cold

in the coldest nights of that winter, curled up and huddled beneath a futon on smooth tatami, the dreams and recriminations would gnaw at my innards like hungry desperate rats.

sometimes i would wake up and know, viscerally know, that i was dying. the feeling revealed to me in dreams, that anxious clawing away, that was the truth.

i would lie in the darkness, my breath coming and going in whimpers, watching the shadows take on real forms, waiting.

everything would always settle, like a fresh mantle of snow, like the thick warm futon upon me. everything would pretend that the world was alright, that all would somehow roll over into tomorrow, for another shot at the scant warmth of a winter sun. and yes, i too would eventually feel those desperate dreams settle and die for a time, slowed and freezing like small clots on my skin.

...

there would be a cat that would at times visit me in my small room. sometimes on the coldest nights, i would hear a faint scratching sound at my window. a more superstitious soul might have felt unsettled at the sound, but at the time, i was more curious than anything else. i would, without hesitation, open the window to the blizzard outside. and in would pop the cat, whose name i would learn was debu, without so much as an excuse me or thank you.

i had bought a "cake-log" (one of those rolled up sugar cakes that looked like a log of wood) to send to some tenuous interest of mine, some girl in kyoto that i'd met briefly. thinking frankly of my chances with that girl, and pressured by the presence of my current guest, i would tear open the carefully wrapped package, open the box, and cut a sliver of the sugary log to offer to debu. debu would take a small swiping lick at my offering, glance up at me as though i were kidding, and then take a bite. a tiny nibble.

debu wouldn't eat much more of the cake, and i'd wonder (with mild regret) whether it was worth it to destroy my "gift of faint hopes" to share with her. she would gingerly walk over to a corner and lick the snow and wet off of her shiny black fur, not even looking my way. and then, as though bored by my company, she would go to the window again, look at me ("come on, you dimwit!"), and i would get up like some doorman caught off guard, open the window, and let her out into the storm...

***

dying is a secret thing. but then again, so is living.

***

there is a room on the second floor of the temple, a vast auditorium filled with metal lockers. within each locker is an altar dedicated to some loved ancestor, complete with a picture, and (for those with current and conscientious ties to the living) offerings of flowers and snacks. one day, it was my job to go through the altars to remove all of the offerings. after all, if we'd have left them there forever, things would stink up pretty bad, and we'd have an infestation of roaches and (gasp) rats.

so i would walk through that vast and ghostly room, opening individual lockers in the echoing silence, and putting all the flowers and snacks into a large garbage bag. sometimes, the snacks were barely recognizable, there was so much mold and decay on them. at other times, i felt tempted to eat something myself, the snack so fresh.

there's a lot of time to think in such a large room, and i would get to reflecting about how all of those pretty offerings were like the living, or the sentiments of the living, and how i was like some shabbily dressed reaper. i was taking lives, some long due for removal, and others - alas, what a waste - taken away before they could fulfill the sweet promise of their existence. the process was cold, unthinking- but it had to be done...

***

i must go on dying and living... sometimes, as in shawshank redemption, this dying living thing is articulated as a choice... at other times, it is something that we cling to thoughtlessly, because we have no choice... scrabbling with fingernails to this earth, swimming through a sea of darkness, praying that land or a sun will roll over the horizon...