It was near midnight when we came back to the campsite. The steam spurted around the cook. The lean man said. “Just a second, the cook is preparing your supper. Sit down there, make your comfortable.” We sat down heavily on the ground by the land cruiser. In the dark the cook set a big kettle on a board instead of a table. The lean man brought a flashlight, shone its beam and fixed it somewhere. “A nice stew,” we three said. Then pasta and roast pork were served. I dug my spoon into the stew, and then I gulped down the roast pork. “Ah, I wish to drink beer,” Jun said with contentment ; Tsubaki handed him a bottle of water.

“We leave at three,” the lean man said. He dumped the sleeping mats on the rocky ground and laid out them one by one. I drag a mat, got away from the couple and put my backpack beside it. First I took off my hoodie, and then washed my arms and face with bottled water to keep me cool. Then I sat on the mat, brushed my teeth the way I peered into my reflection on the camera app in my phone, and I took off my sweaty jeans and lay down on my back on the mat for a while.

For the first time in my life, I sleep outside with only one mat, however, and I was surprised at how casual my feeling was. The wind was gone, the mat comfortable. Looking at the sky I heard the couple giggling softly to themselves, gradually fading away. It was the very night the gray clouds had hung in puffs. I had been fascinated by the meandering currents of my mind, and maybe I had grew patience, trying to know the world, in the end, I was glad I was here.

I heard stealthy steps from around the land cruiser. The movement stopped, and the car rasped on my sensibility. I took my phone—2:50AM. Ugh. That was dumb…I will have to get up. When I saw the lean man loading up the land cruiser, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. The couple was whispering together, so I squinted my eyes nearly closed and studied them—they were standing with their backpacks on the mats that were stuck together. “Wake up!’’ The lean man clapped his hands cheerfully. No way… 

The lean man got into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition. I sat beside him and the couple and the cook in the back seat. The land cruiser lumbered away, into the broken rocks. We were silent while the land cruiser battered along, full of clashings. I did hold the the highest hand grip of the window side, listening to the pounding land cruiser—a variation of rhythm—and dropping off to sleep.

We jumped in the land cruiser at random, through the broken rocks. I half awakened, and slept again as though to faint with anaemia, and my head had been tried to stand upright as I was constantly on the verge of crashing into the driver’s shoulder. The night still drifted, and ahead were a jagged broken peak. The lean man built up his speed, afraid of nothing. Up the steep slope, jumping and falling and putting a earth quake in the rocks. “African massage,”the lean man said, looking straight ahead, proudly—we were silent and did not give a laugh.

We coasted down the long sweep to the floor of the salt lake. “Oh, it looks like Uyuni,” I said. The road ran parallel to the lake, the dawn was coming, but it was slow and gray. “Looks that way,” Tsubaki said. “Amazing.” “Sunrise is really nice, but it’s cloudy,” the lean man said to Tsubaki. “It’s the worst day,” she smiled tentatively, compelled to talk. “It’s a beautiful place.” “Enjoy it. Assale Lake.”

There was an expanse of gray land before me. I was staring emptily at the lake. Nothing but emptiness. All of my things far behind. “Take photos,” the lean man pulled to the side of road and parked. Holding my iPhone I scrambled down from the car with excitement.

I stood, silent and awestruck, before its vastness. I wanted to be alone in the wilderness. During the Danakil tour I had been a little tense around the Japanese couple. I ran on the salty crust, at low tide, the emptiness and cool air moving in around me. I was always running, always alone. The wind blew fiercely across the field as I stopped at the tide line. Some distance away, at the center of the lake, was the land cruiser, by which the lean man had been taking photos of the couple.

I ran further away, where nobody would see me, and I knew it was illogical to fill an emptiness. But I had known a long time that being completely alone is a feeling so obsessive it blur, nobody even able tell. I would have to do life alone.

The mounting gray clouds, gaining ground, settled low and blocking the sun. No other land cruisers were in sight as I walked along the tide line. Finally alone, I squatted on my hams and touched the salt crust, and no hint of life in it. Gradually, the tide was receding. From the lake side I inspected the unsystematic line, easing back. 

I wished I could be here a little longer, however, and I was always ruled by time. On the horizon the persons dotted around a car. Of course I knew Japanese is punctual. Then at last I sprinted to the car, and scrambled into the land cruiser and we moved on.

The surface of the lake was like polygonal patterns, and its color changed over time—gray, then sand, and rusty brown. I had been absorbed in looking out the window. “We’re going to walk to the small village for breakfast,” the lean man said. “Approximately thirty minutes.” The land cruiser pulled up at the brown lake, and then I jumped down and looked around.

There was the mysterious phenomenon, profound even. As if God made humans shit neatly over the decades in the way to make the form of polygon. There was a road that parted the brown land, so that you can walk on the surface of the dry ground. The couple did not appear interested and they walked into the road. I was taking a movie with amusement ; and broke into a gallop and followed them.

Then suddenly the ground all changed. I was surprised—why can we be in two places at once? The sign said “DALLOL, AFARI.” I was not sure where we were going to now, but there was nobody I wanted ask. I had been bound to watch their behavior based on the concept of Japanese harmony, ready to anticipate. Jun never spoke to me. Tsubaki changed her attitude, depending on the situation. Besides I needed to keep a certain distance gingerly from the couple. Naturally I was frustrated at my efforts adding up to nothing.

In the gray sky a sun appeared, a dim yellow circle that gave little light. The lean man led with springy steps. I had to move quickly against a strong pull toward this geological drama I would never see. I felt like we had landed on an asteroid while a local young man blasted African music from his phone ahead of me. The surface of the earth crusted, a hard crust, and erosion had exposed bedrock : breaks or joints.

We edged gradually on outcrop of rocks ; I knew myself we have got a way to go before realizing again I am no good at a group. I had all the while hiked absent-mindedly, lest my brain might misfire : “If I do X, they do Y, then Z…then…” As if it snowballed at perfection and I could be suddenly subjected to natural chaos. However, I was now so controlled that I had become disoriented. “K-san,” a voice said from further. Turning, I saw Tsubaki standing on the hill and looked down on my place. “Come!” 

The view was stunning; the colorful matrix built up—I paused—incredible. It was beyond my expectations. I had assumed the blogger edited its photos to make them look attractive. I ascended the rise to Tsubaki. “It’s so much more vivid than I thought!” I said. “Yeah,”she agreed. I had climbed up and down—absorbed in fantasy.  When I was close to a yellow salt concretion, this girl said with some authority : “You shouldn’t go over there, he warned us.” I suddenly felt like I was treated as a child who always got lost. Why this girl speaking to me like this? I began to feel resentful at having been underestimated. What has come over her? What is on your mind? A certain aura emanated from the emerald green spot.

It was five hours later that the land cruiser arrived. The sky was still overcast. “We can go, anyway,” I spoked to Jun to get along fine with him. And the lean man carried dozens of 1.5 liter bottles of water in his arms. It occurred to me we must be at Semera airport by 4p.m. tomorrow. I walked by instinct toward Tsubaki and said, “I do remind him to come back to Addis tomorrow.” “Yes, yes, of course,”she said.

Pride, I supposed—I was the oldest in three. Like I was going to be the dependable person. I edged gradually in the lean man. “We been waiting for you more than five hours. What’s that all about?” I asked. “I’d joined another tour,” he answered, moving along the car, and Tsubaki went to him. “I don’t know what you mean. Come back the money,” she said with the fierceness of a woman trying to control herself. “No, I was so busy earlier on, guiding a tour group,” he said, loading the various things into the land cruiser. “We must go back to the airport, Semera, tomorrow,” Tsubaki demanded. “By 4pm at least,” I added. “Can you change the flight?” he asked casually. “No, we must go back to Addis,” I said with emphasis. Jun wandered about the car. “Can we go that volcano?” I asked nervously. “Of course, of course,” he said humbly.

I sat beside the lean man, our tour driver. And the couple and the cook in the back seat. “I’m very sorry to bother you,’’said the lean man sincerely. “If there’s blame, it’s not my blame,” he went on. “I was in Semera when my boss called me.” He still did not turn on the ignition. “Perhaps he is not responsible,” Tsubaki whispered in Japanese. Turning to her, I nodded twice. “Are you okay? That’s too hard—we probably hardly sleep at the volcano,’’ my head turned to him. “No, problem,”he grinned. “You are strong,” I said. “Let’s go!” he started the engine.

