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Why does the night have to be so beautiful? As I walk through the night, I remember what Mitsutsuka said to me. “Because at night, only half the world remains.”
Why is the night so beautiful? Why does it shine the way it does? Why is the night made up entirely of light?
The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright.
You’re right, Mitsutsuka. It isn’t anything, but it’s so beautiful that I could cry.
“Sometimes you can be okay with something, then the next day comes and it’s a totally different story.”
From a young age, I couldn’t bring myself to contribute to conversations like a normal person, much less socialize or go out with people, and I was never able to acclimate to the particular atmosphere of that little office.
Before I knew it, I’d been left entirely alone. No one ever spoke to me unless they needed something,
Kyoko
something about the way she unleashed provocative expressions so effectively, the confidence of her delivery and the way she made her point, how she maintained composure, in those moments where the man raised his voice defensively, as she looked around and smiled.
but now that it had been put into words, words that I then whispered again in my own head, the possibility had somehow taken on a terribly realistic weight and resonance, to the point where I began to feel as if this were my only choice, that it had always been my only choice, a happy turn of events that made me feel like I could blush.
“Trust?” “Yeah, trust,” Hijiri said with a smile. “It’s not the same as relying on someone. It’s really different, actually. I mean, I guess it’s all about both parties counting on each other.”
“It’s like they say, trust is a two-way street. Reliance can be one-sided, though. Know what I mean? One side depends on the other. That’s not a partnership. And that’s why relationships based on reliance are pretty unstable. One little hiccup and everything could disappear.”
“So what good is reliance when everything could fall apart because of some little bump or a change in the wind? That’s not how trust works, though, at least not for me. With trust, I’m always givi...
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“Exactly. That’s the key. You can learn so much about a person from how they approach their work. Well, that’s how I see it.” “You mean, how serious they are . . . that sort of thing?” I asked.
“Maybe that’s the simplest way to put it. And the type of work doesn’t even matter. It could be housework, or working the register at a supermarket, or day trading, or physical labor, anything at all. And just like the content of the work doesn’t matter, neither do the results. The thing about results—whether or not something turns out well—is that it’s mostly about luck. Things like that can change. You can make people believe whatever you want. You can fool them like it’s nothing. But you can’t fool yourself, not really. That’s why what matters is how you think about your work in your own
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I wish my family could reach this level of understanding, especially regarding the work of others they might belittle. I honestly don’t think something simple means doing less. It all comes down to how dedicated someone is, how seriously they take their works.
“Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely.” And I really meant it too.
I know I could have done more, tried harder, made it work. Everybody in this life has something they have to put up with.
:(
That night, everything was thrown into oddly sharp relief, as if the pieces of the world before my eyes were telling me some kind of story. It was an entirely familiar scene, except the usual rows of houses, telephone poles and everything else seemed to shine with a triumphant light.
Apart from a few deadlines marked lightly in pencil, I had no plans whatsoever. It crossed my mind that I would probably never notice if the previous six months and the six months to follow had been switched around.
“God yes,” she said, then drank whatever was left in her glass and ordered another. “The ones who are all like, oh, I’m so natural, just being the me I’m supposed to be. The ones who are all like, the older I get, the more I’m into who I really am. The ones who think that all the love they give to all things natural means that nature loves them back. The ones who go around telling themselves that everything happens for a reason, and they pat themselves on the back for all their positive energy. The ones who think everything has some kind of hidden meaning . . . Believe me, I can keep going.”
“Their so-called spirituality is completely self-serving, designed to make them happy, or make the people around them think they’ve found some kind of happiness. It’s this shallow belief in immediate profit. They go around talking about seeing something big. As if everything they feel, everything they’re thinking, is so big, bigger than all of us. That’s what they do. They act like they’re all big, ready to share their happiness with everyone, when the only happiness they care about is their own.
“They only ever write stuff that people want to hear. All that matters is that you believe this thing is written about you. People just want to read something about themselves.
