In Japan, I was running on the island. Office workers, rushing, can not stop except at traffic lights. Runners and walkers remained impassive. However, I sensed its perfection―skyscrapers and rows of houses, shopping malls and sports facilities, hospitals and parks. No inconvenient. These modern architectures and its ground had been clean and well-maintained. But, I never felt right about its beauty, the sidewalks draining my energy.
It was easy for me to become nostalgic, and there appeared to be much interaction on an island. I had lived in a magnificent house atop a hill. Here was where I seemed to develop a complete sense of isolation myself.
l opened the door and stepped out onto the terrace. There were bricks into pieces by my feet. I was hovering in the corridor anxiously; it occurred to me I had heard a thud yesterday. A raid on my house? It could not be.
The plantains (similar to banana) was covered with overgrown trees of my garden. It had been a year since the heavyset, half-naked neighbor opened a coconut and gave me, its milk dripping down and I sucked it immediately. I supposed he neglected to take care of my house.
Here was where this house commanded the colorful houses all the way to the clear sea. This was Saint Lucia, the beautiful Caribbean island, where the hot weather all year round and the old ways did not seemed relevant, where I was trying to invent myself.
“Hey. How are you? Are you enjoying?” A woman raised her voice. I could see the woman with her kids hanging out on the veranda of the orange apartment. “Yes.” I raised my arm feeling well.
On the adjacent property, there were the large trees that were a riot of mangoes; sometimes, I climbed up to gather them. I loved eating the big, ripe mangoes. It would be very expensive to eat such luscious ones in Japan, so I had done with every meal.
Recently, I had noticed a strange black woman sitting alone on the stairs next to my house. The beggar wearing filthy dark clothes did not seem dangerous. but I turned to the door, locked, and checked again. Indeed, I could recall the homestay in Gros lslet. The front door of the house was double with four keyholes―the way of turning the key was all different―I had been unable to manage to open. Protected with iron bars were all the windows of Caribbean countries’ houses. Once inside the house, you would feel as if you were imprisoned.
It was in the early evening and I turned on my Apple Watch on my left wrist, starting to run. The road had been descending steeply; past the imposing house where the rich white man resided. And at the same time I recalled a rainy day―that I had walked under my umbrella with the heavy bags after shopping at the Massy Stores. By the time a vehicle slowed to a halt beside me, I found I managed not to stagger along. “Ride on,” said a white-haired gentleman in a BMW, who picked me up and took me home.
Past the splendid pastured horse, at the corner of the two sky-blue drums that symbolized the Caribbean sea, a cat slinked about the overflowing garbage. The road now leveled. I crossed a small bridge and into the graveled path that rose. The grass field entered the picture―several goats that moved around, palm trees waving in the wind. There was no one there. I ascended the path for a few minutes, feeling clean inside, and here―the buses ran with the blare of music like reggae―was on the main road. If you raised your hand, the driver would jam on the brakes.
The path along the main road was uneven and uphill all the way, but I had a sense that I continued to overcome small obstacles. “K,” I saw the vehicle pulling up beside me; stopped running. “Everything is okay?” She was my colleague and on her way home. The aloneness of me would have made her worry. “Thank you. I’m all right.” “If you have anything, ask me. Okay?” she drove away and I felt light.
At the next bend, I was greeted by a black sign marked “GUINNESS” on the huge billboard; I would enjoy drinking it after running. To the left appeared Health Sciences University where the doctor next door, who was American over forty years old with no family, had worked as a docent. He seemed not to want to have much to do with me, perhaps because I was not a white-collar worker. A few months after I moved in, he simply said “good-by“ and left for Colombia.
On the other hand, there had been so painful things that I was wary of my surrounding. My memories was flashing before me―some off-leash dogs biting me. The owner scolded them at once, but showed no sign of apology to me, in spite of blood on my legs. Having barking excitedly at me, they tagged behind him, as though to have to defend their owner. At the sight of him surrounded by his loyal dogs, I was unable to say anything to him―you’re supposed to say something?
The other day, a fat woman holding her little boy’s hand pointed at me. ”Look,” she said to her son, laughing out loud. They started to march singing a racist song that insults Asian; I had ignored her with the utmost contempt. Who would not enlighten her on demeaning her own race before “Black Lives Matter?”