Kodoku

Kodoku lived a simple life - the type to be forgotten. He was a typical man who worked a 9-5 job as an accountant, fiddling with numbers all day. An introvert. It had always been this way, since his days at school. The quiet kid who didn’t talk unless he had a question, there was nothing special about him. In a world full of ordinary people, he would be right in the middle - not too ordinary and not too little ordinary, just ordinary. He didn’t have very many friends either, with little to no talent, an income enough only for him to get by and a personality uninteresting, he didn’t have much to work with. This never bothered him though. It had always been this way, loneliness was no longer a feeling. It was a part of him. He didn’t drink, didn’t go out but he was a chainsmoker and he lived in a pretty normal dorm, a small society right next to the edge of the pier, overlooking the polluted waters of Tokyo. 

The waters often crashed against rocks settled within the waters, they represented undying hope - the waves always going against the rocks with a mighty spirit. Though this hopeful spirit never really worked out, the rocks always won. He often thought of this view as an analogy for life, no matter how much we avoid or run away from it, we eventually crash against it, and life wins. 

Kodoku 

I was 24 when I first caught a glimpse of her. The ocean was angry that day. I recall the consistent backlash of the waves, the rocks screaming. Atmosphere, pale blue and intense. The berating thunder and lightning - wicked. The sky was hurting. Amongst the sceneric anger, a highlighted sense of sadness tragically dancing through the air. The clock read 1:14 AM; I was sitting near a window, gloomy and dark - the only sense of light being the faint fluttering of the faded yellow lampshade. The earthy smell, like freshly cut grass filling the air and the soft playing of ‘brain damage- pink floyd’, I sat there and took it all in. 

She lived across my building in the girls dorm rooms, on the 21st floor. On this vividly particular night, a calm wind danced amongst the gloomy atmosphere, slight droplets of rain dancing to the tune of the wind. A silent rustle of the trees, a shiver of cold up my spine. 

I watched - her window parallel to my eyesite painted the scene of a bathroom, her bathroom. I saw the glass shower room and marble sink, her pink shower curtains and dangling bras and towel with the dim-yellow light carving a clear view. The architect in charge must’ve had a perverted view, designing a window presenting the bathroom of a young, beautiful woman to a building full of horny, young men. The educated population hold an advantage, not only in the sense of opportunities for career growth but also in the mutual societal agreement that allows them to bury their sadistic secrets - perverts, abusers, psychologically messed up fuckers all hide behind their success like a crimson curtain wrapping up a perfectly imperfect show. This window of hers, gave me an uncomfortable stare, it looked into me with a piercing gaze forcing me to look right at it. I saw her. 

The wind was suddenly quiet, I watched. Suddenly everything except the window was coated in a thick coating of blurry - the window clearer than ever. I stared. 

She looked at herself deep within the mirror - holding eye contact with her reflection, hoping for it to come alive, step out of the mirror. Her big eyes, numb yet lonely protected by her thick, long eyelashes naturally, perfectly curled upwards with a strand or two wonky falling towards the side of her eye. Her face, precisely sculpted - uneven yet artistic with a perfectly unsymmetric nose slightly pushed towards the left and stained with a dark mole on the right side. Her lips, sensitive and bitten with scratches of dried blood, an almost too-defined jawline and high cheekbones. Light-brownish moles scattered  and bumps of acne surrounded by reddish areas of troubled, normally fair skin. Her odd beauty was mesmerizing, surreal. 

She began slipping off her sheer, white tank top and shorts. She wore a black bra and pink-polka-dotted underwear underneath. I noticed a sudden flaring up of her skin cells, covered in goosebumps, the thin layer of hair across her arms and legs stood up like millions of little soldiers in battle. Her vulnerable being did need protection. Her arms were an ombre shade of skin, a chocolate-diluted-with-milk complexion around her elbow which lightened towards the shoulder area - an almond milk color. Her black coffee body hair - bushy, ungroomed eyebrows yet organized spikes of hair on her arms and legs, she’d been made with detail. Perfect in a way indescribable. She wasn’t the standard pretty with a starved being, slender nose, chiseled and symmetrical face structure. She was beautiful in a way unmatched. I’m sure she wasn’t the only female with a wonky nose and thick eyelashes but these elements of her being came together to create something so incredibly sophisticated and detailed, the embodiment of unforgettable.  So beautiful, I had to look away. 

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and listened to the pattering somber of the rain, the blowing whispers of the wind. It was late now. I took a breath in, still staring. Then all at once; I closed my eyes shut with shame, went inside, shut the fluttering yellow lamp and went to bed. 

That night, I don’t remember if I slept. I remember none of the dark, but I wasn’t tired the following morning either.