“Would you like the AC? Or open the windows?”the driver asked. “AC!” I said without thinking about the couple, because the land cruiser became unbearably hot. After a few moments, I found myself in a comfortable position: cool air hit directly on my wet body.

The long concrete path across the county—completely devoid of traffic other than us—over the yellow lands and the gray lands, and across the desert into empty landscape. Sometimes a single car, sometimes many camel caravans loading up with salt to market. Very interesting. I have been taking so many photos and videos of this geological drama. But it was essential every once in a while to bring my iPhone closer to the AC(in Aqaba, Jordan it’s battery had once swelled due to high temperature).

“We just get the whole thing over,” the lean man said. “ I do hope you’re enjoying Ethiopia. Enjoy, enjoy.” “Oh, yes,” Tsubaki said with a smile. “Everything’s fine, we must enjoy.” “Welcome to Ethiopia,” he slightly bow, placing his right hand on his left chest. “Thank you, thank you,” said the couple. Tsubaki raising her camera and snapping through the window. Jun whispering into her ear. “If you know nice viewpoints, please tell us,” I added. “Yes, I’ll pull up the car at the great viewpoints, I’ll show you.”

We drove into the little town over the dusty road. From time to time the lean man slowed the car and stopped it. He sat in his seat and gave a man a fist bump out of the window. Without instruction there was a quick exchange: money and little stuff wrapped in white paper, and he pulled away down the road.  I had not asked about them.

Then after a while the land cruiser crawled into a long abandoned village, and pulled up at a corrugated iron shack as if we had arrived somewhere. When we got out of the car, the sky clouded over. As I looked around the curious children crowded close, two ragged girl seemed to strike poses toward me. There were a dozen shacks made from wooden sticks, covered with black sheets that was patched. The other structures in the area were a combination of black sheets and corrugated metal, and on the wooden bed slat in no wall house lay a young man talking on his cell phone.

The reason for stopping was to acquire the stuff: fuel, tools, and spare tire. And so on and so on. The lean man asked me to switch the seats with the cook: they probably wanted to converse with each other. I sat beside Tsubaki and Jun beside her. The lean man got into the car and he started the engine.

The land cruiser moved on into the evening. And the road disappeared in the distance ahead. We started to climb up on rocks and and stones of the hill, twisting, losing the way sometimes. In the darkness we rumbled along, popping in the car. Holding the highest hand grip I was half slept on the back seat. And then gradually my brain became aware of what was slightly touching my shoulder. “No, you are in the wrong direction,”I thought to myself. Tsubaki’s head tilted toward me. I was getting something screwy. I knew that Ethiopia was the first stop on their long journey. The headlights swung around and outlined dark figures inside the car. I glanced quickly over. Tsubaki slept heavily. Jun kept his eyes straight ahead.

The land cruiser moved up the long hill, through the broken, rotten rock. It rumbled up the last rise and lumbered over the ground; we had come to a halt against a concrete tool shed. Then down from the car I climbed, weary and sleepy, and stretched stiff body. The thudding of the men’s feet on the stones sounded in the darkness. 

I was getting ready to climb at my iPhone light. The lean man and the cook began to unload the truck—water, a few pots to cook and wash in, and ingredients for dinner, and sleeping mats. The couple was wearing their headlamps on their hats. I was momentarily taken back, moreover, that I had failed to notice that earlier. Then I asked the lean man, “Can I borrow a headlamp?” “No,” he said sternly. “You don’t have?” “No,” I replied, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere as though it was none his business. 

The lean man in red t-shirt started to walk without saying. Tsubaki and Jun and I followed him. “Excuse me, Jun-san, I think I would follow your light,” I said. “All right,” Jun glanced back to me. At first I had walked at a steady pace, enjoying the flat gravel field as if in a cave. There was a crunch of feet that merged with silence. In my excitement, I started up the rocks, all my former weariness gone. I saw the couple climbing, stride to stride, and said, “You’re very used to climbing.” “We had often gone mountain climbing together, especially in Japan,” Jun said, looking ahead. Tsubaki, smiling at him, started to talk about memories of their climbing. 

After a while, we became silent, for the path was steep and there were quite a lot of rocks. I did my best to follow close behind him. As we ascended the rocky path at our own pace, Jun increased his speed and before long I could sense I was in danger of slipping out of control. My eyes followed a blob of yellowish light on the rocks that Jun’s headlight cast. I kept up with him, following just two step or three behind. His light jiggled over the way and I stumbled in the darkness, so much so that I had hardly reduced the distance between him and me. The hot air folded over my tight face. As I could see nothing but faint light in the distance, I stumbled forward, painfully sometimes. Jun had never turned back as if there were none. The unattractive girl had mouthed the lines of the anime characters. The lean man vanished altogether. Maybe my expression asked for help, but I stepped forward like nothing had happened before they underestimate me. Nothing, nothing ever upset me—I am the type of man who can run every single morning, regardless of rain, snowfall, typhoon, and “humiliation.”

When I think I could I fall down, I stopped uneasily, took my iPhone from my pocket and used its light to watch my step. And I followed the way that Jun had climbed. The sky was a dull black, and no star visible. Gradually, however, from the distance came a crackling sound. The smell of burned dust, and of sulfur was in the air, so that I put on a mask over my nose and mouth. The more I walked, the hotter it got. The distant yelling of Tsubaki could be sounded. The lean man, seeing I was late, stood on the top of the hill against the background of a little fire.

From the summit, the flames was all the more evident. “Eruption,”the lean man said. “Eruption?” the couple looked at each other. “Hunka(噴火)”I said in Japanese. “You see that-there?”the lean man pointed out the sights. I saw the glow of a flashlight, and suddenly the hot breath came up to us, with the volcanic ash smells on it, and with the dust particles. My eyes watered and turning back against it. 

With a hollow sound, a large red flame and a smoke rose up. The fire flared and dropped. I stared at them for a long, long time, into a deeply tranquil mood. Tears dripped from the corner of my red eyes. Erta Ale erupting and erupting. The lean man called out something from behind. When I thought he was appealing to us to go down as the night air contracted the flame, the fire was leaping redder and redder.

August 15, 2023

From Semera, we drove on for sixty miles through the desert, going straight, on the empty road. I looked ahead, seeing the fields or the little eating sheds, and occasionally stared through the window at a hundred white tents pitched on the flat land. How all of you live? Where all of you get food? Well, Afar region is mostly desert. 

The land cruiser parked somewhere. I had dozed off contently as the yellow sunlight fell on me in the front seat. Taking a tour made me not so bad—just follow the guide—I was able to be lazy. “Eat lunch here,” The driver said, “Until another guide come.” I scrambled down from the car. As I looked around I found myself in the small village. The driver led us into the straw hut. There were three square wood tables. And the chickens lay on the mad. I sat at an empty table, facing the Japanese couple, Jun and Tsubaki, a mediocre man and an unattractive girl. The local man gave us cold drinks, and we ate each plate—fried rice with corn, potatoes and carrots. It was good. 

The kids played outside as I sat on the bench in the shade. The three boys broke into trots, fooling around with me; they happily introduced themselves one by one. Every one was so eager to talk with me, that I smiled and muttered some pleasantry. After a while I noticed there was a hint of anger in Tsubaki’s voice. She was frustrated that the new guide had not come two hours after we got here. I knew they were not punctual for appointment and got used to it.

I had had managed a reminder of a dimension of her personality as though to blur out of my mind. But I found myself recalling well enough her bearing toward children. That was yesterday afternoon after viewing Alalobed hot-spring. We visited a small hay barrack, a ground straw and leaves on the floor, and at the stall in the corner. Then the children crowded inside and I went out before I was encircled. They were used to showcasing themselves as Maasai do: one tourist after another gaze them. Being involved in tourism is important for them. They would be welcoming, smiling, touching and taking photos with tourists: the adults manipulate children to receive food and other items. Of course as soon as the children saw the couple, they shouted and swarmed about them, tugging at their hands and it looked such fun that they tried to do it.

