Toshiki Okada - The End of the Moment We Had

There’s one TV show that I absolutely have to watch, it’s on once a week, on Tuesdays at eleven, and last week when I was watching it my husband was at home. I don’t know if it was because he was asleep or because he just wouldn’t watch it with me but suddenly my frustration at him boiled over, and I knew I shouldn’t have but I started in on him, attacking him, while my show was still on, through the end of the show, past midnight, on and on until who knows how late, basically telling him he was a good-for-nothing coward, which would have been too cruel to actually say so I didn’t, but that about sums up what I was feeling.

When I was watching TV, I was lying there motionless, my body feeling heavy and tired like it is now, training my eyes on the screen, absorbing the flickering light. I can’t remember what set me off, but I started saying wouldn’t it be nice if we had a little more money, don’t you think we should try to do something about that, I really think we should be thinking more about the future, that kind of stuff, trying to make it seem like it was just occurring to me, when of course I had it on my mind, and I was talking with an edge, and once I got going I sat up and leant forwards over my knees on the vinyl flooring.

Before long I was shouting at the top of my lungs, not holding back at all, lashing out at my husband and it was like I couldn’t stop. At one point my eyes were swollen and burning. I had the vague feeling that if I really wanted to talk about this with him, it might have been better if I wasn’t screaming and crying.

Thinking back to that whole thing, I start to feel the laziness in my body tighten up at the back of my neck. It could be that the tension was already there and building up and I only noticed it just then. When I was freaking out at him, I knew that we were both working, and that we weren’t broke or anything, and that this tantrum I was throwing wasn’t doing me or him or us any good. It’s not that I understand all of that only now that I’ve calmed down, I was totally aware of it when I was yelling at him.

For his part, my husband didn’t act hurt or angry at what I was saying, he just sat there passively taking it all in. To me, this was humiliating. Why didn’t he shout back, challenge the outrageous stuff I was saying, why didn’t he get mad at me? That’s why I’ve spent so much time searching for a blog or something of his, because if he had a reason not to shout back I bet he would have written about it. But it could be that he doesn’t write a blog, or that if he does it’s set to private and you have to sign up or register or something to read it, or it’s on a secret page on Mixi or some other social networking site that I won’t be able to find. And if he did that, then I really really wonder what he wrote.

I make my biggest move of the day so far: I put my head where my feet were and my feet where my head was. The sheet where my head was feels damp and humid, and I’m sure that there are some parts of the sheet where my feet were that are cool and dry. I tuck my trunk towards my legs so that my body is in a wedge, then pull my legs away so I’m straight again, and repeating this four or five times rotates me around the bed like the hands rounding a clock. I was right, the sheet at the bottom is refreshingly cool.

While I was yelling at my husband, and after I was done too, he sat there scratching his left bicep like he had a stubborn itch. From his perspective my tantrum must have come out of nowhere. But for me it was a long time coming, it had been simmering, getting hotter, so that once it got to boiling there was no stopping it.

I let my head drop forwards as far as the bones in my neck will allow. Then I lean it all the way back. But I can’t go so far back on my own. To get it back all the way, so that it’s flush against my spine, snap , I’d need someone to help.

The sliding glass door beside me gives off an energy that I think is somehow like a lover who wants me, who wants to get on top of me. It’s almost too much to bear.

This apartment of ours is in the one sunken spot on a swell of land, squeezed into a cluster of buildings, none of them more than five storeys, which isn’t short but feels short, and somehow oppressive. There’s a mix of places: apartment buildings like ours, an exam-prep school, also an Asian goods gift shop, I’m guessing, based on the fact that the window is full of origami and kanji placards on imitation Japanese paper and clothes with fabric that looks rough to the touch hanging from the curtain rods. There are a few, very few, single-family houses, and also a building with gallery space for rent a half-flight of stairs down from ground level. Our apartment building is jammed in right in the middle of all this, kind of like a child being crowded and pushed around by bigger kids. We used to say that being stuck in the middle is why our walls and floors are always sweating. But really it’s because we’re in the cheapest unit in the building, down on the first floor with the worst light. In winter our place feels like a swamp. It smells like one too.

I always place my futon next to the sliding glass door. Rings of grime spatter across the pane, white outlines of where the drops of condensation have dried, almost regular enough to make a pattern. Just beyond our tiny concrete balcony is a patch of land overgrown with weeds that give off a powerful grassy odour. Between the balcony railing and the wall of the next building is less than a metre.

I can’t shake the idea that my husband could have a diary or a blog, whether or not I would ever be able to read it, but supposing he has one, does he write about me? When I ask myself this question, I don’t know if I want the answer to be yes or no.

He’s slumped over on the counter sleeping, head resting on his hands, the tips of his fingers peeking out, and they’ve got a faint red tint to them, like maybe he was handling a red ink-pad.

Suddenly I have the memory of staring through the glass of the sliding door and seeing two cats on the balcony, perfectly still, until they sprang up onto the rail and leapt to the next building and scrambled up the wall and out of my sight. Thinking about such a mundane scene feels a little like a premonition of death.

I notice that the two empty cans of beer I set down on the kitchen floor have tipped over.

There’s mould in the bathroom, but it’s also in the corners of the kitchen, and on one spot of the tatami under the vinyl flooring. I can’t get it out, although I’ve tried. But the mould is worst in the closet, which I keep closed because the smell is really strong. We’ve lived here for several months now, and little by little I’ve got used to the mould smell and the general stickiness, so that it doesn’t even really bother me any more. I’m actually a little surprised that I was able to get used to it, but I haven’t told my husband. He always leaves the closet door open, which I hate.

Why do we have to live in such a nasty, musty place, it’s tiny and it has no light and it reeks of mould, are we going to spend the rest of our lives here? I once said that to my husband. He said, okay, you want to move? Okay, let’s move, is that what you want?

I didn’t say anything. Instead I scooted towards him, I was sitting on the floor facing him and I unfolded my legs from under me and thrust them at him and hopped on my butt in his direction and with my outstretched legs I kicked at him over and over again. For a second he laughed, maybe thinking I was doing a special move of a hero in a kids’ show, and he used his left arm to shield himself, but the next moment he whipped his arm back towards me to pin down my legs. Just before he got me I landed one good kick on his arm, right in the spot where he has three large birthmarks, which make me think of Orion’s belt. But then he had me, and I couldn’t move. I struggled for a bit while he held me down, but he’s a man, and I doubt he even had to try very hard.