no snow on Fuji

2008-09-01T15:04:00.001+09:00

seven hours sleep - at last

Much has happened and yet little has happened.

A-san is dead.

I am told he died peacefully, from 'natural causes' while enjoying one of his favourite pastimes; baiting the tourists. It was two weeks before I heard.

I am happy for him.

2008-07-28T13:42:00.002+09:00

No sleep - no change - appalling

Disruption, chaos and despair. We have been besieged by faceless enemies who have induced a cold madness among us. We have no solid walls to defend, no chain of command, and no sacred ideal for which any of us would self-sacrifice. There is almost no possibility left of maintaining our fragile society. Already, only A-san and I remain. I have no idea where any of the others are.

A-san and I are together only through a belief, clearly mutually held, that we have made a commitment to each other. Over the past few years we have become loyal friends. True friendships are rarely apparent until they are tested by adversity or disagreement and I vehemently disagree with A-san yet I still watch out for him, as he does for me. I disagree with his choices. This would usually not be a point of serious concern, but as long as I am associated with him, his choices affect my well-being. I believe he is destroying our chance of regaining the peace and stability we once enjoyed and cannot support his actions although I have no choice but to support him.

This contradiction is a greater source of personal distress than the attacks we have endured for it’s as if I am in conflict with myself. I must trust that we will, one day, perceive our current hardships as instructive and valuable. But while we are embroiled in confusion, dangerous instability and forced change, it is hard to see things from a higher viewpoint and be philosophical.

I have almost no strength left to fight for sanity.

2008-06-30T13:28:00.000+09:00

five hours sleep - a little better

While we often insist that we welcome change and some of us will even celebrate disruption, many of us, myself included, are heartily sick of the recent disrespectful invasion of our well established daily routines. Change is necessary for growth, that is certain and undeniable. Disruption, however uncomfortable, is often the only way to effect the changes we resist. We are not imbeciles; we all accept these truths. However, not all change results in growth and not all disruption is beneficial. I do not wish to complain as I get no comfort through the process of complaining and there is no way to right the wrongs that have been done to us, so I have already gone too far down a dead-end path.

Recently, I have been unable to visit the facility where I update these pages. I will not bother to state the reasons, and I invite no response, but the enforced break has given me opportunity for review. My original intention to broadcast the wisdom of outcasts has become diluted. I am disappointed - this medium has become nothing more than a spasmodic journal.

But, by way of chronicling our tiny lives; A-san has been uncharacteristically soft-spoken for weeks and I suspect there is something we know nothing of behind his reticence. C-san never changes and D-san is no better. B-san has disappeared again.

I think I might follow him.

2008-06-16T18:43:00.001+09:00

no sleep at all - very poor

Things are not going well here. D-san has returned but he is very disturbed and this is disrupting our fragile society. It is unsettling to realise just how vulnerable our equilibrium is. All is temporary, this we know - but there is a difference between that which is transient and that which is unstable. Now D-san is officially unstable.

He was being held by the authorities, not as we assumed by the police, but in a mental health institution. He has been diagnosed as suffering from an illness called depression and this has raised all manner of questions among us. For who of us are not depressed? A-san says that depression is a natural reaction to the world and it is a sign of good mental health that we respond to what happens to us by being depressed. The question, he points out, is not whether we are depressed, but whether we suffer from it.

D-san cannot see a distinction and has not been able to accept his diagnosis even though he is becoming more morose because of it. Now, not only is he desperately unhappy, he is so ashamed because he may have a mental illness that he is almost unable to function. They have given him medication which he has refused to take. I wonder if this means that he is refusing to get well because of some hidden need or that he is right to deny the label of mental illness because it is, for him, self-fulfilling.

Do we support his denial or encourage him to heal and thereby confront his truth?

2008-06-02T19:26:00.001+09:00

six hours sleep - fine.

We are comfortably back into our routine. All except for D-san who is missing, but not easy to miss. B-san has returned from his travels and, because he is fearless, went to make enquiries of the authorities, but we are not sure that we even know D-san’s real name. That is common here. It has been such a long time since I used my own birth name that if I were to be taken, I doubt anyone here would know how to find me.

