That noted, let us return to the story.
That day, my mind was once again consumed with the idea of a trip to the video shop. I was eager to see what nubile new flowers graced the shelves.
As you may remember, my dear Manami had been swept off to some unknown place. The trip to the video shop was consequently a laborious one. However, I am not the type to begrudge my gentlemanly duties to society over every slight inconvenience. If anything, I believe that a responsible individual should, when confronted by adversity, be ready to hold himself to an even higher standard in order to keep a tight grip on his rampaging inner beast.
Still, I remained alert as I made my way to the shop. I had to take care that my visit not be observed by acquaintances. Though these were the actions that laid the foundation for social harmony, they were still something to which a gentleman did not openly allude.
When I was safely inside and had begun perusing the endless rows of tapes, I experienced a most curious sensation. I felt as if I was being watched. Frankly, I would assume there is no sight more repellant in this world than that of a man selecting a video to tame his urges. If I were to go through life without ever having to stumble across such a spectacle, I would consider myself very fortunate.
It seemed logical that others would concur. Surely if another patron saw me, he would hastily avert his eyes. Yet the sensation persisted. I flicked my gaze up and down the aisle in search of the perpetrator but found no one. The cause of my discomfort remained a mystery.
I was alone in the endless labyrinth of pink.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cold of Kyoto that particular year was hard to put into words. When others write of being chilled to the bone, I suppose this is what they refer to. The dark day of Christmas was two weeks out, and already I was under General Winter’s constant siege. Any lapse in my defense had his wintry troops storming through the gaps around my meager door. In rushed Sergeant Winter with his icy bayonet. In rushed Private Winter, Second Class, to stab me again and again. I kept my electric heater on full blast in an attempt to drive them back. It made the needle on the meter outside spin in a half-crazed frenzy, but I’d long ago made peace with that sacrifice.
Even the briefest trip outside caused my temples to twitch. It was as if my epidermis was shrinking in the cold, and there was no longer enough to encompass my skull. I began to fear that the slightest pinprick could cause the skin to pop right off my face. The notion left me very upset, and I related my feelings in minute detail to Shikama via text.
The TV news reporter claimed that the present temperatures weren’t typically observed in the city until early February. If we continued along this trajectory uninterrupted, we’d end up colder than an Antarctic researcher stripping down to hop into the bath at Showa Station. We’d enter a new ice age. The entirety of modern civilization would be sealed away in a glacier, and the few of us left alive would be roasting rice cakes on sticks inside an igloo as we waited for the earth to return to an era of warmth.
Each time I stood on a frozen winter roadside, a certain face came to mind. He was a friend from the sports club who demonstrated an unusual tolerance for cold. It could be the dead of winter, the bleak northern winds whipping through the city, and I’d find him dressed in, at most, a light autumn jacket. Sometimes he showed up in a T-shirt. The mere sight made the rest of us shiver under our bulky layers. Eventually, rumors began to circulate about this friend. We theorized that through some freak mutation, his blood cells had come to produce a steady stream of ethylene glycol. Even in summer, his apartment building in Tanaka Okubo remained cool enough to leave visitors shivering. Stays exceeding an hour risked death by exposure. Roses froze solid. Bananas could be used to hammer nails. It was even said General Winter staged his yearly campaigns in those very rooms.
A while back, I’d heard he found a job and moved away to Tokyo. I pitied him. He probably spent his mornings and evenings swaying among the packed bodies of a rush-hour train, scuttling between office and employee dormitory. I imagined that, for him, the sweltering heat of a crowded commute must be utterly unbearable.
If only he’d been fortunate enough to be born during a true ice age. He’d have been a legendary hero. He’d have walked the glaciers with nothing but a pelt about his waist. But as luck would have it, the world is full of individuals born into the wrong era.
I, too, consider myself an anachronism. I was surely meant to be born into a time and place in which my talents could be properly recognized—an era where others were always mistaken, and I was always right. If my birth had been timed correctly, I would have known no adversity. I would have been able to grasp the intentions of others before they even opened their mouths. I’d revel in debauchery. The balances of my bank account would double between every idle glance. I’d race up the ladder to world domination, loosing the Gordian knot with one fell swoop and accomplishing what even Alexander the Great could not. If only…
These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I marked off the days of the cold Kyoto winter.