| Hiroshi and I met. Nowadays it's quite rare. "What do you want to eat?" "Anything, you know I'm not fussy." "Let me see. Master! Beer!" Hiroshi does not change. We talk about Ken, we miss him, feel the comfort of chopsticks as we pick, hold, balance, chop and simultaneously perform a dozen wondrous things with our hands. "I can't eat with a fork anymore." "Hmmm. We're just a couple of happy old men." I think modern times thrust too much on the young. Hiroshi busies himself with phone calls, effortlessly searching his capacious memory for the numbers of friends—"acquaintances", I keep on telling him. No one comes. Hiroshi stops trying, pays me full attention. Yener and he share one thing in common: they both have much patience for what I have to say, which I reckon makes no sense anyway. The river bursts its banks. I rave about trade balances. I am no longer at ease with words, or thoughts for that matter. "The Japanese are underdeveloped, philosophically speaking. You've got to kick them in the head to make them understand." "All foreigners treat Japan as an entity." "If it's not then what is?" "Master! Beer!" (1990) Copyright ©2002 Olivier Serrat |
| hiroshi and i met |
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