image: jeshii
“Both my tie and my disposition hang limp as I calculate the remaining distance to the station.”
Still buzzing with a hangover, I pour out of my tiny apartment into the heat and humidity, the glaring sun set in an impossibly pewter sky. Within moments, sweat creeps across my brow. I pat my face and neck with my “sweaterchief” wishing that using fans weren’t so emasculating. [1]
An orchestra of cicadas [2] accompanies me as I scurry along narrow, winding streets toward the train. 150 yen buys me only temporary comfort, and as I gulp down my drink I swear to never again curse the winter. I pass mice, obasan hobbling along in their yukata, salarymen with their regulation black jackets slung over their shoulders and gaiijin dressed in various shades of sweat-stained khaki.
I find a spot of shade and with moist fingers fish another Mild Seven [3] from a crumpled pack. The lighter, one of many I’ve pocketed from various bars in Shimokitazawa, is almost out of fuel. Both my tie and my disposition hang limp as I try to calculate the remaining distance to the station. Blasts of incomprehensible music followed by short gusts of cool air issue from the pachinko parlor [4] across the street, and I’d almost rather face a day beyond those doors than resume my journey.
With a sigh, a curse and a wheeze, I resume my walk. The station looms like a mirage over the next hill. Sunspots cloud the edges of my vision as I stumble up the steps and line up to buy a ticket behind a legion of school kids, none of whom appear to be sweaty. On the platform, sweat trickles down the small of my back while I pretend not to watch a girl in ludicrously high heels and a miniskirt stalk gracefully by. The crowd that has materialized around me makes me worry about how I might smell. Endless express trains speed past before one finally rolls to a stop and I fairly leap into the sanctuary of cold, stale air. Ah yes, just another summer day in Tokyo. 
referenced works
- War fans, the more masculine version of the paper, advertising clad fans often given out by street hooligans near subway exits. ↩
- The Japanese 70s kissarock group Happy End references the cicada in their song "Natsu nan desu" ("It's Summer") as one of the distinct signs of it being, indeed, summer. ↩
- The Japanese Marlboro. ↩
- Loud, garish centers of chain smoking old men and women watching small metal balls fall down a mini-sized pinball machine for hours on end. ↩
location information
- Name: Higashi-Matsubara
- Address: N/A
- Time of story: afternoon
- Latitude: 35.650601
- Longitude: 139.713135
- Map: Google Maps
033 “Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively”
032 “The ika had made too many turns.”
031 “A tongue was moving around my big toe, like a warm slug crawling. ”
030 “Ichor will gush out of this carefully constructed image”
029 “I wince, more than her.”
028 “Their schoolbags were puddled around their socks, forgotten”
027 “Amongst the bottles and the obscure records and the crimson velvet walls”
026 “Nostalgia isn’t an easy indulgence for amateurs”
025 “... but anyway please take one of these little cheese cakes ...”
024 “The inhabitants of the blue, makeshift tents in the bushes.”
023 “Yeah … I’m sorry too. Merry Christmas.”
022 “I was dead broke. It was winter.”
021 “The district's energy had faded to rest on my last night there.”
020 “The slightly bald salaryman didn't correspond to any memory I could conjure up.”
019 “She laughed at my effort and responded in English, ‘Long time, no seduction.’ ”
018 “In my dreamy state, oblivious to signs and announcements I often boarded the wrong train.”
017 “I was fifteen years old and it was one of those nights.”
016 “That ear of corn just wanted to go home”
015 “With his painstakingly coiffured mane blowing in the wind”
014 “Her voice, even across languages, betraying her worry.”
013 “I saw them drawing bamboo sticks from a silver rectangular box.”
012 “A simulacrum of someone else's home, equal parts comfort and loss.”
011 “Jumbled Escheresque insanity where geography in any traditional sense ceases to exist.”
010 “I could hardly make out anything apart from his glowing eyes...”
009 “Shibuya was like a stroke.”
008 “I cried for a while and wiped the dead bracken off my karate pants.”
007 “Both my tie and my disposition hang limp as I calculate the remaining distance to the station.”
006 “I once read about a Chinese maiden whose feet were unbound by a cruel man …”
005 “The Bad Girl strutted off and I was left with a ham egg pie.”
004 “I arrived expecting an irritated Japanese person to step out of the crowd and identify himself as Hideki.”
003 “The woman at the ticket window seemed surprised to see another human being. I was the only visitor.”
002 “Flanked on either side by adult manga shops and the like, the smell of yakitori in the air.”
001 “For two weeks the day began with this morning walk, our shared routine.”
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commentary
All you can do to stave off the rivers of sweat is to stick to the shady side of the street where possible, and under NO circumstances rush. I would rather be an hour late and only mildly clammy than on time looking like the typical summer gaijin swamp-beast.
Still, in China it can be useful. A persistent market trader lost his grip on my arm once because it was too sweaty.