D-san will probably return soon with at least a good story to tell. B-san has many. His recent journeys were filled with many interesting and entertaining events and we have spent every night since his return exploring the possible meanings of his chance encounters.

He told us of a man he met in the south who he came across standing at a fork in a pathway in the middle of a wood, unable to decide his way forward. When B-san asked him what his trouble was, the man told him he was trying to decide between sanity and madness. One way led the man back home to his wife and family, the other away from his home forever. He believed that his family's need for him gave him the motivation to exercise control over his behaviour and that without them, he would probably lose his mind to ill-discipline and recklessness but that his family was driving him mad with their demands. B-san told him that madness cannot be averted by dependency.

We laughed for a long time at that.

2008-05-26T23:21:00.001+09:00

six hours sleep - fine.

We have returned to the place we are insolent enough to call home. Every few months, usually in the middle of the night, we are forced to clear out. It is a face-making exercise brought about by the faceless form fillers who hide inside their grey buildings. The authorities play their part, we play ours and as soon as the required procedure has been carried out and the boxes can be ticked, we move back. It is a minor inconvenience only and we use it as an opportunity to reorganise ourselves and 'spring clean'.

The warmer days have cheered us too but now we await the long month of rain. It is no real hardship on its own unless the wind drives it up and under our plastic walls, then we will all be bad tempered and everything will smell of mildew. I quite like the rain because it reminds me of when I was a child, looking out over the flooded rice fields. Simple days, long gone.

A-san, in the spirit of renewal, shaved his head and beard while we were in the interim dormitories and is looking ten years younger - although ten years younger than what, no-one knows. D-san seem to have been lost in the upheaval and is nowhere to be seen. There is a rumour that he lost his mind when we were raided, resisted and was punished in some way. Perhaps this is true, but there is no-one to ask who will talk to us. I'm sure he will find his way back sooner or later.

He is one of us.

2008-04-21T16:43:00.000+09:00

five hours sleep - adequate.

A-san has been out frightening the tourists again. He shuffles along banging the pavement with his umbrella and muttering. It's many years since his hair or beard has been trimmed so his general countenance makes most people steer clear of him or avoid eye contact. This tactic, of course, has the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve. He will never talk to anyone who wants to engage with him and zeroes in on those who pretend he is not there.

His general theory is that he has much more to learn from the people who are afraid or repulsed by him than those who think that it might be an act of charity or a declaration of liberal open-mindedness to speak to him. The latter have nothing to say but platitudes and often resort to baby talk in their misguided efforts to connect with him. He despises being talked to as if he is a child or a simpleton and much prefers a good argument even if it is entirely directed at his interruption of his chosen victim’s normal progress about their ordinary business.

So he told us his stories of his pavement confrontations and we laughed at some and squirmed at others. He had no concern about approaching even the most fierce looking of businessmen but he always avoids the women with babies because they are too easily frightened. He says the women are incapable of dialogue and he has no need to talk to babies, because they are born knowing everything before they forget.

We spend our lives trying to rediscover those truths.

2008-04-14T16:42:00.000+09:00

Three hours sleep - very poor.

Last night in between waking hours, I remembered a dream in which I had been driving a car, dangerously, along narrow, winding white roads, luminescent in the headlights. A small signpost with a solitary white arrow appeared too late for me to react and I careered down the wrong path. I drove on to reach a cold, holy place surrounded by dark mountains and old, heavy temples. The grassland in the watery morning light was scattered with small granite mounds like fossilised sheep.

I knew everything about these mounds because I had learned of them in a television program. I knew their history and their crystalline structure, but I realised when I woke, that this knowledge must have been from another dream because we never watch television here. A-san despises television and brands it the opiate of the masses, saying it is designed to divert and subdue the thoughts of those who would otherwise be fermenting revolution. I would not go that far, but do agree it is the dull refuge of many who refuse to make the effort to think for themselves.

