Death is lighter than a feather, but Duty is heavier than a mountain. <\/i>Osamu Dazai<\/p>\n
The Nippon Zen Master says that I must attend the wake. Full stop. She plays Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto to honour the departed Sensei of anarchy, provides me with a black tailored suit and shoes, and double checks the address. \u201cYes, bus number 4, 17 stops.\u201d<\/p>\n
I look like a funeral clown in an NBA jersey.<\/p>\n
I ask what I should bring. She says apples and incense, and perhaps strawberries. She has some growing in her backyard and gives me a handful of tiny red hearts and a basket. I look like the Wolf impersonating Little Red Hoodie.<\/p>\n
I walk down the steep hill through one of its many vertiginous stone stairways. I encounter the snake after the first flight. It has white skin and pink eyes: it looks like the bastard child of Gollum and Mr Barnes, the Simpsons millionaire. It is not soothing.<\/p>\n
In the country where I travel from, at least one ethnic minority believes that making eye contact with a snake is a bad omen \u2014and a holy reason to go back to pandemic position\u2026 and pray.<\/p>\n
I text the NZM and mention the reptile. She says \u201cNo way. We don\u2019t have snakes here.\u201d<\/em> Sounds like the Irish miracle claiming that Saint Patrick vacuum cleaned the island of them all. I\u2019m no Paddy, but then again I could be the Wolf\u2019s worst nightmare. After the endless standoff, I show my yellow teeth and the snake fucks away like an albino Cleopatra on a Formula 1.<\/p>\n I read Bertrand Russell at the bus stop. He writes about how he used to defy unconsciousness by giving himself a problem every night, before falling asleep, with the sole purpose of solving it in his dreams. It worked almost infallibly, like everything else Russell did.<\/p>\n Bus number 4 arrives sharp. I sit down, close my eyes, and set to fall asleep wishing to solve my dress-code issue. I woke up at the end of the line, which according to Google Fucked Maps is half an hour away from the wake. I\u2019m the only passenger, like most Wolverines.<\/p>\n I feel relieved to have spared the sight of my conscious self to the passengers, until a new bunch of them gets in. They look at me in awe, except for the lady carrying a glass box with an enormous beetle inside. She asks if I\u2019m okay in flawless English. I explain that I\u2019m not Bertrand Russell and that I\u2019m late for the wake. I show her the address and she says \u201cI also get off there, I can walk you from the bus stop\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n I would hug her if it were appropriate. I\u2019m about to ask if she would like a funeral strawberry and\/or if there are snakes in Japan. She points at a bus sign that forbids talking while travelling.<\/p>\n I bow, open my bag and take out my aluminium water bottle. She points at the forbidding drinking sign. I remember seeing people doing it in trains, but trains are another business altogether, she\u2019d say afterwards.<\/p>\n \u201cEating and drinking during short journeys is a sign of desperation and lack of self-control\u201d<\/em>: another civilization\u2019s wet dream passing before our eyes.<\/p>\n I reflect on the abhorrent daily waste of humankind, the alleged species with a large brain and piano friendly hands that I used to belong to before becoming a wolverine.<\/p>\n\n\t\tBertrand Solved<\/b><\/h4>\n