\u201cThe novelist Natsume S\u014dseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, \u201ca physiological delight,\u201d he called it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junichiro Tanizaki. \u201cIn Praise of Shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n
I look at Mae one last time. It is a crispy morning in the heart of Fuji\u2019s imperial valley. It smells like black tea and juniper trees, and my bladder is about to burst.<\/p>\n
Mae and I were born orphans in a hot place \u2014and a continent apart. We both escaped the heat and moved to a colder place, where we both remained childless \u2014and still a continent apart.<\/p>\n
She loved someone as much as I loved Selby for the same amount of years, and we both ended up finding out rather late that we were destined to be cats. It has only taken me half a century to find her, and all of a sudden, I have dog feelings for her. She has already disregarded them. And she is Japanese: talking about feelings would take as many roundabouts as trying to get a hug from an Old Catholic father.<\/p>\n
I ask at point-blank if she is aware of what my eyes are saying. She opens her mouth and says sayonara<\/i>, gets in the car and fucks away.<\/p>\nHonest to Piss<\/b><\/h4>\n
I want to cry, but I need to piss to be honest. Unfortunately, I\u2019m in the most improper spot in the world to go free pissing.<\/p>\n
If Japan has taught me something, it is that there are toilets literally everywhere, which is the exact and prodigal measure of how offensive it could be to go toilet free.<\/p>\n
I start walking towards the auspicious mountain, the two-syllable, friendly word: FU JI. Sounds like unsolicited Future Jujitsu. Fujitsu.<\/p>\n
The view is ten million times better than the etymology \u2014let alone physiology altogether.<\/p>\n
Not even contemporary scholars seem to agree on what\u2019s the meaning of FUJI. Some of them will tell you that it translates to wealth or abundance. Others will say that it means immortality. Whatever it is, it feels like the exact opposite of a physiological delight: it is a full on bladder torture<\/p>\n
I imagine hot balloons, I picture hundreds of them, a rainbow coloured army of bubbles sucking fire, idling the heavens, and floating beyond the realm of physiology.<\/p>\n
I walk distortedly, my steps squeezed by the urgency, blind to the sight of evacuation cubicles. I had seen them before in the wild, dotting national parks and waterfalls, but this place must be wilder than wilderness.<\/p>\n
I consider how mortifying it would be to be found in a pool of my own piss, and I instantly picture my departure: first burst, then coma, then nothing.<\/p>\n
It is kind of ironic to meet my end in this humiliating fashion after having escaped a killing spree and dodged a number of bullets in the last 24 hours. I thought I was choosing life instead of death. I guess that is the main problem with thinking when you are a dyslexic.<\/p>\n
The sight of the hamlet is controversial in a full bladder sort of way. I can picture a million toilets in Nippon bloom, their immaculate wings, its transparent tiles and sterilized basins spread like a viral Supreme Gallery of Physiology, the one institution I would love to become a permanent member of\u2026 I\u2019d give my lungs as a deposit, whatever it takes. I PROMISE!<\/p>\n\n\t\t