I am still getting over last month at Malasimbo... how many good times I had at this festival and the surrounding festivities, not expecting anything. There was an open vibe, it was the most interesting festival I have ever been to. The first time I had ever truly played tribal. 

I was welcomed at jam after jam, it started with an almost chance encounter with Jing at Making Waves and an hour of free form jams with Raffa and others who stopped by. This netted a surprise invite the next week to jam "back at the house" on the bayou with Jing, Willie, and some excellent Adirondack  folk musicians.

At Malasimbo there were three highlights: first having Louie and some other tribal Boracay stalwarts find me in the camping area the first morning and throw me some island vibes. I captured a bit of that on tape, with the amazingly pure and beautiful fire dancer Rice on harmony vocals. A ukulele-tribal flute version of Follow the Sun.

I also had the opportunity of jamming at the tribal circle, which was pretty deep. Djimbe, gongs, one guy playing sticks on his Brazilian martial arts armor. We launched some heavy jams off the template set by Malasimbo Collective ft. Laneous.

The jam as an outgrowth of the music on stage, a couple hundred yards down a steep hill. Some pretty well known on the Philippine and European tribal circuit (Jils the flute maker, who made my new long oboe-like woodwind). Filtering through mountain thickness, the music took on life its own right, became a hypnotic aural landscape. I was getting into a lot of rhythmic side, thanks to the demon chaser and the new instrument "twin-hearted bamboo stick." Unrepeatable, sick. 

Then onto jams on White Beach (shout out to Coca Aroma, Delgado's). Louie, my old Boracay mentor was on hand to smooth things out. Man it was fine and the flow organic. Only regret: the  reunion performance with Louie was lost for posterity when my iPhone was stolen. We can do it again, but it will be the next evolution.

Another highlight––the last night of the festival I met Jun Marieezy following a superlative set––one of the best performances I have attended since the 2014 Monterey Jazz Festival (Becca Stevens' duet with Ambrose Akinmusire, two strangers passing... chills down the spine). It  turned out I had met her (cemented in memory by a 1920s style hairpiece) as a musician on Boracay four months ago, not knowing who she was. I recounted the funny story of my crashing her private White Beach set with a DJ at the Casbah. She did not quite remember having stood watching me play flute for five minutes (blame it on the stuff in the hookah)––I certainly remembered her hairpiece. A few minutes later the Casbah staff mentioned that she was expected to come back to the mike and improv with the DJ. By now Ms. Marieezy was deeply engaged in hip-bearded conversation and playing checkers, shrugs all around––fool I am, I kept playing.

Though she did not remember the Dude I have become, Jun was happy to see the flute. She balanced it on her hand (surprisingly well) and played a passable run on the talaandig woodwind (surprisingly hard to do) before doing a little dance to my version of the blues. The last words I heard before she wandered off was "you're trippy." Then the mushrooms kicked in. 

Let me back up as usual to a time long ago. Formative moments.

The routine was simple–– my dad would go off and play poker in the evening and I would prevaricate, washing the dishes and listening to old lps with my mom. I learned the nuances of the Beatles that way. Traffic's eponymous first lp, War's The World is a Ghetto also sounded mind-blowing in full analog stereo, as I recall. The Harder They Come. (The late 1960s to early 1970s vibe really fit my experience gardening in the Oakland Hills 6-7 days a week. I would often walk home along verdant windy streets, sweaty from helping dig post holes or set in place a dry-farm garden.** And I would try to get the same beat as on Bob Marley's  Burnin' (Rastaman Chant) in my head. Or I would run through the 1970s era shaky tape version of What is (And What Should Never Be).**

And then I graduated to REM, Hendrix, Jane's, Zeppelin, many others. I was a sponge for sounds: Velvets, Pixies, the almighty Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

And I realized what was wrong with a very heavy alternative scene even before grunge hit and I learned to follow no one but myself. I played the acoustic in my studio apartment, playing along to the heaviest Hendrix I could find, failing at lessons after two weeks....  To Be Continued.

It is now time to get to editing the next section of Arisugawa Park. Certain readers are starting to ken that what has been changed adds vigor and depth. I have to decide which section really belongs next and how to improve it. Jigsaw puzzle fun, working on this "letter to a future me" novel, ninja style.

