reality

 Am I in or out of reality?

僕は先日いっぱい買ったな。

昨日は電気屋に行ってアルバム買ったんだ。僕はあんまりカントリーミュージックきかなかったけどこのフットルースのアルバムきいたらけっこカントリーっていいねって思いました。

ほんで。。。

英語のバクマン７も買うてきたぜ。英訳めちゃ遅いな。日本のはもう１５ボリュームあるやろう？！でもバクマンはいっぱいじあるからやっぱ英語やないと漫画を完璧に了解できへんねん笑

黒木メイサの歌をきいてたらびっくりしたわ。声がアムロとめちゃ似てるやんっ！

The faint sound of my own breathe woke me up. I was laying down the floor, my whole body curled up like a ball, embryonic amid blankness. I didn't recall what I did before I slept or how I slept or what happened when I was asleep. But I definitely had a sense that something happened. Moving around, I realized that my clothes were drenched in sweat, and also that I bruised myself somewhere along my upper cheek. I felt it with my fingers, and it felt swollen. Nearly the circumference of a typical yo-yo, it stung whenever I pressed on it. I looked at my fingers but there was no blood so I felt slightly relieved. Seeing that I could see my hands better, I looked around elsewhere but everything still seemed blurry and white. The diamond ring, which I could still sharply envision, was resting a little further from me. Its presence seemed like a wild, deadly animal patiently waiting for its prey. After all it was the diamond ring that caused all of this hypnosis.

Slowly, I got up from the floor and walked around. I was able to walk. Nothing forced me or held me anymore. Right then I didn't know where in the world my body was going through. Someone was probably controlling my brain, I thought. But my id was completely identical to my action so there was no way anybody was controlling me. I wanted to walk and I was walking. 

I continued to aimlessly wander around, trying to get a hold of myself. Afraid of causing more trouble, I walked past the diamond ring, not willing to get closer to that haunted piece of jewelry. There were no exits, no windows, no doors. Just a world indulged in white. The more I walked, the more I felt like I was just wandering around in circles. This place was like a perpetual world. I looked down at my feet but they only looked like two lumps of some unknown substance. Nothing was clear to me but the diamond ring. I didn't know if there were even any lights. Something was sustaining this brightness but I couldn't tell what exactly was. I stretched out my arms in front of me, then reached for the sky, letting out all the excess stress. Time was passing by in a flash in this little world. My body ached in so many places. The lump on my cheek continued to sting and my body began to shiver from my drenched clothes. Right then my head suddenly leaned back a little bit. My heavy body unconsciously went with the force, as I felt a brief pain around my back. Before I knew it, my feet were not touching the ground. I felt like I was stretched out on some wall but I couldn't tell. I tried to walk but my feet were not touching anything so I couldn't move. My back was on something, preferably something flat, like a wall. I was laying down on something. Gravity was holding me back. A hard, flat surface was holding me back. A wall. Carefully, I helped myself upright and stared into space. Looking at blurred, picturesque pixels of white, I found out that I must have fainted. 

Time flew, it seemed. I felt like a blind animal caged and locked in a cargo plane. Only that I also felt that I was going to be locked in here forever. I couldn't see, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, I couldn't anything. Three days have past, I felt, since I was first locked in here. The diamond ring must have some power. Asami must have done something to me. I think I was on the floor, cringed into a ball again. Shutting my eyes took me into a world of blackness, and opening them would take me into this white, blurry world. The difference in contrast was epic, and it wasn't so healthy for my vision. Thus I avoided shutting my eyes. "What was wrong with the world," I said out loud. 

"Good question," someone said out of nowhere. 

Reality stopped when it produced a sound. The air suddenly felt thicker. A faint hush of unnatural wind scurried towards my direction. Something grey was getting bigger and bigger. Slowly, it took into the shape of a human, its head, its body, its arms, and its legs all formed rather accurately. But just by thinking about where I was, the odds of it being a human was very low. In fact it could be some alien or some unidentified organism. I rubbed my eyes but I couldn't see any clearer. My eyes must have gotten worse by the minute. I moved back, but the grey blur did not change its size. It was probably moving forward whenever I stepped back.  

"You must wonder where you are," it said.

