Archive for the 'Trains' Category

Kalamari

Published
by
Electric Pig
on February 26, 2008
in Trains
. 2 Comments

On the third stair down from the platform at the station yesterday morning, there was a squid. The squid was dead. It had two arms reaching onto the second stair from the top, but the majority of it's body was firmly on the third stair. The other passengers walked past it without really noticing it, or at least, without really paying it any attention. I couldn't believe it! This was a mystery indeed. After extensive research, I have come to the following conclusions: I believe that there are three possible likely reasons for the squid to have been found like this:

  1. The squid was being carried to a fish restaurant in the station arcade area, and managed to flop out of the box it was being carried in onto the top of the stairs before its need for liquid overcame it. In this light the achievement is quite extraordinary and the squid should be praised for its remarkable, valiant effort.
  2. The squid was sucked into the air, out at sea by a freak water-based tornado and then unceremoniously dumped onto the ground at the station when the tornado suddenly blew itself out. I don't think that this is a particularly likely reason due to the scarcity of tornados in the area in recent weeks, although if indeed it is the real reason, the squid must be comiserated for its sheer bad luck.
  3. The squid, a prisoner-of-war at a Octopus internment camp, managed to escape with many of his fellow prisoners-of-war in an intended 250 prisoner-break, and having briefly studied Octopusese, had managed to fool the guards on an Octopus train into believing that he was an Octopus, only to fall prey to the oldest-trick-in-the-book and answers in Squidish when the cunning Octopus officer wishes him luck and then flees only to be gunned down when he reaches between the second and third steps of the station, so nearly out of reach of the Octopi guns, where he is discovered the next day by me. This is clearly the most likely explanation, especially with the infamous Octopi/Squid war that has been raging around us for years now. We can only pray that his sacrifice will inspire other Squid in the years to come.

The 6.52 From Mitaka

Published
by
Electric Pig
on February 22, 2008
in Trains
. 1 Comment

One of my favourite times of the day is the moment when my morning train ascends from the tunnels under Tokyo and, on a good day, is flooded with sunshine as the train climbs above the roofs of the city's hinterland. The gray concrete slabs of housing estates, box & packing factories, and suburban schools are turned peach pink by the low, early winter sun.

The residents of the 6.52 from Mitaka consist of the usual morning's quarry. At the other end of the bench from me, a couple of kids, who probably met for the first time the night before, lean symbiotically on eachother, sleeping with serious faces. The boy's laces have become entwined with some of the straps on the girl's handbag. The train crosses a bridge. The Pacific is almost visible through the mist of diffused exhaust fumes.

A woman at the end of the carriage is awakened by the enka theme of her phone. She commences a conversation that is slightly too loud for the sanctity of the carriage. She seems confused by the person at the other end of the line. She speaks only in aggressive, bewildered questions. Other passengers look at her, worried that they may have to interact with her in some way. To their relief, she gets off at the next stop, finishing her call as she walks, determined towards her exit. The train goes over another river. The world's most unappealing hotel floats past, sharing a small island with a large industrial plant.

At the top of the carriage, a woman stands, apparently unaware of the embarrassment of free seats around her. She is wearing a black suit and looks effortlessly elegant, bordering on cruel. It is as if she has been mistakenly plucked from a street in Ginza, and as yet has not deigned to notice. She uses her phone and nothing can be heard. The train pulls into Myoden station. Terminal.

The doors open. People begin to get off. The man opposite sleeps on. He has a child-like look of contentment, in his dream the soundtrack should be Louis Armstrong. He is wearing a suit and has clearly slept past his stop. He should never have left the tunnels. There is a slight stain of some kind of condiment on his collar. The man from the Metro jumps onto the train to check for stragglers. He shakes the man's shoulder. "Wake up, wake up, sir", he says, much more softly than I had expected. The man's face changes as he gradually comprehends. It is like watching someone go from the hope of early childhood to the worry of middle age in a couple of seconds. Sorrow touches his face for just a moment before it is replaced by the panic of his situation as he jumps and stumbles from the train in a vain attempt to reach the train now stopping at the opposite platform, to make his way back to the office in time.

Another day starts in Tokyo.

