hasanhujairi[dot]com

I don’t understand the little street behind my dormitory.

It’s a little strip of street, with apartment buildings lining both sides for a stretch of 300 meters or so leading up to a t-intersection that is flecked with small restaurants (some of which are probably involved in extracurricular underground work, I imagine) and a small police station (that does nothing about said extracurricular underground activities of its neighboring establishments).

I usually walk down this street in the evenings, just to get my 10-minute rush of fresh air (as fresh as air gets in the concrete deserts of Western Tokyo). I don’t like the street much in the evening, because I have a feeling that some beast is always ready to pounce at me, but it always changes its mind in the last moment. Late in the evenings, this little street is where tired taxi drivers park their cars for a while to get some rest; their black cars and hazard lights give the street an unreal depth.

In recent evenings, there have been hoards of tennis ball-sized toads lazing on the sidewalks. They are silent, and they don’t move much, but they are certainly there. I know that there’s a small creek not too far from the street and I assume that’s where those toads come from, but I cannot be certain because the train station is not far off either.

The cicadas still haven’t started their summer songs, even though it is almost August. Oh, and the Summer monsoon has come and gone without bringing much rain with it. I feel a little uneasy about this upcoming Summer.

One of the houses on this little street has a tree full of citrus fruit that have started to rot and fall onto the street. This same house seems to attract more cats than any other houses on the street, which confuses me.

Sometimes, I can hear the sounds of pianos and flutes floating out of some of the apartments on the street, but none of the houses seem to show any signs of people living in them. It seems like I’m the only one who actually uses this street: It’s just me, the sleeping taxi drivers, and the lazy toads.

I will never understand this local backstreet.