It was no humanly voice. It sounded very artificial. Not clear. Not eloquent. The pauses between the words were unnatural and had no flow. I had no intention of replying, but I felt that I needed to. I was tired, and my  entire body was hunched in sheer exhaustion. Just opening my mouth made me want to throw up, but I carefully replied,

"I've been trying to find out where I was for a long time."

"You have been here for a long time," it said. "You must be starved."

"As if I wasn't." I said. "Can you just tell me where I am?"

The gray blur seemed like it moved its right hand and tilted its head. After, it replied, "You are in a mirrored realm in a cloned planet." 

"I am in a what?" 

"I'm sure it is very hard for you to grasp what you are hearing from me," it said, "but it's something that you will need to know for general reference."

"Well talk."

"You see, you are not in that planet where humans are mainly associated in."

"Earth, you mean?"

"Yes, Earth. You are not in Earth; you're in another planet orbiting around somewhere else. It's a very special and secret place where it is impossible to locate. Not even the top researchers in NASA could even find out about this planet, because it is completely hidden and unidentifiable in human existence."

"Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous."

"You and I are in the mantle of this planet." it continued. 

I could think of nothing else but to stare at the unfocused gray blur. 

"This planet also mirrors your conscious actions," it went on.

"Which is why I can't see?"

"Exactly," it blurted. "Your natural features are for you to be able to clearly see things with your eyes. But in this world, it is mirrored. In other words, even though things may, in some cases, seem the same, everything is flipped and is the complete opposite. That's why your vision is blurred."

"Can you explain, then, why I can clearly see the diamond ring?"

"The diamond ring is the soul of this planet. It is what keeps us alive in a continuum. Without it, we would die immediately. So it is essential that it is visible to us so we will be able to survive in this world."

"What would happen if it got crushed or suddenly became blurred from our vision?"

"This world would fade away, and we'd die in an instant."

"Who's ring is it?" I said.

"For now, we have no idea. But it has been passed around to several different organisms who possess special qualities."

"Wait, what do you mean 'we'? How many people are present in this planet?"

"Just the two of us. I am the person who makes sure the planet is fine. I watch the ring for the most part and keep the planet in healthy condition. As I told you before, this planet is hidden. Nobody could automatically come here. If it weren't for the ring you have discovered, you wouldn't have been able to get here as well." 

"What about Asami? Is she affiliated with this world?" I asked.

The grey blur remained silent. "That is something I cannot tell you right this moment."

"Why not?" I said.

No answer.

"What are you?" I said, trying to change the subject.

"I am a resident of this planet," it said. "I was born here."

"From whom?"

"The diamond ring. With the mixture of strong magnets and momentum inside the diamond, I was able to become existent. The diamond decides when it wants to create these substances. After all the diamond created this planet. It does all the work. I am technically a substance native to this planet."

"So am I considered to be a substance just like you then?"

"It appears so," it said. 

"That's just wonderful."

"Don't fret," it said. "The more you stay here, the more you get used to the mirror and eventually, you'll be able to see everything much more vividly."

"You mean you can see everything perfectly? Even my face?"

"Everything."

I continued to stand in front of the grey blur, pressing my blurred temples with my blurred fingers. Then, I told it, "Is there any way I could get myself back to the real world? Earth?"

"The likelihood is very low, but you may have a chance." 

"Please explain."
"Destroy the diamond. Don't get me wrong, though. Breaking this ring is harder than it may seem. If you somehow are able to destroy it, all life in this world will also be annihilated, which means that you might also be affected. In other words, you and I might die when you destroy it."
"Isn't there any other way?" I said.
"I'm afraid not. There is absolutely nothing in this planet but rocks and sheets of white. This planet does not follow any calendar, nor does this planet ever need to. It's a world of nothingness. If you are extremely eager to get out of this planet, you're going to have to find out a way to destroy it. Nothing else."

