Chapter 36 Coastline in May

A letter and a wedding invitation from a friend lead me to the ancient place. I took two days off and booked a hotel room.Suddenly, I felt as if half of my body had become transparent, which was inconceivable. On a sunny May morning, I stuffed the daily necessities around me into my travel bag and boarded the Shinkansen.Sit by the window, open a book, and then go to the meeting, drink up the can of beer, sleep a little, and then simply look at the scenery outside the window. The scenery reflected in the window of the Shinkansen is always the same.It was cut open forcibly, a dry landscape with no context to be found but lined up in a straight line.It's almost like a picture in a frame on the wall of a large number of houses built for sale, that kind of scenery is boring.

Everything is the same as it was twelve years ago.Nothing has changed.The May sunshine through the tempered glass, the taste of Yu Baba's ham sandwich, and the profile of the young salesman next door who seemed to be bored watching the economic news.Newspaper headlines are telling that the European Community may begin to impose tough restrictions on Japanese imports within months. Twelve years ago, I had a girlfriend on that "street".As soon as the university was on vacation, I stuffed my luggage into a travel bag and took the first Shinkansen in the morning.Sitting in a seat by the window, reading a book, looking at the scenery, eating ham sandwiches, and drinking beer.Arrive at "Street" before noon every time.The sun was not yet fully up in the sky above, and every corner of the "street" still had the tumultuous tail of the morning.I walked into the coffee shop with my travel bag in my arms, drank the coffee that was offered as a breakfast treat, and called her again.

I liked the attitude of "Street" at that moment for no reason.Morning light, coffee aroma, people's sleepy eyes, a day that has not been polluted and damaged... There is the breath of the sea.Slight sea breath. Of course it doesn't really smell of the sea.It's just a sudden feeling. I put my tie back on, took my duffel bag from the rack, and got off the train.Then take a deep breath and inhale the real aroma of the sea into your chest.reflexively a few Phone numbers popped into my head.Girls in 1968...just try to put When these numbers are rearranged again, it feels as if I can see them again.

Maybe we can face each other again across the small table at the restaurant we used to frequent Maybe face to face conversation.The table is covered with a gingham tablecloth and the window with geraniums potted plants.A leisurely, religious light pours in from the window. "Hui, I haven't seen you for many years. By the way, it has been ten years. Time really It's gone in a blink of an eye. " No, no, that's not it. "It's only been ten years since I last saw you, but I always feel good It seems like a hundred years have passed. " Anyway, it's really boring.

"Been through a lot," I might say.because it did many things. She got married five years ago, has a child, her husband works in an advertising agency, holding Three loans... Maybe talk about these things. "What time is it?" she asked. "Twenty past three," I replied. Three twenty.Time clicks like the turntable of an old newsreel The clicking sound continued. I hailed a taxi in front of the station and told him the name of the hotel.then light up the incense Smoke, let the mind return to blank. I don’t want to see anyone after all, I thought as I got off the taxi in front of the hotel and walked down the empty morning road.The road smells of baking butter, new tea, and water spilled on asphalt, and the latest hits are playing at the doors of record stores that have just opened.These smells and sounds gradually permeate into the body as if meeting the faint shadow of consciousness.

It's like someone is asking me out. Hey, here, come on.It's me, don't you remember?There is a great place that suits you best.come together.I think you will like it. Maybe I wouldn't like a place like that.I think, first of all, you can't even remember your face. uneven air. I hadn't noticed before that there was an uneven air flow in the street.The concentration of the air is different every ten meters.Gravity, light, temperature are all different.Footsteps on smooth and slick trails are all different.Even the time is as uneven as the sound of exhausted blows. I went into a men's clothing store and bought a pair of sneakers and a sweatshirt to put in a paper bag.Anyway, I want to change clothes.Drink a cup of hot coffee first, change into new clothes, and talk about everything else.

Went into the hotel room, took a hot shower, smoked three Marlboros in bed, opened the cellophane bag and put on a new sweatshirt.Pull out my jeans, which barely fit in my duffel bag, and strap on my new sneakers. In order to let the feet get used to the new shoes, after walking back and forth on the carpet in the room a few times, the body gradually began to get used to the street.The anxiety that he felt thirty minutes ago and had nowhere to vent, has also subsided a bit now. When I lay on the bed with my shoes on and stared blankly at the ceiling, I smelled the smell of the sea again.The breath is clearer than before.Tidal winds from across the sea.The coast left in the crevices of the rocks, the wet sand... All these are mixed together to create the "coast" atmosphere.

When I pulled the taxi up to the coast an hour later, the sea disappeared. No, to express it correctly, it should be said that the sea was pushed to the other side several kilometers away. Only the remains of the old breakwater remained, like some sort of memento along the coast roads of the past.An old low wall that no longer serves any purpose.On the other side was not a rolling coast, but a vast wilderness paved with concrete.Moreover, dozens of high-rise apartment buildings in the wilderness were lined up endlessly like huge tombstones. It is reminiscent of the sun in early summer, shining on the earth.