The sun seemed to light up them. The other children skittered along, hopping excitedly from foot to foot around the barrack. The couple stood inside the circle, shrieking with delight and comporting themselves with their self-satisfied smiles and smirking. The tour guide became a photographer while the sky seemed more alive than it had been. Stupid. I thought. I nauseated with revolution and loathing. Staying away from them, I became a bystander who despited a shallow couple. The tour guide gave me the cold shoulder, but I never made a smile.

Japanese who visit African country do want photos with children. She solicits African children to take photos with her—not from children. Her belief is that she did do something worthwhile. She believes it sincerely. She posts them on social media that makes her look likable the way she loves children. But what did she contribute for them? If you were serious about poverty, you would not have time for that. A real man never do that. I revere Hans Rosling; I had read the book FactFullness. I am very sorry for Tetsu Nakamura; he drilled wells and constructed irrigation canals for poverty.

Now and then Tsubaki rose to her feet and clenched her fists at her side, looking the road over which we had come. “Now that you say it, the new guide isn’t coming,”I said. “I texted it to the tour company,”she said blankly, wondering about Jun, who sat on another bench with his legs crossed. A boy fiddled with my neckless I wore all the time. She called to the tour company. “That driver said somebody picked up us here, but not come,” her face went grim with anger.

I remembered vividly more of the argument I had had with that woman. On the last night, I had been in my hotel room, googling Kenya Visa. I heard someone knocking on the door. Listening through it I could not of course determine to open the door late at night, but the knocking never stopped. I wondered who was there and finally opened the door. I saw a dark figure of a woman. “Pay!”she said. “What?” “Hotel fee.” “I already paid the tour company, it includes in the tour.” “No. Pay! Eight hundred(About 20 dollar, It was the cheap hotel, in spite of 400 dollar for the tour).“I already paid. Ask my tour company!” “No. Pay!” this stupid bitch hold out her hand. “You’re very rude,”I blurted out, so I made me bring myself under control.” “I call the tour guide now.” I had been waiting for him to answer impatiently. Fuck. “Tomorrow, the tour company pay you. Okay?” I said softly. The stupid bitch slipped back into the darkness.

Tsubaki had been continuing. “Full refund! Okay?”she demanded at last, with some irritation, and she hung up the phone. Her eyes were blank and her lips writhed. “They are looking for someone who can come now, but no one,” she muttered. She had certainly created a tense atmosphere around us, characterized by distrust. The boy had touched my neckless gently or mischievously while she had been silent before the kids.

I opened What’sAPP and typed a message. 

‘We are in Silesa. The new guide hasn’t come for so long. Immediately arrange new guide who take us.’—2:15PM✓✓

“I texted the person of the tour company a message, too,”I hold out my iPhone so Tsubaki could see. “Ah, thank you very much, K-san,”she said soberly. “Maybe reached the boss, but, it would be difficult to be sure.”I said.

A little kid was struggling to open the number pad lock on my backpack I put beside me. Then his brother joined in, and I had been letting the two kids play—I seemed to talk so freely with an open mind. At that point I was praising myself just a little bit. I had been a man who was difficult to get along with kids and pets.

“I’ll definitely get a full refund,”she muttered furiously to herself. “You got a reply?” I asked. “No. Just marked as read,”she said. “Why we have to wait this long?” “Maybe, because of after Corona. They are disorganized and the ways of thinking differ from ours,” I went on. “And I heard the most of organized tour groups were based in Mekele. But we are Semera. Maybe, largely on account of the wars, especially the borders between the countries. Either way, they abandoned us in the desert,” I sighed. Jumping and yelling, the two had opened the lock—000. “Great!”I said to them, turning back to her. “But thanks to you here, this seems to reassure me. My style is acting alone. If I were alone here, now, I just get panicky.”

I texted again.

“Nobody come. We 3 member really really worry it will be dark in the desert. We were left.”—3:23PM✓✓

“If a new guide came now, it would be near midnight before we get there,”said Tsubaki. “No longer do I need dinner or sleep. Take us to get there anyway,” she said flatly. “Yeah,” I agreed. And then I opened the google map on my iPhone—I started where we were. Jun, a mediocre man supplemented by her English, was temporarily isolated.  “From here it’s perhaps about one hundred twenty miles, so we could be there in three or four hours,”I said to a mediocre man, who began to google on his phone set up by Japanese language. “One hundred twenty miles. It’s not that far away, isn’t, it?’’ he went on,“We can still make it. I wish we could go.”

“What should we do? We are afraid of everything.”—4:21PM✓✓

A car pulled up beside the road. I lifted my eyes and we strolled to the land cruiser. Three men had got out out of the car. They were sharped-faced men, and they looked very clean from head to toe. And at the front was a man with black sunglasses, dressed in traditional clothes. He had on a massive silver bracelet. The two man wore new western shirts, blue jeans, and leather shoes. They walked about, bossy in clean clothes, the way atmosphere turned.

A ragged man like a village mayor went to a corrugated iron shed. The young men carried the gunny sacks in their hands and put them in front of the three. The randy man noticed Asian faces and gazed at us. “China!” he said, “What are you doing? China, huh?”he asked. I found that absurd and said. “Sorry, I can’t speak English.” We just stood quietly; he made a mockery of it. “China,”he said again.

We were nervous while the sky started to be covered with cloud. I was bored in a small village, which made the kids scattered. Tsubaki and I sat on the same bench. “I added further pressure to them, by WhatsApp.”I said, having been on my phone. “Oh, I got a reply! I hadn’t noticed.”  

I read out loud.

“I am sorry for the problem we caused, and we understand the frustration we put you through. driver is coming”—4:23PM✓✓

“I never got one reply,”she was frustrated. “They’re licking me.” “Maybe, I shouldn’t reply. Ignoring without thank you,”I said. “Yeah, I agree with you. Leave on read.” she said, “We should make us look steadily stronger—or else they lick us.” “I think so.”

We three had vaguely wondered the village and I asked Tsubaki. “Do you believe that? They say the driver is coming.” “I don’t know. But perhaps they had performed some kind of action,”she looked forlornly at the road. 

“Ah, they are coming.” Then with a little smile she seemed to regain her poise. I could see a land cruiser on the road. The car charged in, it’s wheels screamed, and a cloud of sand from the ground fluffed up and spread out. A lean, quick man in a red t-shirt got out of the car.

August 12, 2023

In mid August, on late afternoon that was a little cold, I got on a black down jacket and lame skinny jeans I bought in Galle, Sri Lanka three month ago. I sauntered toward the hostel, and enjoyed eating the fried dough I had bought at a food stall. The strange women blundered about on the sidewalk and regarded me. Their face were rigid and their eyes inward. I sauntered on; and then a woman moved closed to me, saying the word,“Money,” so close that I brushed her with my elbow. I could see their eyes followed me down the road.

A little bit ahead I saw some scales at a short interval; by each scale stood one child. As I watched them one boy’s hand clutched my arm. “Put your weight on, sir!”he said. I shock it off quickly, speeding my pace against the children. Before they could follow me I half ran, crossed the main road, fled around the roundabout—the little cluster of buildings stood out. Square tiles and mirrors of outside walls, modest and reserved, painted in red and pink and white, yellow and pale blue. Addis Ababa—not such a big city, for rich and poor together all in one. There were no trippers with smart phones. Small shops and restaurants sprang up, rich people just having fun. I had been awful hungry, but I understood myself—it would get me kind of sinful if I ate at these here nice restaurants.

The dusk deepened. I retraced the road I had walked before and hurrying back to the hostel. It was a mile to the hostel. I turned down a side street, into a graveled road, and saw the shadows of people against the walls of shacks, low and rough, exposed in the opening. I looked away—moved quickly along the other side of it, staring helplessly straight ahead. At the crossroad, where there was a fancy hotel, flickered the dim lights. The night air was cold , somewhere EBM sounded, and strange people moved about in the streets. My impulse was to get into these local folks for warmth; it seemed like I wished African people could be nice to an outsider.

