image: Eduardo Mueses
“That ear of corn just wanted to go home”
Once, on the east side of Shinjuku’s South Exit, I heard the most divine jazz saxophone that I have ever heard. Now I walk that way whenever I can, but I’ve never heard it again.
Recently, when I stopped to listen to the J-pop, I noticed a man standing nearby. He had the standard black suit, a fussy face, and on his head was metallic blue fez, with a gold tassle. He was twiddling his lustrous white cell phone. His other hand was holding a leash.
The leash led to a collar, studded, snug, and his pet: a dusty and bedraggled ear of corn. The green had gone gray, no silk was left. Evidently he’d been walking his ear of corn all over Tokyo.
The poor thing just lay there, too exhausted to move. That ear of corn just wanted to go home.
For once, passersby actually stared. These are the rules in Tokyo: you are permitted to look at babies and at pets.
location information
- Name: Shinjuku Station, South Exit
- Address: Shinjuku Station, South Exit
- Time of story: evening
- Latitude: 35.689701
- Longitude: 139.701558
- 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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