My job is to reflect on life, and unfortunately, it doesn’t pay. I have a deep interest in the world around me or how I see that world. To be perfectly honest, the world can easily exist without any input by yours truly. Yet, I have known people who wait to hear from me before they enter such a world. My problem (and it is mine alone) is that I can’t get a regular paycheck for my writings on such an interesting landscape as what is out there. “There” being whatever is not within my world.
My ‘world’ is one where I take long baths and focus my thoughts on the bathroom wall. I notice the cracks in the wall, and I immediately think of them as examples of deep distress that is around me, but quite honestly, not in the bath with me. The tub is a no-zone. My sense of being is how hot the water is, and is there enough shampoo in the bottle? Other than that, the crack on the tiled wall is my total concentration on what that scar means to me.
Due to my poor eyesight, the crack has many dimensions attached to it. I often think of it as an island among the blue sea, since my bathroom tiles are in that color. What is the consistency that makes such an image to be so profound? I imagined Commander Perry as he approached Japan’s little island, Izu Ōshima, in 1854, that is two hours away from Tokyo on a jet boat, but still, such a remote island. It has an active volcano and five restaurants on that island that is full of abandoned cats. What one would think of as a stalled car engine is a wave of the sound of cats’ purring in unison. Feline’s urine can be smelled in the exotic landscape on the island. Houses left abandoned, and the numerous monuments for people who had either died due to plane failure or landslides are scattered in the most remote and public areas on Ōshima. I loved the island because the heavy rains served my mood perfectly. Almost as good as being in my bathtub looking at the island of Izu Ōshima on my blue tile.
The words I write are as useless as the soap bubbles from my shampoo as it mixes in with the bathwater. They, too, become islands in the sea of Tosh’s bathwater. Real depression hits me when I undo the drain and watch the water empty into a pipe that leads to a filthy sewer. Whatever happens, there is always the sewer. No one can lie to that space, because I think the stink and filth is very much part of our DNA.
I dry myself, put some cream on my face (to even out the worry lines on my forehead and mouth area), and then I dress very carefully. First the underwear, then the socks, a striped t-shirt (since it’s Sunday, I choose a navy blue strip against white) and a sensible pair of walking shoes. I then approach my MacBook Air and try to enter into the adventure.
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