"These have been built for three years." The middle-aged taxi driver told me. "It's been about seven years since the land reclamation started. Cut down the mountain, use the conveyor belt to transport the soil to fill the sea. Then use the mountain as a villa and residential land, and the sea to build an apartment building. Don't you know?" "It's been ten years since I came back." The driver nodded. "This place has completely changed. If you go a little further, you can drive to a new coast. Do you want to go?" "No, it's fine here, thank you."

He pressed the meter down and took my change. Walking on the coastal road, the face was slightly sweaty.After walking on the road for about five minutes, I boarded the breakwater and began to walk on the concrete wall about 50 centimeters wide.The rubber soles of the new sneakers made a sound.On the abandoned jetty, I brushed past several children. Twelve thirty. It was eerily quiet. Alas, it was already twenty years ago, and I swim in this sea every day in summer.Just wearing a pair of swimming trunks, I walked barefoot from the garden at home to the beach.The asphalt road that had been exposed to the sun was extremely hot, and I jumped and walked on it.Sometimes there were afternoon showers, and I couldn't love the smell of the rain being sucked up by the hot tarmac.

When I got home, there was watermelon in the well.Of course there is a refrigerator, but there is nothing more delicious than a watermelon soaked in a well.After taking a bath in the bathroom to wash off the salt, I sat on the porch and ate watermelon.There was only one time when the watermelon slipped from the rope and could not be picked up, and it remained floating in the well for several months.Every time I draw water, there are pieces of watermelon in the bucket.That was indeed the summer when Sadaharu Oh became the winning pitcher at Koshikuni Stadium.And it was a very deep well, no matter how you probed, you could only see round darkness. When I got older (the sea was polluted by then, so we went swimming in the pool on the mountain), when it rained in the afternoon, I took the dog (we had a dog, a big white dog) to the coast road go for a walk.Let go of the dog on the beach, and when you are in a daze, you will meet a few girls in the class.If you're lucky, you can chat with them for an hour until it's all dark.Girls in 1963 who wore long skirts, hair that smelled like shampoo, and breasts that were beginning to swell up wrapped in small, hard busts.They sat down beside me and continued their discourse full of tiny enigmas.Their likes, dislikes, things in class.Things in the street, things in the world... Anthony Perkins.Greg Peck, Elvis Presley's new film, and Neil Sedaka's (Br self iflg up is hard to M. Several times a year, dead bodies wash up on the coast.Most are suicides.From where they jumped into the sea no one knows.Wearing a dress with no name.Suicides with nothing in their pockets (or washed away by the waves).Only a small report will appear in the local edition of the newspaper.Unknown identity, female, around twenty years old (estimated).Young woman with lungs full of sea water exposing skin swollen from blisters Like a lost object lost in the stream of time, death was slowly transported by the waves, and one day it was washed up on the coast of a quiet residential area. One of them is my friend.A long time ago, around the age of six.He was swallowed into the river by sudden heavy rain and flood and died.In the afternoon of spring, his body was washed into the sea in one breath along with the turbid current, and then washed ashore along with the flowing water three days later. The smell of death. The smell of the dead body of a six-year-old burning in a high-heat furnace. The chimneys of the crematorium stood tall and belched gray smoke under the cloudy April sky. The annihilation of existence. Feet started to get sick. I took off my sneakers, removed my socks, and continued walking on the jetty barefoot.In the stillness of the afternoon sun all around, the bell of the nearby middle school rang. The high-rise residential complex continues in front of you.It's like a huge crematorium.There is no shadow of people, no breath of life.Only the occasional car passes on the flat road. I prophesy. In the May sun, with my sneakers in both hands, I prophesied as I walked along the ancient breakwater. "You will eventually collapse and disappear." The sky will crumble and disappear.Moving mountains, reclamation, rationalizing wells, what exactly are you building on the souls of the dead?But it's just cement and weeds and crematorium chimneys, isn't it? River J can be seen ahead! D's water is gone, and the embankment and high-rise residential buildings will stop here.I walked down the beach and soaked my feet in the clear running water.Nostalgic coolness.Even when the sea was getting dirty, the water in the river was always clear.Water that flows in a straight line from a mountain over a sandy river bed.The river, which has several waterfalls to prevent quicksand, is almost uninhabitable to fish. I walked along the shallow river to the beach where I could finally see the waves.The sound of the waves, the smell of the tide, the islands, the shadows of the cargo ships moored on the sea surface... The two sides of the coastline sandwiched by newborns are breathing slightly there.On the walls of the smooth ancient embankment, there are countless graffiti painted with stones and sprayed with spray paint. Whose names are those mostly.Boy's name, girl's name, boy's and girl's names, and dates. August 14, 1971. (What am I doing on August 14th, 1971?) June 2, 1976. (1976 was the year of the Olympics and the US presidential election. Montreal? Ford?) March 12th. (March 12th without a year number. Hey, I have already passed March 12th thirty-one times.) or information. "...sleeping with everyone." (Should have written down the phone number too.) 'WLL YOU NEED IS LOVE' (sky blue spray paint) I sat down on the river beach with my back against the embankment, and watched for hours the narrow coastline that was quietly left behind with a width of only about 50 meters.There was no sound other than the smooth, even strange sound of May waves. The sun passed through the hollow, and I watched the wary shadow cut across the river and tried to sleep.Then, in my fading consciousness, I suddenly thought: When I wake up, where will I be? When I woke up, I...