By the feeble street lights I looked at figures moving from the shadow of like small grocery stores or of like canteens. Speaking of Ethiopian traditional food, it seemed to be Injela, which I had wanted to try to eat. I skulked about a series of corrugated iron sheds, looking for signs : RESTAURANT. And then I could see their heads turn as their eyes followed me, whenever I was not sure of myself in a country I had never been to.

Outside, a young broad woman sat on the stool, a shadow crossed her face and from the little shack opening I looked at the folks eating. “What do you want?” She tipped up her steaming mug and sipped the drink. Her toenails glistened pinkly in her sandals, her legs crossed. A mischievous, laughing face. “Im just going past,”I said. I tried to avoided her. “Come in. Have a seat,”she gestured for me to go inside. I wondered I was getting screwed. Some people in business got to cheat a foreigner. I blundered into the shack—only six feet wide. Around a small round table, a young couple sat on each box against the walls. I sat on the pale blue bench by the entrance, where a middle-aged man in the ragged overalls was eating salad. This couple had been tearing the end of a blown stuff; I guessed maybe it was home-made Injela. I caught a woman in a white apron scurrying in and out through the opening. “I’d like In…ju-la?” I flinched with embarrassment. “You said Injela? “Yes.” “No, finished.” “Do you have a menu?” “No, we don’t have,” she disappeared from my view. As I looked for help from face to face the laboring man said, “You gonna eat.” He left me some stuff to eat and he hobbled into the dark night.

I mooned into the shacks, into the grocery shops—and not getting Injera. I remembered a place I glanced through the open door—the small iron shack where the men ate a brown creased flatbread on which there were fried potatoes with thick red sauce. I set out toward again it. Down the graveled road I could see the folks sitting huddled together drinking coffee. 

The front of the gray, paintless shack of corrugated iron, silver and tin, but properly set up. I put my head out of the threshold of its entrance again. The inside—the warmth, the lightly hubbub—was such a contrast to the chill night that I regained my energy.

A woman stood near by, cooking beside the fridge and smiling a little but firmly at me. “What you want?” “Is this what you call Injera?” This time I pronounced more clearly maybe, and pointing at it; one folk ate standing, a plate in his hand, and tearing the edge of it. “Yes,”she said soberly. “Injera, you want?”she asked. “Yes, I wanna try to eat the local food. It is very famous, is it?” She did not answer. In the small room stood a square table, and around it were plastic stools—pale blue, white and purple—for the local people to sit on. A dark-faced man, drinking from a pint flask, sat on the stool. “Come in,” he gestured toward a stool, friendly and humble. “Come right in.”

From outside came a rushing sound. A man like a shopkeeper skittered toward the tank in the shade beside a tin wall, the border between the shack houses, squatted down and washed the dishes in the tubs. I stepped humbly over the doorsill, and then I wriggled slowly my way among the stools and sat beside the tipsy man. “Set down,” he said forlornly. In the back of me was the small kitchen, where the woman had been turning the thick slice potatoes, the onions and the green weeds in the hot grease. 

I was just waiting for Injela. The tipsy man was silent, holding his pint. He sapped it occasionally. The fridge on the right stood so close to me that it could only be half open. I turned back.“Excuse me. Can I have a beer?” She opened its door and it banged the table and then she peered into. Finally, she hold up two beers. “Which one?”she asked. “Uh, I was very new, arrived today. Which do you recommend?” “St George.” “Okay, I’ll have it.” 

The lonely man had been silent. The walls were whitewashed gray and the floor concrete. The night wind around the shacks rustled the rusty tin walls, and a frying pan hissing and spitting. I had tasted its bitterness and going elated. I tried to talk with him. “What is this you drank?” “Nice liquor,” he said. “Can you try?” I wondered if he asked for money. “Uh…maybe. A little bit.” “Yes, yes,” he poured white liquor from his pint into a tin cup.

I was waiting for Injela; grease splashed and hissed. I twisted my neck and looked over my shoulder. “Excuse me, I wonder could I eat lnjera?” “Oh, you wanna eat Injera?” “Of course,” I sipped the drink, silent and fretful. The shopkeeper came in. “Pa. Get to the store,” said the cooking woman. They huddled together talking together—he took her money and went out the door into the darkness.

She moved back to the kitchen and I stood looking around. In one corner an orange corrugated paper sagged steeply from the ceiling, and empty beer bottles were on the floor. She picked up the fork and stirred a few dark curls like intestines in the grease. There was a life in the shack. 

When the shopkeeper came back I could see through his bags brown flatbread; he passed them up to the cooking woman, who set out a tin platter with something like a creased wide crepe in front of me. The frying pan of intestines no longer hissed, and she scooped them with the fork from the grease and laid them in the center on it. I inspected the Injera; approaching my nose then poking at the intestines with the point of my knife. As soon as she was aware that I was a little taken aback, she tore off the edge of the Injera of mine, wrapped intestines and took a bite of it backing to the kitchen.

I tasted Injera—a little acid, but not as bad as the bloggers said—and gnawed at the dark curls slowly, pain ripping and echoing with each bite through my lower left back teeth, because one of them had fallen out in Varanasi, India. And so I chewed gingerly and swallowed.

Near the open door a randy man moseyed around. Cockily, he walked close, seeing my Asian face, and he came into with a swaying strut. He sat a plastic stool across from me, merry and efficient. The randy man wore a black cap rakishly and a white stubble beard made impact. For clothes he wore a black and white checkered shirts. “Hello, my friend,” said the rancid man, who enthroned on the plastic stool. I sat still, eating Injera awkwardly. “You from China?” he grinned affectionately at me and his pale blue eyes were somewhat kindly with secrecy. “Japan.” “Japan! You’re welcome here, my friend.” “Thank you.” I said flatly.

I tore off a piece of Injera that was soft and smooth and carefully scooped up the intestines with my fork—stuff spilling over. The rancid man looked at it. “Like this.” He tore off my Injera, quickly grabbed the remains from above, and filled his mouth full. This heller did so again and again, silent and wolfish; tearing, grabbing, chewing and swallowing. I was full of wonder, or rather I got mixed up. His teeth were very white against his brown skin. “Hey! This is mine I ordered,” I said angrily. “There’d be nothing left.” “Yes, yes,” he said, dipping it into red sauce. “Do you like spicy?” He asked. I wanted to say—I wanted to say—I could not understand—besides, I was not capable yet of saying something. Now and then the cooking woman glanced around pleasantly from the frying pan. “Yes…a little…”I said. He passed the oily small cup that leaked redder sauce up to me. “My name is Zewdu. What’s your name?” “K.” The randy man stood up and said, “K, glad to meet you.” A third of my Injera was left. “Good night,” he went out the open door.

When supper was over I stood up. I was unwilling to wipe the grease on my hands with my jeans. “Come,” the cooking woman went out and gestured toward the blue tank. Her hand twisted its lever; I washed my hands, with water running down toward the tub in which the dishes dipped.

I awoke to find sunlight pouring in and heard the chittering of the birds and the hammering of the irons and the timbers. I got up from my bed and passed through the glass door onto the balcony. A wind was gentle and sighing. Addis Ababa had begun to come to life. The men worked in the formwork of the building before me. I looked over at the direction I had been walked yesterday. The outskirt of the town was so cluttered with the ruined small shacks; the ragged patched roofs, and the scraped walls—green, purple and yellow—made of tin or of concrete. And a few obscure houses and buildings.

Leaving the dormitory room, I descended the staircase. Along the bright red wall were the African paintings and the postcards lines. When I reached the ground floor, ahead of me emerged a big water pump, which two small, lean men lifted. The water had not been running in this hostel since yesterday’s check-in. I made my way past them and wrenched the door open and into the enclosed space, where bed sheets and clothes lines hung. A dog came sniffing at me. Then he trotted away watched the two men for some kind of signal. I slowly opened the bar gate with the squeak of iron on iron.

A little way outside the gate there were dozens of small white cups neatly on a table, and among them stood green herbs in one glass. A woman in a black denim jacket sat on a blue plastic stool and put her elbow on her knee and her chin in her cupped hand. I inspected them with interest. “Could I have a coffee?’’I asked. She pulled out a plastic stool and put it beside me. “Thanks,”I said and sat on it. She squatted  beside the little old brazier. She had a fire started and poked the coals and set a tin kettle inside.

