Tag Archives: Light
SnapStory1000 #021: Flyers
#021: Onegaishimasu!
“If you’d please…”
“If you’d please…”
“Sir, would you like to…”
“Akihabara’s newest maid cafe! Would you…”
23 people. She had counted them exactly, partially out of desperation and partially out of a need to keep score. Each one had rebuffed her without a single word. 1000 yen an hour and there she was freezing her thighs off in the middle of the night to an indifferent mob of nobodies she wouldn’t have spent a second glance looking in any other place. Good lord. What’s to do in this country? Graduation was still a year away and that PSP wasn’t going to buy itself!
“Hi there, would you..”
He took the flyer. Success. If only a small one.
“Thank you so much, would you like me esco-..?”
He walked on. The second part of the game was to get them into the store itself. That there was the trickiest part AND the best. To get them in meant that you could go back inside and let some other unlucky sap stand outside in the cold. God, she was ready to get back inside, serve some tea and get back at that Achika. Then she would be in the cold and would warm, sneaking bites of the fried chicken they had in the back room. Not to mention sneaking a sip of the draft beer. That would be all in good time, but for now…
“Would you like to…”
“Please, if you’d be so kind…”
SnapStory1000 #020: Tidying Up
#020: Weeding Out
They’d just about had it. It was time to clean up the country and the people at the top weren’t paying them enough and they were part of the problem. A silent coup was the only way to bring a semblance of hope and balance to the country. After so many years of stopping cyclists with broken lights and letting domestic violence cases in the station off with a wave of the hand and a blind eye, they knew it was time to do something to make amends.
It was time to put Grandma in the slammer.
“Where are you taking me Sonny-boy?”
“Routine questioning, just relax.”
“What are you doing?! Stop it!!!”
At first the families always argued. The instinct of protecting the family is a hard to break, after all. It would be okay in a matter of hours though. They’d get Granny in the cuffs, put her along with Pops in the backseat and off they would go to Liquidation. The family then is informed that their relative has volunteered into a home, complete with an address they can be reached.
They never do, though. They never do.
In any case, it was a radical move to do in Hokkaido but it will be looked back on as necessary to allow the youth to take over in the future. Right, right? So what if the kids can’t read kanji or do ikebana? At least the country will be out of the doldrums. First Hokkaido, then Harajuku. That’s the word the chiefs running this renegade cockamamie gamble of an operation keep saying. With each the old soil overturned, new flowers can bloom. The Land of the Rising Sun already had plenty of water around it and it’s got the sun shining overhead.
The ambition of youth is inherent and key to saving the nation. You remove one and are guaranteed to create another.
The nation was always built on division and revolution. This was but one more.
Hail to the era of youth without the old. Those enlightened at 20.
SnapStory1000 Day #017: Shakai-jin
Day #017: Another Day
Shakai-jin. Society and Person. Someone who contributes to society.
After graduating high school I didn’t see much point in going to university. Enough with those stupid books and pointless tests. Hearing some old geezer yak on and on about something that’s so freaking boring! I just wanted to hang out with my friends, drink a Cocktail Partner and play Angelique when I got home.
Although, I gotta admit history class was fun though. Hearing stories of The French Revolution and the killings that ensued. Especially seeing all the gorgeous paintings of the queens and the luxurious dresses they wore. I wanted that. So I got a part-time job at the first department store that would hire me. Saved every yen I could to get my first lolita dress. “Baby The Stars Shine Bright” indeed!
That was about a year ago. Now, I’m working in Harajuku on Takeshita. Been just a few months but things are going pretty good. Keeping the displays maintained, drawing up little signs for what we have in store and watching all the fashionable girls waltz in and out. The best part though is watching all those otaku when I come outside and telling them “NO!” as I walk to and from work. Then going home to my home, having mom cook up something delicious and then I can rest for the next day.
Contributing is nice.
SnapStory1000 Day #010: Keep Dancing
Day #010: Only a Number
When leaving Rome, keep the Roman in you. Not the part of Empires, pillaging then taxing the pillaged. No, no. That’s too barbaric and I fail to find the joy in that. No passion in destruction. My Rome is Mexico and in Mexico, the Romans dance salsa! It’s even easier to keep being Roman when you happen to be inside a Mexican dance salon. You’d have to be a soulless shell of a father to skip that day in a daughter’s life when she gets married. Not mention dead to turn down the opportunity to go to Prague with her friends from overseas for that event.
I have always loved the Asian mystique. Watching the movies of Kurosawa in my youth, I was entranced by Machiko Kyo’s eyes in Rashomon. So exotic yet full of that unique human beauty, I thought. Even now I don’t think I’ve ever heard her voice without the dubbing, but those eyes said far more than words ever could. The Asian mystique caught in the cinematic mystique. Can you blame me for just walking up and taking her off her chair.
“Wow!” She squealed in not-undelighted surprised, “What are you doing, sir?” Her Spanish was impeccable.
“I don’t know how to dance!”
Her feet said otherwise. Her accent had the flatness and dragged Rs of Mexico City. Who knew the day I would love to hear that accent could have ever come!? I could see my daughter gently shaking her head as she and the other guests watched the spectacle before them. No mind. It was their day and we had all cried all the happy tears we could muster away into glasses of wine and pitchers of beer. Now, it was time to celebrate all those who came here to honor them.
Well, okay, and a petite young lady with inkwell eyes framed by some stylish glasses is something to honor too.
As the newlywed bride readies the camera after recovering from her disbelief, I just look into the young bachelorette before me. Yes, I’ve been married, divorced, re-married and now managed to get this far in life.
Doesn’t mean you have to forget what it was like before all that.
SnapStory1000 Day #008: Making It Happen
Day #008: Like It Was Yesterday
It had been a long day. Yeah, school was easy enough. Just sit down at the desk as the professor prattles on about something, you take some notes and then go on to the next one. The part-time job was where it was really a pain in the ass. 1000 yen an hour to serve cheaply processed food and having to put up with the constant yammering of high schoolers who keep the other potential customers waiting because they’re using the drink bar for all it’s worth as they study to get into a university where it will then be their turn to get a family restaurant job and go to classes? Such a depressing cycle.
That’s why he looked forward to the 22:13 train out of Ueno back home. It meant that he could her after all that hassle. He didn’t know her name but he knew her face, knew that she had a predilection for sweets based on that she always had one of those Oreo cookie bars in her hand which she munched away on as she read some manga or another. One time he caught her reading Golgo 13, as opposed to some else like Nana. It made her that much more curious. She wasn’t going to win Miss Japan anytime soon, but she had some interesting tastes.
It was New Years Day 2010. No school, of course, but the family restaurants of the nation needed to be staffed. It was a rather easy day actually. Hardly anyone comes on New Years. Especially at night. The students are either all in Harajuku and the salarymen are either back home in some distant countryside, still conked on yesterday’s partying, or both.
Even so, the 22:13 still ran it’s course, unaffected by the holiday scheduling, thank goodness.
The train was just crowded enough for there to be no seats but not so crowded that you couldn’t see around you. There she was again. Holding on to the handrail but this time without any sweets or books. Nothing of the sort.
She was looking right at him. Smiling as if she had seen him every day.
“I’m Mari. Happy New Year.”
He was more surprised at how unsurprised he was. He could’ve sworn he caught her sneaking peeks sometimes. There’s always that sixth sense of being watched, right? No way stuff like that goes unnoticed.
“Shigeto. Happy New Year to you too.”
She put her arm around him. Best to start things full force.