hanabishi's dragons, which he fought so hard to conquer, are resting dormant in his body. Kirisawa's Fuujin was thrown into storage with her husband's Raijin, and are now growing dusty. His own Ensui was destroyed years ago, when he decided that the skill - the curse - was not to pass on beyond him. The talents they so painfully cultivated are lost now. His muscles cannot remember the weight of the sword or the movements once burned into their memory. He cannot remember the words to unlock the secrets of the Ensui. His body, which he kept so lithe and supple, he has let grow slow and fat. He doesn't need the muscle now anyway. Not to type on a computer.
He never wanted to grow old. He remembers how fun he thought it would be to be an adult, to be working, to be earning money, to have responsibilities and families and cars. And it was fun, at first. But the fun wanes as the years pass, as one by one the numbers add up and amount to nothing. Day in, day out, the same agreements, the same clauses, the same company incorporations, the same shareholder's terms, the same work, the same drafting, all the responsibilities but no car and no family, and life as an adult begins to lose its glamour. And really it is nothing but mundane.
He remembers how exciting it was at first though. How proud he was to have worked on the letter of understanding between the two big conglomerates that appeared in the news. How fatherly he felt over the hundred-page contracts he crafted from scratch, with each term carefully drafted to protect his client's best interests. But week after week after week of the same M & As, the same ridiculous demands, the same working lunches in the same restaurant, and he began to feel tired. He longs for the greatness he had tasted in childhood. This work, this meaningless, meaningless work, saps at his soul. The work draws him in. Sometimes he feels like quitting to do something else more meaningful, but he keeps putting it off, one day after another after another, and before he knows it years have passed. He doesn't know what he would do anyway.
When he was young his body was important. He grew his hair, kept it soft with conditioners. He allowed not an ounce of fat on his frame. He wore sunglasses in the sun. He remember how much he dreaded the signs of age, how he checked for white hairs, how he exercised so much when he thought he was getting fat, how he smoothed moisturiser into his skin every night to keep it supple. But he doesn't care anymore. He can't stop time, or the way his hair is thinning. He doesn't bother going to the gym anymore and threw his sports shoes away when they grew mildewed. (He has no time anyway.) His skin is beginning to wrinkle, and his face as he looks in the mirror is growing old.
He can't remember when he stopped caring. He can't remember when it no longer mattered that his tie was not the latest fashion, or when he started buying shoes because of their comfort rather than because everyone else was wearing them. He sees the older women, some of them dressed as if it were the eighties still, some as if it were the nineties, some as if it was still the turn of the millennium. And he knows that was when they stopped caring too. When the fact that their clothes were ten, twenty, thirty years out of fashion didn't bother them any more. It wasn't important. He directed his energies to worrying about his work, making sure it was properly done. But then he stopped caring about his work too. It wasn't important either. But it was important to his clients, so he still made sure he did a good job.
When they first started working Kirisawa used to drop in to see him once in a while. They would talk, excited at being important people, excited at being in the same company, and discuss their work, discuss the grand things they would do, plan holidays for Christmas. But they soon stopped being excited, they soon forgot their grand plans, and their holidays were always alone, to Okinawa or some other similar place. She stopped dropping in.
He flips the album onto the coffee table, next to the two-day-old newspaper. Time to do the dishes stacked in the sink. Monday is always a day to do many dishes, because he doesn't bother doing them on the weekend. Most Saturdays he is in the office, and when he comes home it's late. Sundays, he is always at a loss as to what to do. Sometimes he goes in to finish up on this or that document, but more often he stays home. He plans to go to the park to jog but doesn't have jogging shoes anymore. So he doesn't exercise. Mostly, he ends up drinking in front of the television. There's nothing else to do.
Maybe the beer helps him forget the emptiness of the apartment and the holes in his heart. Year after year after year of solitude and isolation should make him get used to the loneliness but it doesn't. He hates going to Yanagi's little gatherings because it reminds him of how unsatisfactory his life is. At least the rest, even Ishijima, have gotten married. Somehow they find meaning in their children. But he who has always been alone continues to be so, and loneliness can be a hard companion.