As the morning went on, men and women huddled near her. She still sat looking into the coals. The lid of the kettle clashed and she lifted its handle and poured coffee into another black kettle, from which steam rosed. “Yes, Juna! Very good,” said a man’s voice.

Instead of a table, Juna set the black leather chair with no backrest. On my tray she put a cup and set a small red porcelain, incense burned—she filled up it with coffee. “Without sugar,” I said and she looked at me in wonder. “It would spoil the taste of coffee.” And I slowly brought my mouth closer to its surface and drank the scalding coffee.

I wanted some breakfast and idled along the streets where mud puddles formed, and in the low place little lake formed. I lost the memory of last night the rain had fallen. The mud loosened ahead of me. I saw the men and the shovel rose and fell; their shoes were shapeless of mud. Perspiration stood out on the forehead of the young man.

Finally, I reached the large windows with the brown frames and could see plenty breads and a sign: GOLDEN COFFEE & BAKERY. I stood silently, breathed in and went into the shop. And there was a seated man, eating something shaped like a triangle—crispy on the outside and so dense on the inside—over hot milk. A young woman in clean clothes walked around the counter. “I’ll have the same he eating,” I said, looking at the man. “How many Sambusas you want?”she asked, developing a little smile. “Sa…busa. Uh, maybe, I’ll get one.” She went to the back room, and soon she came back bringing a thing wrapped in white paper. “It was last one, careful, very hot.”she smiled and handed it to me. The seated man pull out amiably a white plastic chair near to me; I bowed to him and sat in it. And then I just nibbled and nibbled—Sambusa was packed with beans. I looked around at the woman and held up my hand. “Excuse me, and a cup of hot milk.” The light of the sun came through the windows. The sun, warm as a blanket, allowed myself to be coaxed back down into my chair. She put a cup of milk and a bowl of sugar on a red tray and carried it to the table. The large square windows showed four young person juggling a soccer ball in the circle on the concrete street.

March,2020

Since I had lived alone in a cheap, cramped room of my new condo, I had hardly talked with anyone. Until now, I had led the life of a hermit who was voluntarily imprisoned and who would have liked to study hard. For me, Japan was finished. My whole being was directed overseas. I had nothing left but say goodbye. Growing up to be an oddball, I had long since become insensible by being alone.

I had been overcome by Japanese who put pressure on you to conform and no longer wanted anything to do with people who was stuck and buried in their work–including my family and relatives. “What do you do next?” That was what I had expected and counted on. You never understand. I knew I had been guilty of everything myself and I would never accept a single person into my life. At any rate, there was no one to lose by disappearing forever. The outside world was gone and I had peace of mind.

After running in the mornings, I paced to and fro in front of the TV. The world suddenly changed due to the coronavirus, and so did my daily routine. The stock prices plunged and plunged. This was the biggest crash since the 2008 financial crisis, which at the time I was too ignorant to get the seriousness of the matter. Yet this time all the foundation of my existence began to rock. I shuddered with excitement. I was like, “When is the bottom?” I imagined what it would be like if, instead of working, my assets increased tenfold. The more it fell, the stronger yen was. I had to buy dollars…to leave Japan.

Suddenly young people in uniforms disappeared from the streets, and then old memories came over me. How glad I would have been if I had been a high school student. I had detested my old school, where I had made the big mistake, which from then caused me a great deal of distress. And at the same time I felt a deep, joyful consolation that it was a boy, who was a victim of bullying, was salvaged by Corona. Your mother would say: “Don’t go out otherwise you get infected.” Luckily, you would be free from a long pitiful school life. You can create a new life. Surely new world will welcome you and invite you, where no one knew you. 

My standard of living was very low. It all was my fault. I did not make the exertion when I was young, even though I had a rich environment to study, which I felt to be the bitter present. It had plagued me for years and years.

Perhaps I was an oddball; I was not able to do the same things the others did. Now they were doctors, dentists, and entrepreneurs. I had searched their names on Facebook. What was I compared to them? How long would this have taken them? What difficulties would they had bore? This I could not do. If I had had the strength and toughness to make something of myself, everything would turn out differently. I would not have had to become a blue-color worker. I could have been a doctor too.

It was to be quiet and let the old be gone. I believed everything was still possible, all I had to do was study, which I neglected to in high school, and I was left with the strange, yet irrepressible passion of being like my father. It was my destiny to make exertion in the expiation of my endless guilt.

I wished to leave this room as soon as possible, which was too small to place a sofa and in which the whole thing spoke of work and asceticism, where no reminiscences of women could be found. If you look out through the window, there is not anything special. You just see a big house, whose windows were shuttered down all the time, as if to show undue caution, and then you have to go away quickly, so as not to let them think you peek. It seemed to me that I felt cut off from the world, as if there were enemies in this house, whose intention one did not know, and against whom one feigned indifference.

The residents of my condo, head down and slowly walking so withdrawn, sullen, and indifferent. There could be nothing to be done about it. I yearned longingly for the last two year I lived in the Caribbean country. Ah, how often I had greeted strangers and talked with them, how often I had absentmindedly been comfortable and smiled.

Through a wall next door, I had heard a boy’s voice, singing and talking to himself with animated; moaning and then kicking something with all his strength, maybe absorbed in video game. All day long he was home and enjoyed by himself. Perhaps his weird voice stemmed from a developmental disorder such as autism.

On the other side next door, if you made even a slightest noise in your daily life, almost immediately you could hear a flicking sound such as closing a paper door quickly, as if to say: “Shut up!” I assumed he suffered from schizophrenia. What I know of them was that socially withdraw men lived isolated from the outside world. Indeed, of their past lives and origins I know nothing at all.

The way they carried themselves I did not at all like at first. I know the severity of society. There is no mercy for those who is hopelessly　incompetent at work. Consequently he is kick out by it whether you suffer from mental disorder or not. I remembered excuses she made up after she made mistakes at work: “I’m sorry. I’m ADHD.” I did not like it that she was caught up in a tangle of sacrifices and small expedient. It is useless vanity and her work never keep her go forward. Another man, who had Asperger’s disorder, was demoted later. He could not read between the lines, even when I stated clearly, he prioritized his own obsessions.

They would have worked with every fiber of his being, but they were not much. You could observe their folly, but you had to let them go their own way. There has got to be a great clarity inside him, however, and they have no talent for work in Japan, where group harmony is preserved. I would have not long to live in this strange country, for we had gifts, more than a lot of other ordinary people. I was proud that I had while I missed something they had. I missed it.

I had already endured as much as I could of wretchedness. Under such conditions I could not consider my future logical and good. I was truly alone. There were no help with my problems of adolescence. It was absolutely certain that I escaped from the reality I would never become my father, simultaneously, mocking his audios toil and the difficulty of the path to what they call the genuine vocation.

I rode my bike to and from school along Purple river. I occasionally stopped to be late for school and then I clambered down the riverbank. As soon as I took my seat I became nobody, with a real feeling. I would remain here a little while; no one looked at me. I was free and alone. At heart, however, the misery of the past year and months–the inconsolable gloom–encompassed me. My school life was empty, although I had had a few friends. It was my own affair to come to terms with my self and to find my own way. The river flowed softly and quietly. 

What my curiosity sought was from outside world, where high school students work part-time. I simply wished to get rid of my loneliness and imprisonment and to have peace, intending to become at least an ordinary person who carries on with his normal life.

I spent after school working at a bento shop, groping my way forward. There were the students who went to different stupid schools. As I was new, I greeted each one with the shrinking timidity that I felt in the presence of punks. Soon afterwards we were talking with one another. For how long hadn’t I really talked to anyone? I was very glad to be allowed to have a little share in their youth. In a friendly fashion, every one talked with me, laughed, and teased me a bit. I had never indulged in this way I let myself go. I liked it that they did not judge people based on your educational background. I was no longer a solitary boy.