“Anyway, it’s fine. Everyone should just do whatever they want, myself included. But I can’t stand it when you’re just talking, then out of nowhere, someone’s pushing that stuff on you. It puts me in a real mood. They’re all so sure that they’re the ones who have seen the light, and it’s the only identity they’ve got, so they can’t keep their mouths shut. They’re always so loud about it, too, like they need you to see how happy they are. And they walk away feeling great about themselves, because they were generous enough to share the secret to their happiness with everybody. Anyway, they just
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It’s like some superficial celebrity complex, you know?”
people who are looking out for no one but themselves—but still, you have to recognize something kind of sublime in some of it. It’s always the common people who end up as the victims, the people hoping against hope. Some of those people actually abandon the material world and everything in it in order to access the realm of the righteous. And you know what? I have to respect that.”
At this point in life, I know better than to expect anything from men. But I swear the other women at work are just as bad beneath the surface.”
“It’s not like I want people to hate me. I’m just not about to go out of my way to make them like me, either. Being liked is wonderful and all, but that’s not what life is about, you know?”
I..
Not sad, or tired, but the dictionary definition of a miserable person.
What I saw in the reflection was myself, in a cardigan and faded jeans, at age thirty-four. Just a miserable woman, who couldn’t even enjoy herself on a gorgeous day like this, on her own in the city, desperately hugging a bag full to bursting with the kind of things that other people wave off or throw in the trash the first chance they get.
All the different things that I was feeling slipped away without actually disappearing from my mind, and I loosened up, as if a pane of glass had been placed between me and my experience, blurring things. The borders of my being gradually thinned, making me feel as if all kinds of things about me were in fact all kinds of things about somebody else.
I was clueless
“Well, next time, let’s talk about light,” Mitsutsuka said,
I allowed my thoughts to settle on the brightness filling their hearts and lungs, squinting as I walked along and counted all the players of this game that I would never play.
As I recalled the various things the books had to say, ruminating over their choice of language, they almost seemed to harmonize into a secret message that would lead me somewhere, anywhere but here.
I stood alone before a thick gate made from stacks of colorful book covers, no way of knowing what was on the other side, or where it led, or what exactly I could expect to find there, and of course there was no one there to guide me. All I knew for certain was that this place had nothing to do with me.
I honestly have no idea what I was doing, but I know that I was almost always home.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t even like it there.”
“And if that’s true, what’s memory anyway?” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “I mean, there are way too many things you’ll never remember. Sometimes a memory jumps out at you, even though almost everything is lost forever. But what if all the things that we can’t remember are actually the most important ones?”
“Hmm,” I looked at Mitsutsuka’s face, the half that I could see. “I don’t get it.” “Don’t get it, huh?” Mitsutsuka looked at me and laughed out loud. “I hear that a lot.”
“So, putting it simply,” I said, “the color that we’re seeing is whatever’s left behind.”
“Doesn’t that wear you down a little? To keep looking for something you’ve decided is definitely there, when you can’t really say for sure?”
“I suppose it’s typical enough to devote yourself to looking for something that may or may not actually be there, all the while telling yourself it has to be . . . I
“I’ve been doing this and only this for so long now, I don’t even know what it feels like to do something else.”
“But if your goal is to make a book, in that sense, you have to have something—hope or something pretty close to it.”
And hey, I’m sure this sounds like a pretty asinine thing to say, but what’s it mean to like somebody anyway?”
when it comes to emotions, feelings, moods, all those things, I can never figure out where mine end and other people’s begin.”
“It feels real on every level. It kinda messes with my head. But I can’t accept it, not entirely. So like, whenever I start thinking something, or feeling something, these stupid questions start going through my head. Whenever my emotions or whatever kick in, my world goes blank—like something’s taken over me. Then I start doubting everything, like, what if my whole life was just a quote from something else, only I never realized it?
“When it comes to love, the only weapon that we’ve got is our emotions, right? So what can you do when your foundation’s all messed up? If that’s the state you’re in, there’s no way you can ever get serious with anybody.”
“My family’s been able to get by thanks to the steady stream of people who go out and buy these cheap sweaters with goofy animals on them.”
It’s not like there’s somewhere special I want to be, or something I really want to do, so I guess it doesn’t really matter where I go. As long as I don’t know anybody there. I’ve already spent the last eighteen years stuck here.”
