"Lauchan, 99% of the things suck, dakedo, let's live for 1% of joy!"
Could anything ever give me a brighter gleam of hope?
The world is sick, but my smile is intact.
"Lauchan, 99% of the things suck, dakedo, let's live for 1% of joy!"
It was the most amazing thing. A huge distance had been shortened, two sleeves of a sweater met when it was folded. He folded it. I could not see, but my right ear was suddenly filled with a noise I had only seen on tv. "Irasshaimase---!" again, and again, and again. A street market in Ueno. The real street market in the real Ueno in the real Tokyo in the real Japan in real time! The one and only love of my life standing in the middle of the hubbub, a hubbub I long to dive into... Could he picture my awestruck face? Could he picture the silence reigning in the dark living room while that street in the future was ever so lively? Nigiyaka... that's the word for what I heard, for the mystery that leaked through the lines over the ocean way up on the mountains into my brain. Meanwhile, in the past, birds still dream of flying higher, water slides down the drain pipes, striking them with sounds that remind me of a steeldrum... Shizuka.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
Last night I decided to sleep early; I was excessively tired. I had a dream about a campaign to save a baby who didn't look like a baby at all, but rather like a finger with a smiley face. In the midst of it all I opened my eyes, and immediately afterwards I felt how they welled up in tears. I couldn't believe it, but I was crying in the middle of the night for practically no reason. Well, supposedly there was a reason, but it was related to the dream (something like a last-second revelation that crashed into a sad piece of reality), and now that I'm awake it makes no sense at all.
Do you remember how I waved when I saw you coming out of the gate in the airport? Have you any idea of how insecure I felt then? Well, let me tell you about it. We hugged, and I'm sure you remember, because a policeman scolded us for leaving your luggage unattended. However, by then I felt we were old friends, and I was very scared about that. What if your heart had been emptied from the sparks that had always moved it toward me, and therefore I had to remove the sparks that moved me to you and smile at you as friends do? What if distance and time had corroded the bond between us?
"Now Psyche would have slept for ever, had not Eros, now recovered from his sickness, come to her and awakened her, which was bound to happen. For there is no place for Love to dwell except in the Soul, who animates all things, and there is no meaning for the Soul to live and be awake except for the sake of Love."