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.