I read an article about Nick Drake a year ago––at his funeral, many of London's most creative artists were surprised to learn that they were mutual acquaintances of the elusive bard. Tangentially linked lives and friendships. He kept his circles separate, purposefully. Because he fed on different vibes and situations. To him life was an individual exploration, not a social game. Unfortunately, he was also dreamily suicidal.* 

For those more regulated, who can still appreciate the late poet's gift, there is the reassurance that this is not a bad way to live. Each of our friends, in person and online, provides us with some distinct tangent that cannot be compared. Each one is deserving of attention (or inattention, at times) and is part of our mindful meanderings. 

To know that we are reaching those we choose to reach. With words alone, if necessary. How very Emersonian.

In tomorrow's post, I'll go all technical on you: brief conversation with green MIIS economist Jason Scorse (author of Sufonomics 101) on the new $15-an-hour California minimum wage. It will center on my experience as an IT-contracted writer (the dreaded Independent Contractor)––labeled by Forbes as a 'contingent' worker in the May, 2015, article Shocker: 40% of Workers Now Have 'Contingent' Jobs, Says U.S. Government.

Pitch like crazy, don't expect to get paid.
Realize that money itself is the curse, 
the ghosts of electricity that Dylan 
moaned about, well they were the 
husks of a civilization that had 
planted a bomb between its legs,
set to a timer, unable to unharness itself 
to escape free.

You and I know better, you and I know better, 
and Patty Hearst, you sit there 
with your sisters, and all they can 
do is cry

confounded by the mere power of existence
while around foot soldiers dyin' and tryin'
and around you they blanket the soil 
with neurotoxins and even put that shit 
in the substance you eat.

Vomiting up plastic scavenged from the 
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 
brought to Geiger-friendly 
Midway Atoll, transferred by regurgitation
con amor, into the little one's belly,
whose stomach is never empty and never full.

How does it feel, to be on your own, 
in the deep doodoo of our thankless bondage, 
watching forces not your own, 
do good, do bad, carve out 
wildernesses of uninhabitable hostility?

I am of the people, I am separated by a guard,
my fabric is your fabric, is not my fabric––
Come on, even Trump wants to breathe 
clean air, eat genetically unmodified steaks
that degrade in time, unlike McWhatever––
especially Trump. 

Only he thinks that others should pay and pay. 
The smell of a world that has burned.

​Deviceless,* not even a pen, on the road from Sipalay along a pair of old-style bus routes, arm out the window, taking in coastal Philippine life. An oddly arid tropical landscape (victim of goats and general overgrazing I think, after discounting mining scars)––or maybe victim of the hottest February on record?*

Whatever the case, there is no intactly lush forest vegetation the whole way through, except one small patch that will be explored at leisure someday. It is not just aridness––that has a stark beauty of its own––but population explosion, small huts and ugly concrete in florid colors spread over almost the entire coast. Separated by however many clicks of palm and fruit groves, rice and corn fields, chicken huts. 

Which is not to say that that this Marquezian landscape is not achingly beautiful in its own way. Provincial life unfolds with much open air basketball and swinging in dooya (hammocks). There is always the Sari Sari store for pica pica and 15 peso glass bottles of cane sugar Coca Cola and Mountain Dew (curse of the non-non-soda carbonated beverage culture-–i.e. sugar fiends).

The remnant forest, passed in 15 seconds (but there) reassures me that naturally this landscape would be stupendously beautiful.... It is just that wildlife is not really allowed to exist unscathed––local gastronomic favorites on the beach near Sipalay include lizard and monkey. The forest has been turned into patches of flat grassland that support carabao, not native life forms. Trash is thrown in natural areas that would otherwise be charming. And yet, happiness or a pretty good simulacrum abounds.***

The Road from Sipalay. I really began to feel the vibe when I enter the town of Siohan,  the first city-dense congregation of buildings and people I have seen that still has the pre-asphalt, pre-tricycle vibe. Here is a rural place on the cusp, still adhering to a familial level of rules and civility. Yet really teeming. Cebu, Dumaguete, must have been like this once.

 And then, after slipping through a landlocked landscape of truly parched hills and plateaus––at times the nipa hut precariousness and on-the-edge solitude is savannah-like in quality––we wind up on the Dumaguete side of the coast, where plantation and mining-rich Negros Occidental gives way to Cebu-focused Oriental. Where Asian trade routes predominated, not sultanates or plantations.  A true shift in trade winds. 