None of them was not going to apply to college, nor was poor. They just wanted enough money for their enjoyment–motorcycle and car, karaoke and bowling and billiard, smoking and hanging out at family restaurant. The lives of ne’er-do-wells sounded interesting. I was much with a few friendly boys. I liked them. Nevertheless, something was lacking in my heart. I had observed that there is a end somewhere, and that everything I should have have and done for myself alone, sinks into an abyssal sea; however it reposed, in my innermost soul.

In my last school year when all students began to talk about university, I had a good time at work. Meanwhile, viewed from the outside, I was going downhill. Working was a distraction when I also begun to think about it. My determination seemed to grow in opposition to my true will– my father, an unpretentious and open-hearted man who finds satisfaction in his study. Too long he had been accustomed to be indifferent to me. Subconsciously, I had been so frustrated and angry with my father.

The autumn came, and I longed for the spring I would go somewhere new and start over fresh. I had no thought to give to the future, to the fate of my vocation. I was so much more interesting in things outside of school rather than learning in the university. I had had a strenuous year at work, and now I felt with comfort and with joy that I was a part of the world, where I barely sensed sad monotony. I wanted only to live in accord with promptings which came from myself.

One evening in autumn I rode my bike on my way home. A man came down the hill as I went up. “Hold on. Look who’s here!” he said in a daze. “K! It’s been a long time. How have you been?” “I’m good, sir,” I hesitated. At the sight of him, the hideous  misery before which I fled fell up on me-everything I thought reminded me bitterly of what I had done, and of the total stupid I now was. He was the English teacher at the cram school when I was ninth grade, where he had showed favor to me. 

By degrees I heard some anecdotes of him and of her. The past, they were inferior to me, and I felt I was outside the circle. The conversation in an convivial, light tone, which was difficult for me, for I was now truly quite a different person from a boy he had known before. I recalled those days had diminished with time, but now his affectionate approach had brought back a few memories, making me feel too guilty.

It was when I was hospitalized with a pneumothorax that despite working late, he visited me in the morning. He would have spoken in his accustomed humor manner. I liked his comical aspect as well as his teaching. He had expected me. Difficult problems in English that he gave only to me I had been struggling with in the middle of the night.

“Where will you be going to University?”he asked, and his voice were friendly and jesting. It was painful for me–I had desired to live a little more contentedly and easily. “I’m planning to apply to F University,” I said quietly, feeling ashamed. Stunned, he said nothing. We were silent for a little while.“You’ve got to be kidding,” he gawked at me. When he approached me with sympathy and disbelief, my old memories stirred in me. “What’s wrong with you?” he shook me by the shoulders. “K,” he said soberly. “I believe there was some incomprehensible misfortune.” Something within me kept me from the agony that strangled me. “No, no. I’ve been too lazy and comfortable to study,”I laughed a little, which was but pretexts and subterfuges. He appeared to have something else to say, and my half-evasive answers did not please him. He nodded like he understood and left it unsaid. “I see,” he muttered and soon went away.

Now I was pedaling my bike again, but found myself distracted and inwardly restless, and stopped at the cram school, where a teacher I had never seen before stood on the platform. Then I looked thorough the glass at the junior high school students in the bright light, and immediately moved away. How I am born, tortured, and fall considerably short of expectations–what a man is to himself. I wandered aimlessly through the darkness.

It was the beginning of April. When I came out of the locker room, three upperclassmen suddenly guffawed. “The ultimate man!” They said, pointing out me.“That’s hilarious.” I did not understand what the bastards meant. What on earth? How dare they? As I ascended the stairway linking the walkway to the main building, I heard one say: “The ultimate was coming.” It was weird and I had a premonition. Then slowly I walked on. 

As I walked through the hallway like I was invisible, I could see sticking their heads out of windows. “The ultimate!”and they burst out laughing. At a recess, one peeked in my class, looking for someone and pointed at me. “The ultimate,”he smirked, disappearing. I felt acutely that new offenses were bound to grow; everywhere I went I was followed by enemies–by darkness, hatred and shame.

The next day the same thing happened over and over. They were persistent and expected me to be the clown. During the recesses I did not leave the classroom that was next to that of upperclassmen expect when I go to the bathroom. But when I walked by, when I met them, they immediately started again. It was quite awful. What is frustrating was that I could not do anything. In Japanese schools, the hierarchy is determined simply by what grade you are, on which it was very crucial you follow the upperclassmen.

I had perceived two opposite worlds that smelled completely different. One contained–punks with blond hair and gals wearing miniskirts and loose socks, juvenile delinquent stories and rumors of pregnancy. Though often a stranger to it, I existed in this world a few months ago. Eventually they hit me again and again: the way to ruin me was violence.

Now I belonged to well-lighted world that was at least familiar to me: yet, at this week, everything looked ravaged and hatred, was mine no longer and rejected me. A new odious feeling came over me. Momentarily I felt superior to my father, who was indifferent to me. I had seen through him and his world, where he was occupied with his study. This meant studying endlessly and it was at all impossible that I reached him. I had been contemptuous of this world, where intelligent people prefer to ignoring, mocking and humiliating to enjoying his real life. At any rate, I would have been in a rebellious phase.

When I left the classroom to go home, Shimada, a biology teacher who used to taught computer to my grade, had the afternoon homeroom. “Look. There comes the ultimate man,”he said, as though to provoke laughter in his class. The trigger was Shimada. I was boiling with anger while the bastards laughed. At the same time I was so apathetic because those who get bad grades were as good as scum, except for the extroverts who popular with everyone. Not studying seemed out of place.

I had done something wrong, with the remain of a piercing in my left lobe. There was nothing in my school bag but my Walkman. It was my own affair to find my own way. It had denied this intimate world that dawned within me.  I was ruining myself in this process. My ground was slipping from under my feet. I was not like the other students, who studied hard to go to an excellent University. Must I resonate with them? Though my sin was not specially this or that, I felt everything had had to happen as it did. I had to struggle with a drive that is considered an“outsider”like permanent contempt.

It was disgusting the way Shimada and the upperclassmen underestimated and teased me. I was ashamed that I was a victim of a kind of bullying, which meant I was a weak person, so I did not dare confide it. In any rate, I was not the character to confess my suffering to a teacher and felt incapable of telling my mother everything properly. I needed someone to take my side. But I knew no one never picked up the side of a dropout against excellent students; people put what is agreeable to them in the right. My whole thing would be regarded as an aberration, whereas no matter how much bullying they inflict on me, I must endure any pain.

They regarded me amusedly, and I was laughed at everyday, every single day. “The ultimate!” They called me that. I was to hear it repeatedly. I had given in thoroughly and become more impure than ordinary students who follow the norm. I considered myself odd, taking a road different from most people. I could have studied hard, but I did not, so I had to be patient. That was all.

There was one boy I failed to ignore. Unlike the other bastards, Ueda was so close I was forced to look at his face inches away. His face was filled with enjoyment. He was smart and popular. All he had to do was to say some loathsome things to me, and his friends would laugh out loud saying: “The ultimate!” This awful things lasted perhaps a few weeks; my condition at that time was a kind of madness.

I had been thinking the way I get him to shut up. At noon recess, I could see the first-rate bastard alone ascending a staircase just by chance. He would say excitedly: “The ultimate.” I could no longer bear that. He was older than me; the school hierarchy was none of my business. Hardly had he arrived on the landing when I grasped him by the neck and squeezed against wall. “I’ll hit you,” I threatened him, looking at his eyes. Startled, he flinched and turned away as though he felt thoroughly ashamed of being underestimated by an underclassman who had been silent. He made no reply, but some students watched us, so I released him. Then he slunk away, blushing.

For one day, for two I did not encounter Ueda. He seemed to have vanish. I hardly believe it and I constantly lay in wait. When I walked past him a little distance away, he did not pay attention me as though I was nobody. It was an unprecedented moment I thought he might be afraid of me. For a whole week nothing happened about me, and I began to regain my peaceful equilibrium.

One day I walked calmly across the locker room. Suddenly I grasped it that Ueda came closer to me. “After school, come to the school gate,”he said with unwonted seriousness. “If you’ve got something to tell me, do it right here.”I said. “No. The school gate,”he came closer, again radiating influence. His followers looked at me with a sense of amusement. “How many your fellows do you think there’ll be?” I asked, superciliously. “The school gate, anyway,”he said, his face twitched and disappearing.

