Musashino City — “Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively”

033 : Lindsay Lueders on the Inokashira line, car 4, Kichijoji station, Musashino City
Born 1893 in Minnesota, Lindsay Lueders currently works as a musician, TV reporter, teacher She came to Japan on a specialist in humanities visa. Why Japan? To get away from boyfriends. It didn’t work. She digs the following Tokyo bits: the food culture, the modest people, the middle-aged men who guide you through construction sites, the people who stare at their own reflection on the train, and the quirky or scary effects of a repressed society. She, however, is a touch miffed by nasal "irasshaimases"; the fact that it sometimes smells like sewage; the fact that they don't make shoes her size; her neighbor picking leaves off the ground with chopsticks when they fall on his driveway; and the fact that things are overpackaged. For more info on Lindsay Lueders you should send an email or visit Tokyo Stories.

image: Lindsay L.
“Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively”

She was hopelessly sexy. It was undeniable; her allure was dripping from her sleeping body in teaspoons and unfolding into the night. Her legs, decorated in delicate black fishnets, were sliding further apart with every jerk of the locomotive. Her tumbling black head of locks rocked sweetly, bobbing and dangling on a limp, unconscious neck. In other cities of the world, I would have feared for her purity.

But the gentlemen around her took a tangible pleasure not in gawking but in overseeing her safe transport home. If one of them had been holding a blanket, he would have wrapped her securely in it. They were watching over her in wordless, self-supervised agreement.

When we arrived at Kichijoji, she remained oblivious in her seat. Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively. Even her handbag was wide open, cosmetics and glosses nearly spilling out into our faces.

Who would be the lucky man to alert her to the fact that we had reached the end of the line? This task, too, was approached with solemn modesty; too eager a volunteer would have appeared incongruently lewd. One young man appointed himself, stood and touched her shoulder, brimming with what could only have been honor. She rose in a deer-like wobble and her skirt fell back to its rightful length. The straps of her sling backs were squashed under her bare heels but I knew that she’d traipse into the dark evening safe from perversion, under the watchful eye of a careful and trustworthy society.

location information

Name: the Inokashira line, car 4, Kichijoji station
Time of story: late night
Latitude: 35.703258
Longitude: 139.580076
Map: Google Maps

commentary

Matthias in Germany thinks: Born 1893. That’s gotta be a darn old lady.
Japanese Words ^[1] in Japan thinks: Great story. I have accidentally woke up at the end of the line a few times myself. lol

033 “Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively” — Lindsay Lueders

032 “The ika had made too many turns.” — Edamame

031 “A tongue was moving around my big toe, like a warm slug crawling. ” — Hakanai

030 “Ichor will gush out of this carefully constructed image” — Daniel Snyder

029 “I wince, more than her.” — Jason Gray

028 “Their schoolbags were puddled around their socks, forgotten” — Selena Hoy

027 “Amongst the bottles and the obscure records and the crimson velvet walls” — Reuben Stanton

026 “Nostalgia isn’t an easy indulgence for amateurs” — Darryl Wee

025 “... but anyway please take one of these little cheese cakes ...” — Rick Kennedy

024 “The inhabitants of the blue, makeshift tents in the bushes.” — Aneta Glinkowska

023 “Yeah … I’m sorry too. Merry Christmas.” — Mark Murkes

022 “I was dead broke. It was winter.” — Qi Rari

021 “The district's energy had faded to rest on my last night there.” — James P. Wong

020 “The slightly bald salaryman didn't correspond to any memory I could conjure up.” — Naoki

019 “She laughed at my effort and responded in English, ‘Long time, no seduction.’ ” — Qi Rari

018 “In my dreamy state, oblivious to signs and announcements I often boarded the wrong train.” — Momus (aka Nick Currie)

017 “I was fifteen years old and it was one of those nights.” — Yuko Enomoto

016 “That ear of corn just wanted to go home” — Guttersnipe Das

015 “With his painstakingly coiffured mane blowing in the wind” — Digits Wolfowitz

014 “Her voice, even across languages, betraying her worry.” — Olly Denton

013 “I saw them drawing bamboo sticks from a silver rectangular box.” — Daphné Haour

012 “A simulacrum of someone else's home, equal parts comfort and loss.” — Adam Greenfield

011 “Jumbled Escheresque insanity where geography in any traditional sense ceases to exist.” — Joseph Badtke-Berkow

010 “I could hardly make out anything apart from his glowing eyes...” — Uleshka

009 “Shibuya was like a stroke.” — Alice.d

008 “I cried for a while and wiped the dead bracken off my karate pants.” — David Cady

007 “Both my tie and my disposition hang limp as I calculate the remaining distance to the station.” — Chris Tobber

006 “I once read about a Chinese maiden whose feet were unbound by a cruel man …” — Claire Tanaka

005 “The Bad Girl strutted off and I was left with a ham egg pie.” — Guttersnipe Das

004 “I arrived expecting an irritated Japanese person to step out of the crowd and identify himself as Hideki.” — Ashley Rawlings

003 “The woman at the ticket window seemed surprised to see another human being. I was the only visitor.” — Andrew Douglas

002 “Flanked on either side by adult manga shops and the like, the smell of yakitori in the air.” — Jean Snow

001 “For two weeks the day began with this morning walk, our shared routine.” — Joseph Squier

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