Even the glory of his youth is no comfort. At that time, Hanabishi likened them to soldiers, fighting for the freedom of their country and for a chance at a future. But soldiers have fought and soldiers have died, with only a remembrance in the history books and perhaps a monument in a quiet field somewhere to recognise their sacrifice. Yet he does not have even that. He will not be remembered for his skills, or his Ensui, or his discipline and sacrifice and courage. He will simply not be remembered. All that pain and bloodshed, all the calluses from sword-handling, all the hours spend wrapped in the cold of ice or the scalding heat of steam - all for nothing. Life moves on, and so must he.
When he was young, he thought that he should not hold on to the desires of his youth. These were childish things, wanting to be the best swordsman, wanting to fulfil his quests, wanting all these silly grandiose things. He thought that he might find them stupid once he grew up and saw the world as an adult. But now these things matter to him. To once again be idealistic, to once again hope and dream, to once again know of the potential that lay in him - to be young again. When things were simpler and more complicated, life was better living.
They spoke of death and decay in their youth, reaching for each in twisted desire, but death and decay is not so desirable once it settles in the face that is the reflection in the mirror each morning. These things are no longer romantic, no longer heroic. Perhaps it would have been better, he thinks, to have died then. Because he can't see anything in this life that he thinks is worth living for. Mediocre. Unsatisfactory.
When he started out he thought things would be different. He wanted to be a hotshot lawyer, named in the Legal500 list, wheeling and dealing with the very best of them. He wanted to help his clients, protect their interests, craft finely-worded documents. He wanted to keep fit, to not give up like he saw the older lawyers did and not care about his body. He wanted to learn a third language in his free time and travel the world. He wanted to meet a smart beautiful young girl, get married and have many children, all of whom would do well in school and be well-liked by their peers.
But the first week in his job, he got saddled with three files and five contracts to comb over, and he stayed till eleven at least every night, weekend included. And the second week, and the third, and the fourth. There was no time to learn a language, or even to go to the gym. Week after week, month after month, and so the years passed in this manner. Before he realised it, he is here pushing forty. But it doesn't matter anyway.
The greatness he yearned for did not materialise, not in the way he expected. He supposes his career is a semi-success, but the success does not matter any longer. This sum total of his existence amounts to. nothing much. The alarm clock in the morning and the garbage to take out. Habits that formed without him realising it, that became his life. The dishes to wash and the TV set that needs fixing.
He used to think he was special, that he was somehow better than his friends in school, that he was headed for better and bigger things than the rest. But it all boils down to the garbage to take out and the dishes to wash in the end. Nothing exceptional, he is part of the humdrum crowd he sought to escape.
This has become his life, his apartment with the little rooms, the office with the coffee stain on the carpet. His work that means nothing to him but is everything he has. Friends once in a while, golf every few months, the Tokyo Bar dinner every Christmas. This is nothing - nothing - nothing. A life that is filled with making ends meet, the ends of his youth and the ends of his age. He frets about the way the colours of the curtain are fading and his paunch and his bald spot. This life, with its petty worries and its petty joys, he does not care much for it but it is all he has. He shrugs, as if not-apologising for the way it has turned out.
So he is as he is now, with a reasonably successful career and a reasonably nice apartment in a reasonably expensive neighbourhood. He is reasonably well-kept (not through any effort of his own) and still has a reasonable amount of hair left. The only glory of his reasonably average life is the fights of his youth. But that has passed and he is left with what is reasonable for any average man to reasonably expect. The most he can get, the best he can grasp. What he takes when 'it doesn't matter anyway'. His existence; the anyways, the cast-offs, the things that don't matter.
He is pushing forty and this is his life. Somehow he thought it would have been something more.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got
And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.
Philip Larkin, "Dockery and Son"