I was startled and frightened. From this time on my thought fixed on Ueda. I was certain that he had found other means of torturing and using me. In the meantime, miserable though I was, I did not regret at having done so at the landing. I began to feel stubborn. There was no turning back. I was ready to accept the inevitable.

As I climbed down the staircase alone I realized I had underestimated these bastards. In the square in front of the school gate were a dozen or so upperclassmen, against whom I had held a grudge. I was teased to begin with and stopped irresolute at the foot of the staircase, where Ueda stood right up against me. He instructed me to the corner. He poked me in the ribs a few time. “You must apologize to me,” he said. “Get down on your knees. Lick my shoes.”I tried to thrust myself toward the gate but he stood blocking me.

Ueda was embraced by all upperclassmen who seemed to become brothers–“What an idiot. The ultimate,” they chuckled. Numerous students, meanwhile, passed by me one after another, as though they avoided getting into trouble pretending not to notice or looked down on me with contempt. I began to feel acutely the hatred and rage to the intelligent students, who would have only one genuine vocation–doctor, lawyer or scholar–like my father.

“You can’t do anything on your own,” I said. “I came by myself. You surround me with your fellows, who tease a shit out of me.” “I was talking face to face!”he said, blushing. “Look around. You unite, laughing at me.” “Anyway, apologize.”

I had been humiliated enough–by the bastards who moved closer and closer to me. Although I knew they were far from violence, I wanted them to hit me as the punks did until they felt better. I was preoccupied with myself. And I longed desperately to be alone. I did not know what to do, unable to escape. “If you never call me ‘ultimate,’ I’ll apologize.” I blurted out. Ueda said nothing. I seemed to be caught forever in this impasse. I stood before them and trembling inside from exertion.

“I’m sorry,”I said. 

“The ultimate!”they burst into laughing.

There was a roll call in gym class. The teacher would read my name. No sooner had I answered “Hai” than a student did “Absent.” We were told to make teams of five to play basketball. As usual, I slip in where there are not enough in a group. But this time, I was the only one left, the teams of five arrayed, everyone sitting on the floor holding their knees. “Excuse me, sir. Where should I go?”I asked. “You don’t have any friends, eh?” He said bluntly; I heard a giggle.

I had almost decided to give up everything at that time. From the third semester of my first year, the computer classes had began, but I sometimes skipped school, so I could not keep up with them. I thought I failed to earn its credit. It occurred to me that one thing no longer existed in me, which went with me throughout my middle school years: the wish to become a doctor and to please my parents.

So I wanted to quit the school to be able to start over. But unfortunately, I was supposed to take the remedial classes, which meant I could go up a grade. I was reluctant to comply. And at the beginning the spring break, I went to the teachers’ room, but Shimada, a computer teacher, was not at his desk. Exposing myself to the teachers, who glanced at me, I was left standing in the middle of the room.

Shimada, a portly man with grey hair, entered, saying: “I have to teach for one idiot like you,”he said with contempt. “Excuse me sir,” I bowed. He kept uttering a stream of curses and calling me disgusting; I thought that I would hit this touchy bastard so that I would be expelled from school.

At any rate, I had no motive to do the final report I was ordered to turn in that was an event proposal. But my mother quickly made it using her word processor instead of me. The next day I handed it to Shimada at his desk. The pages of the report he flipped idly through struck both of us dumb. He was astounded at the quality and the title–“Dog Lovers Gathering”–with some adorable puppies. All of a sudden embarrassment and disgust came over me–the way my mother did it to her own taste. After leaving the room. I must have been a laughingstock, because they had the impression that I smoked with punks. Thus I had passed to the next stage.

In April, I went into the new class. Still, my classmates seemed to be alien to me as I remained alien to them. The trouble with a loner is that there were the school annual events, especially the freshmen welcoming excursion to the amusement park, where we are free all day. The happy,  joyous students enjoy themselves while I would be out of place there. How can a boy enjoy riding a roller coaster alone? Nightmare. Also I was unwilling to act with the childlike geeks. There was no other way for me to get my mother to call in sick.

I got acclimated to aloneness. There was something which separated me from them. Everybody take care of studying that was not worthy from my eyes. I was not going to walk the path taken by the so-called brightest students, who had no alternative but to study. Often I have thought; Is studying valuable for life? Was it the solely important thing? With stubbornly disobedient heart, I did not do any study and remained a stranger in a gloomy disposition. My grade was the bottom of the class. It was okay because I did not want to be a human being who lost his mind. I thought they were crazy. I had felt different from them, watching them with some mockery. However I found no delight in myself. I had no dream.

All of myself had been overcome and died. The past rose up in my soul. I had experienced on my body that I needed pain, in order not to come up with the wrong path. I had heard of Shiota having been expelled from school for violence, and of Abe, with wavy, bluish hair, dropping out against the school rules. The former was a prodigious artist and the latter loved playing guitar. In truth, I suppose that I liked to study very much. My school had an ideal environment for studying, where all students were to enter University. If I had studied very hard and gotten good grades, I had must gotten along with my classmates, who would have a veneration for me.

Have they given up on their dreams? In their subconscious, were they confronting with the reality that your dreams would never come true? I can never transcend my father, no matter how hard I try to study. Bringing it home to teenagers is brutal. Life is torture.

I would not obtain salvation by means of studying. I just wanted to find tranquility in my heart. My goal was refuge from suffering, especially aloneness.

As rainy season and the summer vacation passed by, weariness had come over me, getting a bit heavier everyday. I grew angry and patient, whenever I walked by the upperclass students. When the school festival approached, I was filled of suffering and worry–the students would be scattered in the school for the few days. It was nothing but very thing which I had already experienced for the hours and days I saw how alone I was. 

Now, I had to experience it again. After the morning assembly, I wandered downstairs, where there was the deserted locker room. However, salvation from suffering had not been found out here–my locker door was getting dented day after day; it was the verge of breaking down.

It was Sunday afternoon in January. I helped Kuwata re-dye his hair black in the bathroom of Murai’s house. After brushing it, he looked at mine. “K, your hair is a little lighter too.” he said. I used to bleach it during summer vacation to make me cool, but I had put it all back before the start of the second semester. As he said, I kind of knew it was losing its color. I would be called over the PA system in my school. “You had better dye yours,” he picked the back of my hair. “I’ll blacken it.” I doubted if he would be doing it right because I found he shallow and dishonest.

“Before that, pay the money back for the previous karaoke.”I said, holding out my palm. “I’II do it. I’II do,” he studied his reflection in the mirror and made a wry face. He insisted that instead of returning the money, he would dye my hair by using the rest of the dye bottle he had bought. “Sit down there,” he said. I refused to, but he pushed my shoulders down.

I knelt on the bathroom tiles. I was faint-hearted enough to be under his thumb. He begun to brush my hair. In the bathroom there were also Murai and Shiota, an eccentric person with artistic talent. Although he has a pierce hole the size of coin, I had been impressed by his playing piano. However, a certain memory came bak to me. I had been seventh grade and read manga he had drawn, where he represented vulgarity, malice and inhumanity.

There was something fishy around me. “It’s okay. I’ll do it myself,” I said. “Wait. Don’t move. Close your eyes in case liquid drips.” I did as he said. Kuwata was taking his time. I heard three boys chucking, perhaps thinking a cunning plot. Still I was kneeling, head bowed, eyes closed. Somebody grabbed a fistful of my hair. Perhaps Shiota handled it roughly. “Poor thing. Ha-ha! Poor thing. School tomorrow. What is he going to do? Ha-ha!”Murai asked. “Shhh!”said Kuwata. “What happened?”I asked. “Good, good, very nice.” he said.

That was the part about Murai that I really hated. The way the more punks are in his house, the more he harmonizes with them. I knew deep down he looked down on me.

They released me. “It’s done. You have to leave the dye for a while,” said Kuwata. I rose to my feet, went to the changing room and surveyed my hair in the mirror. Of course, nothing happened. After fifteen minutes, it had not changed at all. When I turned around as I eyed it with a sense of relief, I realized he dyed my back hair only blond. Its color was very uneven. Shiota gave me vulgar rough. I was about to cry. How am I supposed to get home?Kuwano said; “You looks so cool, I’ll introduce you to beautiful girls, who would love you.” They burst out laughing.

