Thursday, June 04, 2009

GOLDFISH

I looked at the airplane track that was dividing the sky.
The white line was going to separate the blue sky,
however, the line dissolved in the blue. The sky united again.

I hope the line which God draws fade away someday like airplane tracks.
Someday, beyond language and distance and air, I wish everything unite.



In this world, each town has different air.
Even if we go to the next neighborhood,
we always need respiratory assistance such as a fishbowl form.
A life supporting device, which called the Fishbowl, save our life in other town.

However, everyone is similar to me.
Each town is almost the same, too. Only the air is different.
Therefore, it happens sometimes that people take off the Fishbowl because they become mixed up or stressed about living in another town.
They inhale the different air, smile a little,
then they finish up dead.



The towns have relationships with each other.
I'm going to another town
that I've never been to before.



I carry a goldfish.
"It's funny a goldfish is kept by you who wear the Fishbowl"
It is wonderful if the goldfish brings a opportunity to talk to somebody like this.



I took a train which runs so long long into the distance.
In the train, I observe so many people wearing Fishbowls.
Conductor also wore a Fishbowl.



To live in another town,
is to not to have heart and soul.
My job is to build up the heart and soul of our hometown in this town.
My goldfish and I start living here after a little welcome party.



Hermin Fanfinnyo.
I take up with a Fishbowler who was also sent here from another town.
Her town is far from here and the opposite direction from my hometown.
I had never known the name of her town.
We didn't need time to become friendly because of our circumstances. She too is building the love and soul of this town.
Unfortunately, her mission ends soon.

"It's easier to think often that we would have distance from each other.
Do not despair of your loneliness,
Bless ourself to have a chance to know each other."

She said to me with her hand on my Fishbowl before she goes.
I also placed my hand on her Fishbowl.
We can't touch each face directly, ever.
She left with our promise to meet again.



After I used to live here, I got time to think.
Different custom, rule, value...

"I am stranger in the town"
Unconsciously, I often let out a sigh.
The goldfish is the only friend of mine.




Cuse Maylioult.
I once loved someone.
He is local person and so kind person.
And he is the person who care about my loneliness and anxiety.

But the reason might be that I am foreigner, he said.

"I like you, however,
it seems unlikely that we will be together in the future"

While I had been weeping away in my room all night long,
the goldfish was swimming as always.



A world of Fishbowl is separated by a glass wall.
A view of my room is separated by a glass wall.
Some wall surely exists between us also. It makes difficulty to understand each other.

One day, I held a little home party.
The room had an agreeable tea aroma.
Everyone wore a Fishbowl except me
and talked with each other in my room.
Here is my town air.
The goldfish came up to the surface,
She opened and closed her mouth unconsciously.



Karue Fass.
He doesn't have a hometown.
His hometown burned down and was designated a polluted area.
Nobody can be there.
So he was living in another town with a Fishbowl, always.

"We can die anytime.
But there is not the necessity of death.
That's why I live"

The positive with negative thought.
His cheerful disposition could be a result of a difficult past.
I felt he shows a happy exterior.
He knows many people.
However, I never se him with the same people.



Famstan Zebilion.
His father is in the next town, his mother in this town.
When he was a child, he could live without a Fishbowl in both towns.
However he grows up,
he can only live without a Fishbowl in the town where he breathed in more air.
He is still his teens.

"Even so, someday,
there will be more people like me.
Everybody can live without air barrier,
and everybody can just live together ordinarily.
I wish so"

I wonder which town will he adjust?
Will he still wish to be a mixed-towner when he grow up?



Washirumin Keitarioslingun.
He is local, but he is a peculiar person.

"There is not equality in the world.
Somebody gets everything anytime,
somebody loses everything anytime.
It is meaningless to think about anyone else.
Ask you just yourself a question"

He has many hobbies.
He tries everything else.
In other words, nobody knows what he is doing.
He treated me the same as locals.
It seems the locals think he is weird.



Time goes by. Fleeting. My stay is coming to an end.
I have a lot of work,
however I also have a lot of free time.
Although I chose to visit and stay here by myself,
I hadn't made a plans.
As the day nears,
my anxiety and regret is increasing in my mind.
I walk with a hazy feeling,
The noise of footsteps, has caught my attention. Out of my fishbowl I see a leaf flaps in the wind.

I stop and think over and over.
What did I do?
What could I have done?



A farewell party.
I greet guests with a smile.
However, I notice that I can't get preference over locals.
I feel permanently barriered in my Fishbowl glass.
If we become friendly, it's just more friendly than strangers.
It is even difficult to become closer someone than a longtime acquaintance.
I felt more sadness than pleasure in the party.



As usual, I looked at the goldfish alone.

Somehow, recently she has an unhealthy complexion.
"Hey, what are you thinking?"
Always you are surrounded by water, and you face me across the glass.
I believe in your friendship. What do you think about me?



Suddenly huge regret grasped me.
"Why didn't I bring her as a pair"
A goldfish can't live together with an other town goldfish either.

she swims, like always, without concern.



The day before my departure, she died.
"You were going to home tomorrow.
You could have had friends and lovers.
you can live together.
You were lonely.
I'm sorry.
Sorry..."
I mumble it a dozen times to myself holding the fishbowl.
She felt more solitude than me.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for not realizing.



I folded her body softly.
I hope she will find solace in returning to our land and air.
I'm headed to the train station.



The town which I have stayed long;
The view which I have gotten used to seeing;
I couldn't touch the town truly.
This some-other town.

Yet, I can also find similarities with my hometown here.
A human is a human. A town is a town.
There is no difference except for the Fishbowl barrier.
Does my mind generate the barrier?



I felt discomfort wearing the Fishbowl.
It is same world. I know.
I felt as if I could have taken a breath here in the town without the Fishbowl.

Should I take off the Fishbowl?
What's gonna happen?
Will I die?



If I go back hometown, what do I have?

I want to clear away the glass,
take a breath of air,
I want to brake it all barriers - go beyond the glass and air.
Even if this is a fantasy,
I want to unite.



Feeling a dazzle, I looked up.
The Fishbowl shines iridescently. Light falls through the leaves and reflects off the glass.
It is very beautiful.
"Because I am wearing this Fishbowl, I can see this now."

We just live in the town we were born.
We are bound by circumstances.
For all that we can go around the world.
There are restrictions, always.
However, there are many possibilities, too.

People who come from other towns;
People who live here;
I learned about loneliness through frequent meetings.
Therefore I also learned the joy of be with friends.
Loneliness let you love someone,
a love lets you feel a loneliness.
Even if the same town people couldn't understand each other,
Even if a Fishbowl make us separate and we can't breath same air,
We can understand each other in some way.



We're living alone in a fishbowl like a goldfish.
We can care about someone because we feel loneliness.
Because we can't touch each other through our Fishbowls,
We can cherish each other, too.



When the goldfish looked up, at the hazy sun
through a wavering surface of water,
what was she dreaming?

When I look up at the faraway sky
through my glass of helmet,
what am I dreaming?



As I was getting on the train,
I realized someone was there; A friend with a hat low over his eyes.

Washirumin Keitarioslingun smiles nervously.
He gives me flowers.

"The flowers don't die out of this town.
The flowers grow in any town.
The place is not important.
If you give flowers what they need,
they will grow."

I'm crying and smiling with a whole handful of flowers.

"Humans are the same. I believe in this"
He touches my Fishbowl, then he graces to bow.

"See you someday"

He smiles.

"See you someday"

My words are a hope, a dream and my will.
I'm smiling with my face buried in the flowers.

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