ショートストーリ

ヘイ！！
ブログにいっぱい英語で書いてあるポストは何だ、って思っているみなさん、こんにちは。そうですね。いっぱい英語で書いてあるポストはショートストーリなのです。いつも英語で書いてすいませんでした。はっは！！まぁ、あやまる理由無ねーけどさ笑
でも今回は日本語で新しいストーリを書いてやってみました。間違えがほとんどあると思いますけどトライしました。フィクションです。どうだ。



僕はそのまま彼女の顔を見てた。彼女はその時僕の光ってる目を見、赤いスカーフを首からとって僕の首にぶら下げた。私達は代々木公園のベンチに座ってた。すごい涼しい天候で、彼女のやわらかい毛が風に飛んでい行った。顔がいいフィーチャーズがあったし、お化粧丁度よくつけてたし、ファーコートもすばらしくスタイリッシュだった。髪の毛が風に動いてるってモデルがファンの前にポーズしてるみたいだった。時計みたらもう夜の８時だった。夜の寒い風がどんどん強くなった。「スカーフいらないのか？」って僕行った。彼女は僕にニコニコして私達の手をつないだ。目当たったらそっちの目の方が光ってた感じがした。「いらないわ。これは君にあげるのよ。」って彼女が行った。僕が首にこのスカーフを巻きながら彼女の目を見た。「ありがとう。」って恥ずかしく行った。彼女のにおいがスカーフにあって天国にいるみたいな経験した。なんといいにおいだなって思ってた。「それじゃ、来週の昼会う予定だよね。」って僕に訊いた。「うん、そうだ。７時ね。ALTAのテレビの前で待ち合わせね。」

つづく

Shimabukuro's concert sold out

NOOOOO
Jake Shimabukuro's concert at the Highline Ballroom tomorrow is sold out! Are there really THAT many people interested?!! JEEZ.

なんでだぁ～！
ジェイクシマブクロのコンサート売り切り。

I placed the box where she was sitting and stared at it, its contents full of wonder. A jewelry box? I imagined what its color was, what its shape was, what its material was. But nothing clear popped in my mind. The only possible way to know was to merely open the box.

Grasped in my left hand was her business card. When I took a look at it more closely, her phone number was slightly smaller than her name. Its print reminded me of the eye-sight test. As I continued to blankly stare at the card, I pondered who she gave out her card to. Who did she work for? What did she work for? The more I stared at the card, the more these type of questions attacked me. 

I shoved it in my pea-coat and stared at the grass. Norah Jones came back to me, but not as vivid. I started to get a little cold so I decided to head back home.


I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking more about her. Was she an entertainer of some sort? I really didn't know. Asking her was no point, since she wasn't the type of person who'd tell me so easily. She was an anonymous woman who refused to go further in the depths of vision, like a camera reaching its maximum zoom.  What if she was at the airport and I was a passport security guard? I would've seen her name, and her personal information seconds after she hands me her passport. If I thought she was suspicious, I had the power to not let her through security check, I thought. I wish I was an airport security guard.

I checked the clock at it was past twelve. With nothing else to do, I decided to open the box. Even though I knew what was inside already, I needed to see what it really looked like. In fact, hearing about things 100 times was not as great as seeing it once, according to Zhou Chongguo.

I grabbed a xacto knife and a pair of scissors from my desk. I cut through the strong wrapping paper with the knife and was able to unravel it. The box itself was a mikan box. It read, in hiragana, みかん, although I was 99% sure that there wasn't going to be any mikan in this box. I cut the tape that attached the flaps, and opened it. In it were peanuts and bubble wrap. As I dug my hands deep in the box, I felt a hard, rather metal object. I grabbed it, and brought it out from the package and out came a glazed, mahogany jewelry box. The size was rather small, almost equivalent to the size of a 5x5 Rubik's cube. As I looked at it more closely, it seemed similar to a ring box than a jewelry box. Curious as hell, I opened it and slipped inside was a note folded in half. Without any hesitation, I unfolded it and read it. It was handwritten.

Can't you ever make your own decisions in life and stop taking orders from people?


There was something else in the box, though. Securely resting in the box was a shiny piece of jewelry. A shiny piece of jewelry? I carefully inspected it and finally came to realize that it was a diamond ring, its karats sparkling. This wasn't one of the cheap kinds of diamonds; this was a diamond that was worth more than one could imagine. Only a wealthy, decent, and brave person would ever consider getting this. It looked very much like a proposal ring. How much of a dream it must be for a woman to receive this ring from her fiancee. On the note read something else on the bottom.

P.S, you may wonder why you received a diamond ring. I'm disclaiming you on this. I am not trying to propose to you (In fact, it would be more manly if a man proposed to a woman anyway.) I feel that you are just a responsible, trustworthy, and, I don't want to say this to you straight, but, a gullible being. Please keep this ring for me. I want you to have it for a while. If I feel the need to take it back, then I will tell you so. But for now, please keep it in a safe place. 