“Give me my money back,” I said. “The dye bottle empty, because of you,” he said. “This was very expensive.” Shiota and Murai was chuckling. I was convinced the money would not return to me. I did think they always humiliated me. I had been foolish enough to try to get along with them. After all, Shiota handed me a towel to cover around my head.

Shiota and I were on our way home from Murai’s house. “Kuwata is such a jerk. I haven’t got my money back from him either. That’s who he is,”he said. I remained quiet, thinking he might take his side. “You should blacken it immediately,” he said. I nodded like I understood. “I’ll get it right away for you.” He would be able to get it easily. Shoplifting. I thought. “No. Anyway, I go home … Then, I’ll buy it myself,” I said and changed the subject. “Do you keep practicing piano? You are talented.” He looked away from me, saying: “See you.”

The next morning I did not get up out of my bed. After eating lunch at home, I could barely work up the energy to go to school. It was also common for me to attend from afternoon classes. When I enter the classroom with my school bag during lunch hour, my classmates would pretend not to see me while  I feel lonely. At any rate, I would be told to repeat a year because of the lack of my attendance days. 

It was the fifth period ethics class. From my seat in the corner of the classroom, I looked out through the glass window. It was raining outside. I was occupied with yesterday’s nightmare. The drops of rain scattered down and the dew on the leaves in the darkness was akin to tears. 

Murai never visited me. I wondered if he felt guilty. A week later, Okada, who went to the same stupid school as Kuwata and Shiota, came to my house for the first time. I felt something odd. When we were ninth grade, for some reason, he had refused to go to school; I called him from time to time, only to talk his mother. Now he was standing in front of me. He had reddish hair with a earring in his left lobe.

“Lets’ hang out,” he said. “Everyone is waiting for you in the park(at that time, some parks were hangouts for juvenile delinquents).” “Sorry, I didn’t feel like doing that. Maybe some other time.”I said, and just as I closed the door, he jerked its knob by the hand. “Come. Come out.” “No,” I tried to close it, but he kept doing. “Please. You won’t stay so long there. Come.” I reluctantly went out. I thought this was the last time I would see them, so I made up my mind to go there. “I know what you mean,” I said. “We’ll compensate you for something,” he said soberly.

In front of my house is the park. We were ascending the stairway to it. I was reminded of going to school with him singing the popular songs–WANDS,T-BOLAN, and B’z–when we were seventh grade. We were long distance runners. After running under summer sun, we once enjoyed swimming.

In the darkness they had smoked their cigarettes. Leaning around the pull-up bars were Shiota and Abe. By them Murai was standing. Okada, whose cigarette was burning in his holder, and I walked over them. Suddenly, Shiota hit me, followed by Okada. I tried to run away. “Where are you going?”Abe jump-kicked me, Murai laughing and laughing. Shiota hit me again and again, banging the back of my head against the ground. I could see stars both in the sky and in my head. I did not get up until they were finished. 

I staggered dizzily home from the park. After a couple of hours the telephone rang in the dining room. I went to answer it.“I’m really sorry … sorry … sorry … so sorry … Forgive me …”the voice was Okada.

Suddenly accepting the fact I am probably considered a low rank boy, it was hard thing. Ever since that day, I had not spoken to anyone. Sensing the atmosphere, I shrank back.

In my class were no jocks or no queen bees. This is a private school, where you study hard to go to an excellent University. While a handful of students belong club activities like soccer, most go home or the prep schools after school. It dawned on me I had never been in the high rank, where the explicit, straight talkers dominate a class. It was just that I was in the “popular group” that was little less than second rank whose boys play dirty pool as ignoring one. I came to miss my classmates in Junior high school, where the cool boys, popular with the girls, are assertive.

At recess I was left completely alone. I put my face down on my desk to pretend to sleep. During lunch, I hung back and kept to myself and could observe how they all blended, clustering into their cliques and groups. The “popular group” I had been in made a circle. Their true colors of the group were all different, and there was no one who took the lead, like what he says goes. Of the three prospective boys, one was popular but calm, another outgoing but so mean, and the third very good-looking but a video geek–something was not right. In any case, it was too painful for a boy to be isolated in the class. Ever since that day, I had tried to find my niche.

After lunch, I could play basketball with some classmates, that was it. Then recess come between classes. I could talk to a few boys who would not ignore me out of sympathy, however they never talked to me. I could stand by the geeks talking about their nasty fetishes that grossed me out, about video games I was not interested in, and about fashion despite their unfashionable hair styles with awful glasses.

However, in my high school days, I had almost picked this circle, where I was welcome there. I walk over to them. The mood is convivial. They fool around like schoolchildren do. I cringe off, never wanting to be a part of them. Then I push myself to move seamlessly in the low rank, without overstaying. 

Autumn was coming. I did not too particularly care about studying; rather, I would have wanted friends. My only two middle school friends were busy studying, so I remembered Murai who lived in my neighborhood. Although I had got along with him for long, I wondered if he was my friend, because when I was hospitalized with a pneumothorax–which caused me a failure of the high school entrance exam–he did not visited me in the hospital.

I gave a call to visit him. Then I started spending many of my after-school in his house. He was introverted but somehow sociable, so he has friends, including bad boys. His house was a place the punks hung out. I had fun because I did not know their world–smoking, singing karaoke, talking about the pretty girls and riding scooters without a helmet(illegal).

One of them, Kuwata, a jock who is highly popular with girls who long for him to see, got me to talk with a girl on his cell phone. I was a nervous wreck and asked her a question, “What are you studying in your school? For example, math A or I.” “Sure,” she said. Kuwata whispered next to me, “You are stupid. Why would you ask her such a boring question? Say something more interesting.” It occurred to me the students in my school shared common trait: most of them had study-based conversation. He was absolutely right. They went to low rank high school, where the stupid boys and girls go. I was so inept in getting on in the world.

They enjoyed life more than the students who go on to University. On the weekends the school is closed, Kuwata dyes his black hair–especially blond–like the punks express themselves against society. He gets up in the early morning to play soccer and then goes to McDonald’s, where he hangs out with the wrong crowd, laughing and joking. Sunday afternoon, Kuwata, Murai, someone else, and me enjoy karaoke, during which Kuwata’s pager ring ceaselessly. You can see some girls appearing in front of him and disappearing together. However, I pick up the tab for him from time to time, anticipating he will not return the money.

I had estranged from studying and felt out of place in my school. Following Kuwata where he goes seemed to ease the pain of my being alone. He was a smooth-talker, hyperactive and really good-looking. Thanks to him, I was able to befriend a girl who was very easy to talk. Encountering so many punks around him was eye-opening.

After school, basically Murai visits me and we head to his house. While we hang out, Kuwata emerges out of nowhere, but his PHS and pager ring incessantly, and the next thing I know he was gone. At times he brought a few delinquent boys in Murai’s house or mine and made fun of me.

Among them was Abe, who was very good at playing guitar. He had wavy, bluish hair. When we were eighth grade, he talked enthusiastically about Western music, especially Deep Purple, Sex Pistols and MR.BIG—I was much interested in his familiarity with them.

One day, when we were in Murai’s house, out of the blue, Kuwata said: “I’ll make a man out of you. Let’s do katapan.”(The character kata means “shoulder,” pan does “punch.” One punches the other in the upper arm around the shoulder. The other have to show his strength by enduring. This is repeated to one another until either of you surrenders.) “You are strong … I don’t want to …” I was scared, knowing he would not go easy on me.“Everyone is doing. An everyday occurrence. My fellows turned blue, swelled,” he laughed quietly. “If you are a man, you must do. You understand?” he teased me.

He hit me. Murai guffawed when I swatted at his thick, clenched fist. “No. It really hurts. You got me.” I laughed a little, as if I joked around. “Come on,” he said. I was afraid he would blow up, so I punched him lightly. “Be serious.” Kuwata said matter-of-factly and hit me again, Murai laughing and laughing.