coral

I am running. My chest aches quickly; I have a smoking habit which stops me from running as fast as you. And my legs are short, I think. Whatever. We keep running. You reach back and grasp my hand, dragging me, begging me to go faster. You throw your head back and say something but it is inaudible and lost to the wind. Your grin tells me it was something nice. Hand in hand, we keep running. Earlier you grinned the same grin while you ate a jam sandwich. Why get a jam sandwich in the middle of Shinjuku, I thought. Because it’s cheap, you said. I look down at my coffee cake, which I could only afford on the negotiation that today I won’t eat lunch. Jam sandwiches are children’s foods, I think. I light a cigarette and glare at the girl sitting at the table next to us. You capture my glare on camera.
Later, we emerge from the basement coffee shop onto a wet and luminous pavement. In Japanese, ‘coffee shop’ is ‘kisaten.’ Because you get ten kisses, you say. It’s raining. The air is moist and saturated and the neon lights appear to have become more than colours because their night-time quivering gives them a mysterious organic quality. Like we’re walking around a coral reef. The buildings are coral, and all around us there are fish darting into coral nooks and crannies and corners.
If we got married, you say, the only witnesses would be the ominous dark waves from Ponyo (an anime). Their salty spray groans would send the news home via the sea, I say. And the sea would handle the information like a message in a bottle: pushing it gently towards its destination. Eventually the news would get home; ominous dark waves crawling through the front door. Whispering fragile salty messages to our parents while they sleep, dreaming of sons and daughters on pastures unknown.

Later still, we watch two foreign fishes fall out of a tree. A troop of photographers capture the moment. Silly fish, I think. They come all the way to Japan only to hide in the trees. Better to sprawl on the grass, I think. We sprawl a little. Infringing on each others’ 20 metre radius. Tomorrow, we’ll be on the news: students arrested for naïve aspirations after declaring autonomy and freedom at the park.

Eventually the coral calls, the coral glimmers and glistens and tells us to retreat to it after a long day out at sea. The waves are harsh. We rush. It’s good to get out of the storm.