Asami


I read this note over and over again and couldn't grasp her words. Why is she giving me this? I thought. First she told me that I couldn't make my own decisions, and now she gave me a diamond ring. Did she receive it from her husband? Did she even have a husband? Was this ring even her's? Accumulating questions kept on bugging me.

I took the ring out of its case, and examined it like I was a diamond worker. It was glittering like the stars on a clear, windless night. The diamond itself was no bigger than the eraser attached to a pencil, but its quality was striking and powerful. Just by slightly moving my fingers, the diamond sparkled. I put it on my ring finger to see how it would look on me. It shone, nothing changed. I opened and closed my hands to really see the diamond shine. It was the first time I'd seen such a beautiful and pleasant thing in a while. The meticulous craftsmanship of this diamond was phenomenal, and its weight was perfect. It securely slipped in my finger, and the construction was very durable. There was no flaw in this ring, although it very subtly seemed as though it has been worn for some time. The only possible person would be Asami, I figured. But all in all, the ring was perfect.

I continued to stare--frozen, actually-- at the ring. I was like a student stuck on a math problem, not willing to come back to it later. Staring at the ring somehow seemed to relax me. It gave me peace, pouring away all the excess stress that had been rooted in my mind.  It was my inanimate shrink.

But it did not hold up as I expected it to. As I stared at the diamond, I began to feel a little gloomy. It might have been the fact that I slept too much, or the fact that I was suddenly shocked by Asami's call right after I took a refreshing shower. Whatever it was, it spun around my mind like Saturn's rocks and distracted my conscious. My head got heavier, and my body felt stiff, as if I got a nasty fever. I might've stared at the diamond for too long. I shut my eyes for some time, trying to get my mind back on track. Carefully, I opened my eyes, almost like a woman seeing herself in the mirror for the first time after her makeover, and examined the room. As if I was in a natural hallucinogen, things surrounding me started to get blurry, the diamond the only object that was focused in my vision. I raised my eyes away from the diamond and looked around me, but my vision was blurred. Things started to feel weird. I felt I was hypnotized and sucked into a different dimension, a dimension full of mystery. The diamond was controlling me.

I continued to examine the room, like a customer inspecting an open house, but things continued to not seem right. At this point I thought I couldn't get back to reality. The dining table started to move to and fro, nobody was moving it but it was moving. Somebody was moving it. I looked under the table and saw something similar to a hollow. It was a mixture of sky blue and white, and it was floating. I looked closely at it and found out it looked awfully similar to Norah Jones' head. Its expression full of nothingness. It made eye contact with me and we stared for a while, my face expressionless while simultaneously in shock. Then, as if loathed by my presence, made its way out from under the table and floated around the room and became bigger and bigger, and disappeared somewhere, possibly into a wall or some sort. The room started to wiggle and flop around, like a swimming pool after someone had jump in. But I wasn't moving. I was able to be still, like a statue. I closed my eyes, in fright, trying to wake myself up. Perhaps I was having a bad dream. But I wasn't. I knew that I wasn't. I felt it. I scratched my eyes with the front of my thumb fingers and looked around. But nothing changed. Everything seemed twisted, not right.  Everything was cringed, like it had been sucked into some kind of vortex. Then my vision started to transition into a white sheet of blankness. I couldn't see anything but white, or, maybe grayish white. I couldn't tell. Whatever the case, reality faded away. Whiteout.

Surrounding me was the color white. It wasn't snow. It wasn't anything but the color white. I couldn't tell if I was looking up or down, whether I was standing or floating, whether I was upside down or upright. I was brought into a world of nothingness, as if I was a text that had been imprinted on a book. There was no sound, no wind, no nothing. Just my breath and my heartbeat beating faster than a fat man walking up the steps. I couldn't move forward, I couldn't even talk. I stood there, in the middle of nowhere, frozen. I looked at my blurry hand and the diamond ring was there. It was clear. Nothing seemed blurry or obscure about it. It was very clear in my eyes. But my hand and everything else wasn't.

