COTE : Three days of happyness

The beginning of the end

After deeply bowing my head with an “I’m really sorry” for the 19th time that day, I had a dizzy spell, collapsed to the ground, passed out, and fell unconscious.

This happened during my part-time job at a beer garden. The cause was clear; anybody would pass out working on so little food under a simmering sun.
After pushing myself to get back to the apartment, my eyes hurt like they were being dug out from within, so I ended up having to go to the hospital.

Having to take a taxi to an emergency clinic dealt yet another blow to my hurting wallet. On top of that, my boss told me to take some time off.
I knew I had to cut costs, but I had no idea what more I could possibly cut.

I couldn’t remember the last time I ate any meat. I hadn’t cut my hair in four months, and I hadn’t bought any clothing since that coat I got last winter. I’d never even gone to visit anyone since entering college.

I wasn’t able to depend on my parents, so I had to make my own money somehow.
Having to part with CDs and books made my heart ache. They were all second-hand purchases made after careful consideration, but they were the only things in my apartment that could get me any money - I didn’t even have a computer or a TV.

I decided I’d at least give all the CDs another listen before saying goodbye. I put on headphones, lied down on a mat, and pressed play.

I switched on a blue-bladed fan from a thrift shop and periodically went to the kitchen for a cup of cold water.
It was my first time taking the day off college. But no one would really pay any mind to my absence. They might not even notice I took the day off.

One album after another was transferred from a tower on my right to a tower on my left.

It was summer, and I was twenty. But like Paul Nizan, I won’t let anyone say those are the best years of your life.

“Something really good will happen to us in the summer ten years from now, and then we’ll finally really feel like we’re glad to have lived.”

Kushida’s premonition was wrong. At least on my end, nothing good was happening, and there was no sign of good things to come.

I wondered what she was up to now. She changed schools in fourth grade, so we hadn’t met since.
It shouldn’t have been this way. But maybe it was good in a way. By not following me through middle school, high school, and college, she didn’t have to see my transformation into a consistently average and boring person.

Though you could also think of it like this: If my childhood friend went to the same schools as me, I might not have ended up like this.

When she was around, it put a good kind of strain on me. If I did something shameful, she’d laugh at me, and if I did something great, she’d curse me.

Perhaps because of that tension she made me feel, I was always striving to be the best I could be.
For the past few years, I’d been constantly having regrets to that effect.

What would ten-year-old me think of me now?
After spending three days listening to most of my CDs, I stuffed all but a few absolutely essential albums into a paper bag. I’d already filled another full of books. I lifted them both up and went into town.

My ears started to ring as I walked under the sun. I might have just been hearing things because of the irregular cries of cicadas. But it felt like it was right there in my ears.

The first time I visited this particular bookstore was last summer, a few months after entering college.

I hadn’t yet gotten a good grasp on the geography of the town, so I was lost, and had to keep checking where I was walking.