My Hitotoki

Published
by
Electric Pig
on January 22, 2008
in Internet, Japan, Trains and Website
. 8 Comments

I just got emailed an invite to this event next week, organized by the folk who run the great Hitotoki, a site dedicated to short written snapshots of Tokyo (and now also New York & London), generally, but not exclusively, written by foreigners. I had sent them this story about a little girl on a train a while back and not heard anything from them since. I figured that the story didn't really fit in with their usual kind of "Tokyo as bittersweet, peach sunrise train station" style, which was fair enough, the story I had sent was a bit depressing. The invite suggested though, that there was an opportunity for Hitotoki writers to read or perform their stories live. I checked the website, and it seems, that they had published my story, which is quite a nice surprise. Reading it again after 6 months or however long it is, there are a lot of things I would like to have changed before submitting it, but I suppose that that's always the case. I'm not sure I will be able to make it to the event next week though as it falls on the day of me and the missus' anniversary, and some things are more important than non-existent legions of fans. Click the picture below to get to my story on the site:

The Lady on the Train

Published
by
Electric Pig
on January 8, 2008
in Trains
. 3 Comments

The 4.17 Tozai Line train from Nish-Funabashi is usually relatively quiet when it stops to pick me up at Myoden station, 2 stations later. For the first few stops, the passengers are mainly school and university students, housewives, the elderly and infirm and non-salarymen who looked slightly crazed at having fallen through the cracks of the employment system. As the train goes underground, the last of the students are replaced by salarymen and office ladies (charming terms that actually-quite-accurately portray the sexual-roles in the Japanese office), returning to their companies after meetings. They get off at the seven-or-so big stations, and are in turn replaced again by more students and housewives as the train comes out of the long 15 stop tunnel, back in Tokyo suburbia. The train is us usually quiet and peaceful, a Switzerland in the WW2 of afternoon commuting, but with less Nazi-stolen Jewish gold.

Yesterday, thanks to the colder weather, it was a little worse than usual, although still miles from the morning face-in-armpit-of-filthy-unwashed-passenger-next-to-you-horror. I was sitting at the end of one of the rows of seats (the prized position that I get for getting on the train early on, and which I, now fully assimilated into Japanese train etiquette, will relinquish to no old-lady, handicapped passenger or pregnant women), and next to me, in the ample standing room by a door, stood a youngish woman in a long anorak. Everything seemed normal. The train pulled into Kudanshita station, usually the last of the major salaryman alighting points. I happened to notice a man get up from the seat next to where the woman was standing and start to pull his suitcase (obviously returning from a business trip straight to the office - good boy), to get off the train. His hand (the one pulling the suitcase), brushed the woman's jacket briefly for just a second while the man was looking the other way to pick up his newspaper from the seat. As he unknowingly continued to get off the train, the woman exploded with a torrent of abuse:

"Youfuckingpervert! Don'tyoufuckingtouchmeup! Youdirtyarsehole! Whothefuckdoyouthinkyouare?! [Seeing that he had not realised she was talking to him] You with the suitcase, You.Stupid.Fucking.Arsehole! Yeah YOU! Don'ttouchwomenupyoupervertI'mcallingthepolice! PERVERT!"

By this point about five other people had got off the train terrified of her, the man had wandered off, shaking his head and I was sitting there, giggling into my book. I have never, ever, seen anyone explode like that on the train before. Quite amazing. I started wondering; maybe she had been abused before on the train (apparantly one-in-two women in Tokyo have), or maybe she was just in a foul mood, or maybe her child had been snatched by one of the notorious Tokyo dingoes? Then, a couple of stops later, as she got off the train, I noticed that she had been reading from the preparation book for the upcoming TOEIC (English proficiency) exam. It all became clear. She was just another example of what can happen when you teach an ordinary citizen something as subversive as the English language...

The Girl on the Train

Published
by
Electric Pig
on May 22, 2007
in Trains
. 2 Comments

A little girl was sitting next to me on the train home from work yesterday. She can’t have been more than 8 years old. She was wearing very strong prescription sunglasses with a bright blue tint that made her eyes look huge; and a protective hat, like those worn by American Football players in WW2 newsreels. The hat had circular holes in it, and a few that someone had lovingly modified to make look like Mickey Mouse’s silhouette. Her mother spoke to her constantly, her voice betraying her worry, and her hands clutched a large yellow folder – the type they give you at hospitals to hold x-rays. In my foreigner-in-Tokyo-self-obsessiveness, I thought that the little girl was staring at me, until her mother asked her to try to sit up straight and she replied “It hurts”. Her mother told her she would buy her a nice parfait when it had finished. The little girl, looked even sadder and said, like it was an apology, that she couldn’t eat after. Hand-in-hand, they got off the train at Takadanobaba Station. Stopping a little way up the platform in the sea of commuters shoving past, the little girl asked her mother something. She agreed and they stood and waited, facing the train. As the train pulled out of the station, the businessmen and shoppers, engrossed in their comics and mobile phones were too busy to notice a little girl waving at them. No one waved back.