The diamond began to project a thin beam of light, and wobbled to and fro my left ring finger. Frightened, I flung it off my finger and threw it on the floor. It shook more rapidly. I stood there, frozen, looking at the diamond. It was just the diamond and I in this white world. 

photo

Developed my first film in photo class!
Here are some of the negatives.

And here is one of the pictures I developed in the dark room.

Her high heels brushed the fallen leaves as she walked towards me.  Her hair was brown, straightened, and smooth as chocolate milk pouring into a glass. She looked as though she was in her late 20's, but her hair made her look younger. As she shuffled through the leaves, I felt my body cringe. Not physically, but mentally. Her fur coat was that of an animal. I couldn't tell exactly what kind, but I knew it was from some wild, exotic animal, preferably a bear of some sort. Her eyes glared around the park, like a survelleince camera, looking around the lonely, quiet park, it seemed.

Her appearance reminded me of a friend back in college in Japan. Her name, I couldn't remember. She always used to wear fur coats, zebra blazers, among other creative, hipster-like apparels. Her hair was brown, but she told me once that she died it; her natural color was plain black. She kept it brown for the entire four years of college. Interacting with her was very strange. We had a couple of classes together during the day, none of which we talked much. If we even did talk, it was just casual. Extremely casual. What's for lunch? What class do you have next? can I borrow your pen? sunny day outside isn't it? and the like. The conversation topic never went further than that. But on the inside, we were considered to be friends. Close friends. Whenever we were together, though, we never really acted as though we were.

She told me once during a typical lunch period that she didn't have any parents. She mostly grew up herself, learning about the life around her. We were eating donburi together at the university cafe, and she told me her experiences of being alone at such a young age. Her sister was enrolled in some community college up north near Akita, and her parents abandoned her when she was young. Exactly why, she couldn't remember, or, she just didn't want to tell.

Every weekend, wearing her hipster clothes, she'd take aimless strolls around the campus to adjust to her surroundings. After all, she felt that she wanted to observe others. Their presence would soothe her. A couple of male students wanted to hook up with her, but she would refuse, lying to them that she already had a boyfriend... me. Most of these men were also too wimpy for her. And even if they tried, they looked like nothing but fools, she would say.