Intrepid readers: check out Ari Park's prologue, and first and second and third and fourth sections if you haven't already.

A rustle outside jolted David from his prone position on the futon. He looked around, disoriented. Must have dozed off––the pattern of light on the rice-paper shoji indicated midday.  There it was again, more distinct this time. A cat––no, something heavier, more measured. A footstep.

David padded across the tatami floor and slid open the shoji. The noise had come from the side of the house––a thin strip of bushes and ivy bordering concrete wall. He crept through a tangle of books and boxes, along the wooden outer corridor, to a second set of sliding doors. Peering through warped, dusty panes there was nothing except a vague play of light through the trees. Unhinging the ancient metal catch, he inched the sliding door along wooden tracks. Dropping softly onto pine needles, a shock of recognition––the woman crouched against the low wall, hands clenched tightly against rough edges. David fought back any reaction, keeping his eyes steady and unblinking––a move he had perfected as a young child, when big dogs approached.

The woman dropped her gaze, seeming to relax slightly. He took a step closer, “Are you alright? I can call––” A rise of panic at those last words, eyes conveying a tight-wound moment of decision. 

David led out with his foot as she bolted, feeling the full force of impact on his right shin. Knee buckling, he reached out for balance and caught her shoulder through a tangle of hair. Hand sliding down, he latched onto forearm and took her with him onto the rock-scattered ground. For a long moment there was a perfect silence, no separation between them. Beyond the contrasting pitch of their breathing, there was only the odd sound of a siren in the distance. A transference of internal pulses, a realization that he had prevented her from leaving.

David’s apologetic blink met a firm-set frown as he pulled gingerly at what revealed itself as an awkward tangle. His fingers tracing the contour of her tightly curled fist––surrounding it without exacting any movement. Certain that he was going to have to pry each finger loose, one by one, his eyes met hers and stayed with her this time, not letting go. A sense of ice shifting, a crack and then a snap––a thaw––her hand uncurling and, in frightening reversal, tightening against his with such force that the pain equaled and then exceeded the aching pulses from a possibly gimp knee.

As David wrenched his hand free of the woman’s grasp her hand shook visibly, clenching and unclenching, then dropped with a series of twitches against her side. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” He helped her disengage, feeling past clammy skin to thin, skin-clinging cloth, brushing stubborn dirt and pine needles off a sticky coarse wetness. Slowly unhinging his leg, he took a couple exploratory kicks in the air––bruised, but still functioning. Rising to his feet, he helped her up through the outer corridor, sliding shoji doors open. The woman stopped short in the center of the room, fixing her eyes on him with the same unnerving intensity as before. He motioned in the direction of a futon half-hidden by scattered books, laundry, and crumpled sheets.

“My name’s David,” he tried. His usually measured voice came out strangely unsure of its footing. 
​
“Eve––” Tugging self-consciously at still damp dress.

David dug around for a clean t-shirt on a hanger and handed her a pair of jeans from the floor. “Probably too large. Here’s a belt––and a towel. The shower room’s down the hallway, just past the kitchen.”  
“Yes, I know––” Taking a doubtful look at the jeans, Eve edged to the door and out.

David cradled his injured knee for a minute, the dull ache receding, making sure that his joints were working properly. Nothing seemed out of place. Even when he was sure he was alone, he remained standing, going over the sequence of what had just occurred. At last the image that had been hovering around the edges of his consciousness took form––the reason Eve had been unable, unwilling to leave. A lingering chill drifted in through the shoji and he walked over and slid the sliding paper walls shut tight.

Some have asked whether the gaijinhouse rock garden where David v. Eve occurred exists and whether they can visit it on their Arisugawa Park itinerary of Japan. The answer is... depends. The shopping bikes no longer line the pathway, the house had reverted to a private residence. Ghosts still haunt its narrow hallways, I hear.

Note: the perils of staying on an isolated beach with shitty Internet are self evident. This post is three days late. Look for Arisugawa Park 1.5 in a couple hours. ​

Okay, a break from Ari Park* for a Chasing the Sun intermission. This new recording combines specific environments and introduces a new reggae song that I woke up with fully formed in my mind, at the MNL in Makati.

