12.00

Tokyo is a blur; who knows what happened in Tokyo. Not a hair out of place or in my soup. Trains create the clock and even the fish market is odorless. The temple toilet had a bidet—and air. Tokyo gives you the sense of the exotic without the hassle. You can't read, the lights are dazzling. People sit on the floor and you aren't built that way or that small. People don't even stare at you; they don't even look. And fuck if you should try to buy anything because it's too damn expensive. But why would you anyway? Cosmopolitan Tokyo fuels the homogenization machine and anything you can find there you can find anywhere—for less. But that first night on the train coming in from Narita, when midnight pounded from inside our skulls, the vertical signs were lit like sin and roving. The train screeched and rocked and the voices were each indecipherable. It was all fantastic and familiar—comfortable, like slipping between sheets.

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