The woman in the fur coat looked at me in the eye and decided to gently sit down next to me. About three feet away from me, she stared at something directly across from her, possibly a squirrel that was resting on a branch. Her woody fragrance floated around the secluded area. It smelled fine. Could this be my friend from college? I wanted to ask, but something about her made me hesitate. She crossed her legs, leaned back and nonchalantly glared around the park like a tourist observing Times Square. She then finally took a look at the box. The silent air suddenly got punctured by her soft, feminine, tone.
"A package?" she said.
"Yeah."
"What's in it?"
"I haven't a clue," I said. "I'm kind of having trouble opening it."
She brushed her hair back. "Who's it from?"
"Some woman named Asami, I think. That's what it said on the return address."
"Just her first name?"
"Yeah."
Her eyes stared right into mine. "Interesting."
The birds chirped and the wind swiveled its way towards us, brushing the woman's hair and my skin. With her fingertips, she gently stroked her hair out from her eyes.
"Do you know who Asami is?" she said, almost in a whisper.
I looked at the handwritten name on the box. "No," I said.
"Well why don't you take a guess."
With her legs still crossed, she put her elbow on her thigh and propped her chin on her hand and smirked at me, waiting for an answer, it seemed.
"Are you Asami?" I said.
"Well," she rolled her eyes. "what do you think?"
"Yes?"
She slightly nodded.
I re-positioned myself, resting one foot over my other thigh. "Okay, well," I didn't know where to start. "Let me get this straight. You were the one who called me earlier this morning, and told me to open this box without using anything but my very own hands, right?"
She uncrossed her legs and sat back with a short sigh while staring back at the squirrel. "Who else in the world would order you to do such a thing?"
I didn't know what to say.
"Say," she said, looking at me. "Have you tried opening the box yet?"
"Uh, yes, that's why I am here."
"You're here under the rules I gave you on the phone."
"Yes."
"How stupid."
"Hunh?"
She tried to look for the squirrel, but it wasn't there anymore. "You follow an order from someone who is a complete stranger to you."
"Well, I mean, the way you spoke was very convincing and the demand just made me curious as hell."
"Can't you ever make your own decisions in life and stop taking orders from people?" she said.
"I do."
"Then explain why you are grasping that box right now."
"Because I am extremely curious as to what is inside this thing."
"It's a jewelry box that contains a note describing what I just said."
"Which is?"
"'Can't you ever make your own decisions in life and stop taking orders from people.' What did you think it was?"
"I dunno, some kind of chain letter or something." I said.
"Mister the more you think about these bizarre things, the more you start to lose yourself in reality." She said, locating the squirrel running down the tree branch.
"Tell me about it."
"The way you live is totally up to your instincts. But the more you accept anonymous and/or mysterious orders, phone calls, whatever, your life may get obscured."
"Okay wait a minute here. Slow down with your philosophical ideals. You're confusing me. I need some clarification. First I get a phone call from you telling me to open the box. So I claim the box and head outside on this spot, and attempt to open it, however it is so ridiculously taped together that it's nearly impossible to open it without using any scissors or something. Then I actually see you here. I mean, how the hell do you know where I am? Am I being controlled by you? What's the meaning of all this?"
She gave up staring at the squirrel and stared at the tree branch. "You're not being controlled; rather, you are controlling yourself, like all of us do. We control ourselves; we know what's right and what's wrong. Our superego tells us the wrongdoings of life, and serves as the moral compass. Everyone should have that when they become adults. In a way, our minds hesitate on the things we experience that are foreign to us, or, things that are mysterious to us, like the phone call I gave you. It's all a matter of how you control your instincts, and how you deal with them. You just happened to deal with the situation the wrong way. It's as if you just let a stranger in your home. What if he was a serial killer? Sure, you might say that you can beat him up, but your mind would be too shocked to fight. Our reaction time slows down the more we are surprised or shocked. Are you with me on all of this?"
"Yes, I understand all of this, but how did you find me here?"
"Mere luck, I guess."
"No really. Don't you have some special GPS tracker or some type of gadget that spies on people?"
"Nothing."
"Don't you ha--"
"Nothing."
"And the things you said on the phone are actually not true, right? That you are affiliated with any gang member or anything?"
"That is for you to guess and me to tell you whether you are wrong or right."
I tried to change the topic. "Where are you from?"
Sitting, she extended both her legs and stretched out her arms and sat back normally, her back straight as a models. "I am currently on a business trip."
"From where?"
"Tokyo."
"Positive?"
"How much positive can I get?"
"True."
This woman was tough to bear with. Sooner or later I had the feeling that she was going to break into my apartment. It was very possible after she knew where exactly I was in the park. It was as if we were positive and negative magnets. Really uncanny though, that she looked gorgeous.
"Do you want me to leave?" she said.
"No, you can stay."
She nodded.
"Just tell me, though," I said. "Out of all the people, why and how did you choose me?"
"Your name just stood up to me," she said. "I'm afraid I cannot tell you why."
"Ugh, you're such a pain."
"I try."
We sat in silence, taking in the park's ambiance.
"It must feel weird to you sitting next to a woman you hardly know at all," she said.
"Tell me about it."
"But you know, " she continued. "unless a person holds something special to you, you're never going to see that person again in your life... forever."
"How are you so sure?"
"It's just how life operates," she said. 
I sat there, plopped on the bench with the package resting on my thighs. For a while I thought about her remarks. She checked her watch, and moved as if she were about to leave. 
"Anyhoo, I have to get going soon," She shuffled her hand into her inner fur coat pocket and pulled out her business card. "This might come in handy."
There was nothing but her first name and a phone number.  Even her last name was anonymous. Black font, san-serif, white background. Bland, yet extremely helpful. After all, it is best to go for simplicity. 
"If there's anything you need to talk about, call this number," she said. 
"Thanks. Anything you say?"
"Yes, anything."
She got up and started to head her way back.
"Wait," I said. "What do you want me to do with this box now that you told me what's inside?"
She stared at me for a few seconds or two. "You have to think outside of it."
I nodded and turned away from her, trying to locate the squirrel she was looking at. A couple of minutes later, I looked back at the path and she was gone. 

nyc marathon

NYC Marathon today. Watched runners. This was one of the signs my friend had. It was for the Japanese runners.

今日はマラソンだった。４０，０００人以上のランナーが走ってるって聞いたけど。すごいです。このサイン逆やけど日本語だぞ。母さんの友達がparticipateしてるみたいです。