Omen & Belief

The display clock on the table reads 20:22, blinking in its precise green LCD manner, which somehow settles my nerves. I turn over and reach for my cigarettes. Lately waking up has become a ritual of smoke first, see if the girl was around after. Fine by her too, so far as I could tell. She emanated a variety of offensive odors every time she returned to our home in the wee morning and still would crawl onto our doublewide futon and successfully snatch the covers, sighing triumphantly, obliviously. Of the odors, the least of which was the cheap sweet potato shouchu she swilled down in a vain attempt to cover the different brands of cheap men’s aftershave she inevitably wore on her slick, greasy skin, I could sense a remnant of sincere feeling, like the smell of dried salt on supple skin after an ocean swim. I had stopped caring about the covers being stolen from me a while back. Like a soft avalanche of crestfallen love, slowly the erosion of our relationship buried me in its pure white indifference.

She hadn’t returned yet. At least I didn’t have to pretend to act poorly, pretend I still didn’t know. Make believe I still thought she was out with her all night cram groups studying for their big wig-making exam, or out for yet another Yuki’s birthday party, or playing Guardian Angel to women walking home from the latenight commuter trains in Shibuya and Shinjuku (that was my favorite), or anyone of her lame-ass excuses. I wondered if anyone could be honest again after something like this. Then wondering about my own level of remaining honesty (assuming I survived and successfully broke this leeching parasite off me) I thought of everyone in the city. I pictured all 18 million folks. The salarymen and office ladies, waiters and clerks, sidestreet vendors and barmen, pushers and whores, touts and yakuza, punks and cherry boys, cosplay and otaku, little daisuke and little takako, Koizumi and Asashoryu, all the couples in love and all the loveless couples, and all the nameless individuals wandering the vast nameless streets in search of…

…Phlump…The clock, as it read off 20:33, fell to the floor. My tatterered copy of an 11th century Moorish tapestry wavered before the wall behind my head shaking and trembling like paper-mâché in the wind. Something had struck the building, something menacing, something with an angry design. I dropped my cigarette and, jumping from the bed, grabbed my pants, ran to the bureau and threw my personalia into a duffel, making sure to grab the bankbook and our namestamps. Walking hurriedly I paused beneath the sturdy oak shoji doorjam and took three deep breaths. The tremblor faded slightly and I made for the door, glancing back as I slipped into my shoes only to notice the futon sheets growing smoky and bright, trickling orange flames growing wild, as I heard that catch of the door shutting for the last time.

There is something sublime and something horrible about becoming what one sensed one would become. Having only vague inklings and minor visions of future forebodings is akin to walking into the final exams of a course one has never studied for and slept through most of the classes. These thoughts, or dreams even, still remain uppermost in the mind though. They are not so much a worry nor fear, but rather a potential energy upon the cusp of undergoing a kinesthetic change to the physical realm. And ultimately beneficent, as one’s power grows to affect one’s environment. Like from the powerlessness of being a toddler to the ruthless enigma of energy of a young boy. The body moves and I can control it. It is an altogether warm and cold feeling of being able to see the future before it happens and not being able to do anything about it. So what of seeing the effect of the cause, sustain the root of the occurrance in hand and hold fast henceforth. This is the way.

But which came first: Omens or belief in omens? I see and hear things, before they happen to me. I read and watch references to them in books and on television, minutes, hours before the actual occurrence. Three ladybugs in the shape of a lotus petal land on me at once while a salamander watches me from the crack in center of the floor. A person I don’t know approaches me and casually name drops these things. Did they just wink? Do they know something? Do they see these signs as well?

Something is wrong. It’s palpable. But I still see things, and they fit. Or they want to. And they want me to notice them. They cry out to be seen amidst the jackhammers and idling engine white noise filling out the soundtrack to our days, they wear green lycra spandex and dance a two-left-footed jig in a Sony Business Seminar and they wave rainbow crucifixes in KKK meetings. There is a great big puzzle to be pieced together, there is work to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 00:37. It is filed under Blog and tagged with Belief, Japanese Women, Omen, Signs, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.