At first I thought "He Made His Way From the City (Fly Away Home)" was a Bob Marley song but, raking my brain, I could not identify it as such. So I mumbled it into the iPhone (RIP).  As presented, it is the working out of a new reggae song that is distinct enough that I want to record it with a few ace musicians in the near future. Could be the Louie-Voltaire unit or the Jahpoy-Nils-Chuckie unit. Could be both, to compare results. There are also some tribal ska songs that I would like to get professionally recorded.

Fly Away Home has a specific message that anyone who has spent too much time in a sprawling urban environ aching to be back where trees exist can relate with. The soundscape that follows is a travel back in time to Mindoro, a place of semi-abundant––if not intact––natural beauty. And of relentless tricycle and jeepney led covering over. 

The Wild Lagoon flute is a mythological narrative concerning a fish, bait, reeling, unreeling, and finally an eternal whirlpool where two arch enemy brothers meet. Yin and yang, black and white.

Followed by a very loose take on an old blues classic done by Leadbelly, Jim Morrison, Cobain, among others. Also integrated are field recordings of a kid in Sablayan teaching his younger brother how to play the mouth flute.

My conception of what is possible is expanding. My devices are lost, there may not be more mendicant recordings for a while. Enjoy fellow travelers.

SEO Alert: Damon Shulenberger, aka EnduranceWriter. Makin' Waves.

* 1489 visits to the site yesterday (scratch that, three days ago), a record. There is an audience for this, somehow. I continue to edit a new section of Arisugawa Park, for tomorrow "David and Eve Collide. "Not as exciting as Superman v. Batman, I know....

** Shakespeare is addressing the topical subject of Huguenot asylum-seekers in ca. 1600 London. On the refugee issue, he writes: 

You’ll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in lyam
To slip him like a hound.

Alas, alas! Say now the King
As he is clement if th’offender mourn,
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you: whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour?

Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain or Portugal,
Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England:
Why, you must needs be strangers.

Humanist to the bone. Will joins Mark Twain on the list of writers I admire. 

Kaori Inoue watched Lieutenant Yamahito roll an unlit cigarette between his fingers, one hand on the steering wheel, as the car veered dangerously close to telephone poles that encroached the narrow lane. Despite his presence, her mood was not completely bleak. Must be the weather––it was one of those cloudless days that promised a clean break from winter. Of course it never quite worked out that way––tomorrow things would be back to how they had been, strong winds blowing off the Tokyo Bay. 
​
Yamahito brought the car to an abrupt halt, lighting up as he fumbled with the ancient city map. Smoke filled the interior, going everywhere but out. Kaori sat rigid in that sudden rush of nausea that cigarettes brought, rolling down window and running through calming thoughts. At least he is married––at least he doesn’t flirt with women half his age. That was all she could find.  She fought off the urge to check their location on device as Yamahito laboriously traced fingers, joined at the knuckle by cigarette, along a spiderweb of streets. Running hand through hair, she took in a street cluttered with clothes boutiques, ramen and yakitori joints. Only sparsely populated this time of day by mothers pushing strollers and the elderly––couples shuffling hand in hand, the occasional stooped-back oba-chan.

“We need to go back two streets and take a right,” Yamahito finally said. Stubbing cigarette in ashtray and folding well-creased map, he popped the compact police car into gear for a U-turn. 

Kaori considered the matter at hand. It was nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Foreigners went missing every day, for a variety of reasons. Usually they went home, leaving the English schools they had worked at in the lurch. She and Yamahito would inspect the apartment, catalogue everything and fill out all the required forms, only to be contacted by a family member in a couple days, “Our son was unable to deal with the culture shock, is licking his wounds on a tropical beach.” Steve Loewe, just another foreign teacher, aimless college grad––never held down a real job. The school would be left scrambling to find another foreign suit for the position––she corrected herself, would already have found another suit, the second day he was gone. The larger schools like GEON had a roving team of substitutes on hand, prepped for such exigencies––as a harried manager had explained the last go around, there were a couple dozen teachers coming and going in any given month. She shrugged––six months into her job as a detective on the Chiba police force, there had not been much out of the ordinary. Still, it beat giving out parking tickets.

