“Tokyo

In the middle of the night, Tokyo wasn’t what you expected it to be. She liked that about Tokyo, a feeling she hadn’t encountered in any other city. It didn’t meet anyone’s expectations, didn’t answer the compulsion to be this or that, and was as it was on any given night, for you to deal with. Tokyo didn’t adapt to anyone. And you couldn’t adapt to it either. Tokyo was empty, cold, both robotic and ethereal. The trains didn’t run after midnight and most bars closed early. Nightlife was localised and contained, and nights out were always dozens of kilometres away, on the other side of the megalopolis. Vera was walking back home, as she had in all the places she found herself in, with one tremendous difference; here she wasn’t afraid. Nothing happens in the void. Nothing happens in Tokyo. She wasn’t afraid. She could let the city reverberate on her inner world and her personal anxieties surpass her fears for safety. She had hours to walk. Home was a capsule bed in a faceless hostel she didn’t want to get back to. It was easy to replay your very own version of Lost in translation in limbo. And as clockwork, she knew it was time for her to leave.

Four hours of walking is a long time to think, to ponder, to question, to reinvent and reimagine. She loved hiking, and trail-blazed in cities and seascapes, to seek peace, mindfulness, belonging and quiet once the storm of her thoughts passed. The storm often took a few hours to settle, and distance was her best asset, to get to the after, to the space beyond, where clarity, equilibrium, a sense of self and unity hid. So she walked, step by step, on the concrete of Tokyo pavements, awaiting, expectant, eager for another state of being. Lights, wires and grey walls entranced her. Like countless before her, she had been disappearing in the loneliness of Tokyo for the past six months. No one knew where she was, at any given moment of the day. She was, seen by gods above, one other faceless being, ant, anonymous in a jungle of millions, her colourful clothes dissolving into the greyness of a melancholic city. The whole city slept, but for a few restless souls. Bored konbini workers stood ready to shout Ilashaimasu at the top of their lungs, when you entered the shop, at all times, no grievance given to your present sleepiness or gloominess. On one of her nocturnal hikes, she had pushed the door of a night bar, but in the coziness of candles and laughters, amongst happy couples and friends, she didn’t belong. Taking the warmth of the scene in, something twisted in her gut. She couldn’t step through the door. As always, her insecurity turned her transparent. No one, not even the barman had looked at her. She had closed the door behind her, and had never tried again. 3 am joggers were enthused by their insomnia, hot spring nights, and impossibly long working days merging into nights. Taxis drove by, empty. There was no one else. Surrendered gift, the city belonged to her, and she didn’t belong to her life. 

After hours on her feet, dancing, walking, she remained steady in her Dr Martens, finding her way with ease in this criss-cross labyrinth. She walked passed the darkness of the Sumida river, embraced dark alleys and in the background, the only sounds she could hear were that of cicadas, and of taxis driving past to nowhere on the highways above. Her thoughts quieted down. Stillness arrived at last, filling her with a sense of being, clarity unleashed. She walked without thought, letting her now unfold in the present, without control. Only then, she could reach a truth.

It was time to leave Tokyo. It was time to find another “where” to sail onto, a town she could transplant herself on, for the next few months. Her hostel was ahead to the right, behind a meak tree, at the end of the alley. Sleep would soon hold all her thoughts, anxious and dreamy ones abound and alike.”