Dreary February

The cold February air hits you in the face as you step out of the train on a busy Wednesday morning- all of humanity seemed to jostle about the platform; businessmen, students, employees, salary men, all wordlessly shuffle from one foot to another amidst the conundrum of the announcements and the noise of the city. 

After having navigated through a veritable labyrinth of escalators, gates,transfers and tunnels of the massive edifice, you find yourself on a train on the Chūo Line. An acquaintance in Kyoto hastily helped you rent an apartment in Koenji. " It's a nice neighborhood….the house is a bit old though, from 1987. However, it's close to Shinjuku and Shibuya isn't too far away either"- you remember her muttering with an air of sympathy.

It was a cold, dry Wednesday morning and people were packed into the carriage like sardines in a tin. This wasn't your first time in Tokyo- you did come here on a business trip, many years ago on a day in early March, during shūshoku katsudō. Everyone looked the same, dressed the same, thought the same…and seemed the same. Tokyo felt lifeless- it almost seemed as if the 37 million living there were lifeless mannequins, mute and submissive to established order. The glass-lined skyscrapers, neon signs, economic prosperity and glitzy neighbourhoods were all but a veneer, behind which lay a barren terrain of loneliness and dread. The will to survive induces a façade of non-existent contentment. Now that you are in Tokyo, life would be very different but you would definitely survive- it is the norm.

....

It had been nearly 20 minutes on the train- there hadn't been much going on. Most people were on their phones, some read a book and some promptly dozed off. The scenery outside didn't change much either- the concrete buildings, whiffs of green foliage and an occasional person or two. Not long after, you get off at Koenji. It is Tokyo, and like everyone else, you seem to blend into the bustling mess of glass and concrete, like a flawlessly white-washed wall.