Yamahito turned abruptly into a tangle of alleyways that, miles from the Tokyo Bay, still kept to the contours of pre-war fishing village. Then onto a wider street, two-story apartments scattered among old houses with walled gardens. Cheap, prefab suburbs infiltrating what was left of the countryside. They cruised slowly, scanning addresses. It took some effort to find Loewe’s apartment––house numbers here were ordered by date of construction, not physical location. Finally Kaori spotted it. A small two-story mansion––not quite an apartment––tucked up a dirt driveway behind two old houses, half hidden by the arthritic branches of a gingko tree etching its way along sharp concrete walls. 

No one had been around for a few days. That was apparent enough from the electricity notices and pizza advertisements stuck halfway out the mail slot. Still Kaori rang the doorbell and waited––it didn’t feel right just barging in. Yamahito fingered the keys in a habitual gesture of impatience. Finally he leaned forward with a grunt and edged her aside, unlocking the door. 

The first thing that hit her was the smell––something rotting. Kaori caught sight of the offending items on a low table in the corner. Dark-skinned bananas split down the middle, depositing their sticky loads on shriveled oranges. A partially opened Ziploc with thin-sliced salami, sweating and covered in spots of white mold. An enormous cockroach froze as she approached, flattening into some impossibly small crease in the wall. Gasping, Kaori opened the sliding glass door onto a balcony crowded with a washing machine and laundry lines. Turning back, she found Yamahito shoveling the offending food into a plastic bag. 

“Thanks,” Kaori managed, breathing again. Yamahito did have some sense after all. As if in response, he lit up another cigarette. She coughed through the haze, her eyes sweeping the apartment with an unexpected surge of anger. Control, she thought––nothing must ever seep out, no sign––observe.
Clothes were piled none-too-neatly in a corner; toiletries in a shoe box: razors, after-shave, condoms––nothing to indicate that Steve Loewe had lived, or planned to live, there long. Nothing related to human interaction beyond the general business of eating and sleeping.

Yamahito began shoveling kitchen items into one of the boxes.

“Sumimasen,” Kaori said. Yamahito glanced up and returned to what he was doing. She bit her tongue and refrained from saying more. 

He finally shrugged. “Waste of time, isn’t it. The teacher ran off, emailed his family saying he would be traveling around South Asia for the next two months. Now we sit back and wait for his mom to contact us, tell us she got a call from Kathmandu. Dear son is sucking down pipes of opium with the villagers and desperate for cash.” He dropped a bunch of utensils into the box with a clatter.

Kaori caught herself. Yamahito was baiting her, waiting for her to explode… if he could not demote her, he could try and push her to the point of no return. She wondered when he would spring the real trap, the moment of such ludicrous intent that she would blow up in a public space, with eyewitnesses.

Kaori squeezed past Yamahito and took photos of the kitchen before he disturbed things further. It didn’t matter that they were just running through the motions, clearing things out so that GEON could cycle a new teacher into the apartment. It didn’t matter that this was part of training, a mandatory ride-along that neither she nor Yamahito wanted any part of. If Steve Loewe didn’t show up in a couple weeks, they would have a case. She made her way carefully through the rest of the apartment, taking pictures. 

​Finally putting the camera away, Kaori started in on gathering strewn clothes and stuffing them into bags. She took the covers off the futon, noticing a faint reddish stain on one sheet as she folded it. The only reading materials in the apartment were under the futon––English editions of the New Yorker and Esquire, with an old California address on them. Yamahito finished packing the contents of the kitchen cupboard and refrigerator in the box. She took a glance––if anything, less revealing. Packets of ramen, silverware, sesame oil––one aberration, a business card with a faded circle of soy sauce on it. Yamahito opened the door and propped it with his box as Kaori hoisted the other bags and boxes down the stairs to the car. 

As she was about to get into the car, Kaori asked Yamahito for the key to the apartment. “I need to use the toilet.” Back in the apartment, she headed for the bathroom, sliding her fingers across the bottom of  the wastebasket. Sure enough, there were a few strands of hair. She took out a bag from her jacket pocket and sealed the hair sample. It was a long shot, but she might need a DNA match at some point and GEON would have a crew in within the day to clean the apartment out, ready it for the next teacher. 

