I think I've truly fallen in love with Shiho after all these years. She used to be just a backup, but now she is right at the forefront of my heart, overshadowing Amina in a way that Joy never did in the best of our relationship. But the nature of our relationship, the impossibility of us ever being together, has me perpetually poised for a break-up. I'm anticipating it. The feeling has put me in a crappy mood all day.
Living in a daze. Looking into the mirror, it felt like I hadn't quite fully awoken. Maybe on days that I awake fully, that's when I'm in a good mood. On other days I reach varying levels of being awake, and accordingly I'm in corresponding moods. Today I looked into the mirror and felt like I was looking at someone else.
I walked around all day in a daze. It did, however, make me more efficient. I didn't linger anywhere and wasn't distracted. I just did what I had to, no feeling about it. I went and got film for Nobuko and batteries for the camera I nabbed from New Jersey. The light meter is broken, it's not the battery. If I'm going to get into photography, I have to do what is necessary. After Corporations I brought my camera to the store to get it fixed. It'll take a week for them to give me an estimate. Just do it, don't be concerned about the outlay.
I don't want to work in an office, I don't want to push paper or do research and come up with things that I care nothing about. Bartending is do-able, but it means being social. I don't know if I can do it. I should look into sound engineering programs to see what it will take to be a sound tech. That's the kind of job I think I would enjoy.
I feel like I'm in the compensation stage of a break-up. I'm trying to fill the hole left by Shiho by making sure all aspects of my time and attention are occupied. Sweeping out discarded remnants of her memories. Looking at my life and future without accommodating her in any part of it. It hurts. Even though we haven't broken up yet.
Now I have this memory of visiting her in Japan, how this latest development started; her apartment, tiny, one-room, hardly enough for two people. She prepared bedding for me to sleep right below her bed. I didn't expect anything, I was just visiting Japan to see her and Madoka. Old friend, dear friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend who had dumped her to be with another woman. Then at some point during the night, my eyes opened and her hand was right there. I thought she was asleep, but I touched and took her hand anyway. She wasn't asleep and her hand touched my face. It didn't take long before she drew me up into bed with her. More than ten years after we met. The first time.
What a waste of time. What a waste of my life. What kind of job am I going to be able to get after law school? I have no experience. So what have you been doing with your life? I dunno. Why did you go to law school? Or if I end up in Japan and meet a friend of Shiho's, "oh, you graduated from law school? What are you doing now?", "Teaching English", "Oh". Pathetic. I don't even want to think about dealing with the 'rents about taking the bar. In that case, I'm not sure I want to deal with Shiho. In fact, I doubt that I will want to deal with myself when the time comes.
I was trying to fall asleep but my mind was too active. For a while, I freely let images flash through my mind. I've always had certain images of myself which I felt reflected how I felt about myself or my situation, such as lying in a snow-covered field, or my body being pulled out of the Hudson. I wonder if people normally have these distinct images that reflect and correlate to how they feel or feel about themselves.
In my half-sleep, the image kept repeating. It is in Shiho's apartment in Japan and the sun is shining brightly, illuminating the room through the closed drapes. I am facing the door, away from the window, either walking or just standing. Shiho comes up from behind, places one hand on my shoulder, and as I turn around, I can see what she is about to do. I don't resist or react as I see the arc of her other hand come up. It is either her hand or something in her hand that slashes at my neck, cutting my head cleanly off.
I don't know why the image is at all freaky, after all I believe that anything she does is out of love. I hope that there will never be any hate between us. In all the years we've known each other, there may have been tensions, some questions, but never animosity. There has always been some degree of love, and that seems to be what has shaped my feelings towards her now. Each time I've seen her, I've loved her even more.
In one permutation of the image, she stabs me in the back, and as I turn around, she pulls the knife out and hands it to me. I plunge it into her and grasp her to me as I feel her feeling the pain. I press my lips to hers as we fall and die together.
The image stopped repeating and continued linearly. Somehow, we both die together. We are in stillness, no light, no darkness, just nothingness. I feel my existence and I feel Shiho there. We are able to communicate, we can hear each other's thoughts. I reflect upon death, how I am now dead; my body has been left behind and is in the world that I have left. My existence continues and I find it supremely fascinating.
Shiho and I reflect upon our situation and decide that we had better go and figure out what comes next. We are very happy about the fact that we are together, that we've taken a huge step in our path, our journey, and we are traveling it together as it was meant to be. She and I were meant to be together.
As we continue in a direction with only instinct guiding us, I reflect on how surreal the situation is and randomly think, "why can't I be in Tower Records". Suddenly I find myself in Tower Records. I get really excited and tell Shiho about this and she says, "What?!" I told her what I did and told her to just imagine herself in Tower Records, and she tried it and it worked, only she couldn't see me. I could see her looking around for me and she could still hear me, but she couldn't see me.
So I said, "Go look for me in the classical section," and I found that my movement wasn't at all restricted by gravity or what used to be physical objects and boundaries, and I was able to bounce over to the classical section in a flash.
It took her just a bit longer and when she turned into the aisle of the classical section, she saw me. We ran to each other and hugged and kissed and realized that we were the only ones in the store. That's when I woke up.
Nobuko and I went shooting today. She let me use her camera and film to just take pictures, kill the roll to see what came out doing what. It was fun. Afterwards, I pulled out the camera I took from Rob's room the last time I was in New Jersey, and for the first time an SLR camera wasn't a complete mystery to me.