As they drove off, a visceral memory of the initial stench from Loewe’s apartment hit her and Kaori gagged slightly. Yamahito noticed her discomfort, his hand inching toward a pack of cigarettes. Rolling down the window preemptively, she gulped fresh air. Click of the lighter, slow burn. Maybe it was her Japanese sensibility, but... assuming Loewe was relaxing on a beach, assuming he was the careless sort he appeared to be from his belongings––even assuming he was your average short-term eikaiwa teacher, in it for the kicks––why leave food out on the table to rot? As the car interior filled with smoke, she took a close look at the business card Yamahito had found in the kitchen––Kennichi Mizota, Triangle Biotechnology, Tokyo.

The Arisugawa Park juggernaut continues. I have decided to adhere to the original formula and not make it easy for the reader. So with this scene a new character, Kaori Inoue. One of my favorites. Not an ex-girlfriend, though I'll admit I was inspired.

​SEO Alert - Damon Shulenberger aka Damon D. Dawson of Bandito College. EnduranceWriter and ex-English teacher.

I want to thank those dozens of brainwashed innocents who put their minds in my hands for a couple minutes each day––because, yes, I am also pretty hard to get into or out of a rut. Exponentialize that with distractions.*

And let me be the first to say, Ari Park is far from a rut. It is my exploration of multilayer Tokyo, like an excavation. Real incidents, visions, memories, fevered dreams. It all winds up in a blur, the dragon eating its tail.

I stopped listening to pundits, I started simply doing. The goal is effortless, concerted. The reality not so bad. I meet my deadlines. And I push myself further. Like  Wong Jack Man sizing up Bruce Lee. Writing is a push against reality as we know it.

The past year I have built a small, dedicated readership that understands what I am attempting. If this is not jazz, mixed with the folkloric and a touch of the wistful (futurist), I do not know what it is. 

I have been putting up sections of Ari Park almost daily, from an undisclosed island location. I take these final revisions seriously––almost a rewriting process. In real time. Cowachunga-lite.

Ok, back to the heavy lifting of getting the next Ari Park section in the air.

  Sprawled on the unmade futon, it was hard for David to imagine having ever basked in a a tropical sun. It was still freezing in Tokyo and he was still teaching at the high school he’d promised himself he would quit at first opportunity. Arching his back and stretching, he blinked at a screen that had been awhirl with bullets, explosions. His fingers itched to be back in the pixellated fray, just a click removed from the calming blue of the desktop. A necessary concession to urban ennui he told himself, modern versions of arcade classics in a discreet app––Q-Bert, Dig Dug, and his current favorite, 1942. 

Closing his eyes, David cast thoughts along the well-worn grooves of a vacation he was at the burnt end of. Snorkeling in the islands of Mindoro, fish darting in and out through a dying coral that still held tenacious patches of life. Thick strums of guitar hovering over a faint lilt of reggae from the bar down the beach. Painful massages in a nipa hut, his limbs kneaded into some kind of ecstatic submission. A sense of reawakened wonder at behemoth sea turtles, grazing on sea grass along a gently shelving bottom. Their sudden flight to the surface, with a grace that rivaled condors mythic excursions to the sun. Head breaking the surface with horselike harumph, an earthy expelling of oxygen that reminded he was in the presence of a living creature. The sea turtle’s turn back into its element, seemingly purposeless, putting quick distance between itself and unacknowledged intruder. 

In the evening the moon had come up over the palm as David lazed in a hammock, drinking Pale Pilsen. Three Danish women–– tans bearing evidence of topless adventures on secluded inlets, smiles holding holiday secrets, had studiously ignored him as he lazed in the hammock, plotting hello.

The tapping at his door was soft and insistent, just enough to bring David from his inert position on the floor. “Just a sec,” he groaned, looking around for a serviceable pair of jeans. The house was shared accommodation for foreigners, a few long-term expats and a revolving cast of travelers and castaways––teachers, corporate headhunters, martial arts enthusiasts. It was not unheard of to have a knock on his door the ungodly hour of 10:00 am––could be Julian, the German intern at BMW, looking to take a bike ride through the mean streets of Tokyo. Could be Cynthia the 50-something New Yorker, who took perverse pleasure in regaling him with stories of her main squeeze “Dr. Love”––when not blasting him for hair found in the shower drain, food left in the refrigerator past its expiration date. He really should not open the door. 

Sliding on a pair of jeans, David steadied himself and brushed back unkept hair. Inching open the door despite better instincts, he was confronted by a blood-drained face, almost feral in the hallway murk. “Can I help you?” The woman’s eyes flashed against tautly drawn lips, blond shoulder-length hair taunting a face in disarray. Her lips parted and went slack. He tried again. “Is there something I can….” 

The woman remained silent, impenetrable. About to shut the door, pretend this apparition didn’t exist, something in her eyes took hold. A message of barely controlled desperation. He waited, giving her time. The woman’s gaze steadied, her voice soft and barely audible. “Maria––she lives here.”

 It took David a moment to catch her phrasing, the slight hitch that made it a question as much as a statement. “Maria...  I think I’ve heard that name––when did you last see her?” 

“I don’t know, it has been months.” The woman tugged at the hem of her dress, trying to pull it lower. It clung stubbornly to her stomach, sculpting belly and thighs as if soaked through––in the murk of the hallway David could not be sure. Avoiding her off-kilter gaze, he shifted eyes past the vulnerability she was trying to hide. He thought back to the several tenants who had moved in and out of the gaijin house over the past months. A couple stray pieces of mail, addressed to his room––Maria, a name like that. “Your friend must have lived here before me––most don’t stay here long.”

 “Where she is now––?” 

“No idea, never met her.” They stood facing each other, no further conversational path presenting itself. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” David said, attempting a note of finality. “Good luck finding your friend. I’m sure you can contact the management company, Sakura House for the forwarding address––” The woman’s eyes flashed something he didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. He let the gaze slip past and falter, crashing upon an empty shore.

 “Yes, of course––thank you.” Turning down the hall, the woman’s movements were choppy, like a piece had been taken out of an old silent-movie reel.

Closing the door with a little too much force, David sank back onto the futon, casting around for some approximation of his usual self. He picked up his laptop. Immersed in a barrage of gunfire and explosions, still their brief conversation echoed. He set down the computer and reclined his head along the curve of pillow, taking in a ceiling framed by tree branches rooted in blue. 
​
An odd sense of self-incrimination hovered––could he have helped her? He didn’t know any Maria, didn’t know anyone in Tokyo, really, outside of the gaijin house. There were police everywhere if she had taken… if she had been… Still, a part of him remained unconvinced. Something––someone––was trying to bring him from complete apathy. A woman with lost eyes, practically begging for salvation. Leave it to him to drop the ball on that. It was a combination of things, he supposed––a growing ambivalence about being in Japan. The effect of too many days in the sun, his inability to spark conversation with the similarly blond Danish women on the beach. Still, he had let her go without even pretending to try. David didn’t have the energy to finish the thought. His eyes grew heavy and lidded, despite the incessant, mechanical whir of catastrophe emanating from the laptop. 
​

Working on Arisugawa Park, Cowachunga dreaming. incorporating some new island memories into the old text, making it more relevant to myself in 2016. Realizing that David is a decade younger than the current me. That is the great thing about fiction. Can keep on reliving. Remember, the phone lines are open at Absolute Write for comments and suggestions. Signing up takes 3 minutes and the password for the Share Your Work (SYW) forum is "vista."

On a throwback Sugar Beach with empty sand and brilliant sunset, swimming is fun again. The bungalow is set among the trees, the mosquito net protects. The flute is alone, distinct, and acoustic.

I cannot explain how profoundly the smartphone set gets me down, though I am traveling with a native goddess who could go either way. Ah, life.

Meanwhile, I have realized that ultra devious (in the way suicide bombers are) Trump is laughing whatever the GOP decides to do. If they nominate them, he loses against Hillary, but now he has been allowed to define the Republican Party on his own terms. In other words, as a party of people on crash collision with other people living within the United States.

If Trump gets excommunicated he can go all brown shirt, which means splinter third party . He may sense a way of winning a split general election vote, the same way he surfed the fractured candidate field in the Republic primary, creating a bedrock authoritarianism-leaning voting machine. He could go all old-school thug in his strategy––fascists (Make America Great) vs. socialists (1% protestors). In either case, he will not win this year, next year, but he has set the stage for someone truly scary to arise who will actually have the mandate to act in a time of crisis. Hitler did not arise in a vacuum, he was more than a decade in the making.*

In unrelated news, Ari Park 1.3 is going live in a couple hours. Check out Ari Park's prologue, and first and second sections if you haven't already.

*To counter all this, Fabric, which gets people on the same page and attuned to the mechanics of making the world one of parity and sustainability.