I am troubled and unsettled by my dream of dreams. I would ask A-san to interpret it for me but I am not sure I wish to hear what he might say about my shining roads leading to fields of the long dead. Although it is many years since I have driven a car it is perhaps more recently that I have made wrong turnings that lead to barren plains.

I seek rest, but if it can’t be found in sleep, where does it hide?

2008-04-07T17:01:00.000+09:00

five hours sleep - fine.

The other night, A-san declared what he describes as an ‘absorbed truth’, which is his name for wisdom. He said that the secret to a happy life is to find out who you really are and concentrate on being just that; simply, unashamedly and with confidence. He said this is not a matter of trying, but a matter of ‘allowing’ and the moment you catch yourself trying to be yourself you must stop, let go of your pretensions and start again. He said we lose ourselves within ourselves and all our efforts to find ourselves are at best, ineffectual and at worst counter-productive.

D-san listened most intently while A-san spoke at length, using metaphors and illustrations to make his point, but still D-san could not understand or perhaps he was reluctant to accept the truth and what it meant for him. While I know A-san told an important truth, I also know this is one of the most difficult tasks any of us are ever faced with, that of truly knowing ourselves. C-san laughed at our seriousness and poured himself more shouchu telling us he knew where his truth lay, that it was hidden at the bottom of a bottle he has yet to drink, but, he said, he firmly believed he would find it soon.

A-san is neither offended by their refusals to accept, or their attempts to deflect the harsh realities of his words. He cares only for the truth and not the effects it might have on those who consent to listen.

However, it’s clear he talks to be heard.

2008-03-31T16:43:00.001+09:00

two hours sleep, fragmented - poor.

We had bright, warming sunlight and gay celebration followed by miserable grey clouds, cold and rain. A pity for many who hold their breath, waiting for this one weekend, desperate for the start of spring. The cherry trees have their moment regardless and simply endure each day as it falls while the families set out their blankets and blue tarpaulins, say good bye to winter and watch the sky.

C-san haunted the wedding processions. He likes to study the stern faces of the couples, setting out on their adventures with such pomp and ceremony. The shuffling priests do good business at this time of year. They harvest the crop of hopefuls, shake their parents free of their savings then dutifully dispatch the newlyweds to their fate. C-san was married once and remembers his own day at the altar with great fondness. He has nothing but happy memories but then none of us ever remember our pain as anything but a gap in the proceedings. A-san says this is one of the major contributory reasons our race persists - our distorted view of the past encourages us to endlessly repeat ourselves and yet still be surprised by the outcome.

So C-san went off to the Emperor’s shrine in the park and spent the day sneaking around the eves and columns of the public areas while processions wove their way through the foreign tourists and onlookers. He watches from the shadows so the nervous brides with their white hunch-backs and red umbrellas don’t spot his disheveled form and take fright over bad omens.

His consideration betrays his heart.

2008-03-24T15:59:00.000+09:00

no sleep - no problem.

Sometimes it is not possible to sleep and there is no explaining of it. A-san was not in the mood to debate any of his philosophies last night and went off to his bed early. He has trouble with his bones and says the changing of the seasons always makes him irritable. We would joke that we cannot tell the difference, but in truth, we can. The others, too, did not linger. So I was left to my thoughts as the city slept around us.

Within a week the sakura will be in full bloom. Around our park, the buds are already forcing out their fleeting celebration of spring. I have seen many sakura seasons and each one is more valuable to me than the last. A cherry tree grows more beautiful with every passing year; The saplings are full of enthusiasm for a long and vibrant life, springing out optimistically in all directions, trembling with excitement in the breeze. The young adults are firm and sturdy, bursting with energy, shedding their seeds and resisting the winds. The mature trees display wisdom, knowing when to bend, and how to endure, accepting the knowledge that twists and gnarls their trunks and branches. The old tree has grace and resignation, gently bowing down to the gods who gave them nurture and will ease them back into the earth.

I stayed awake and thought of life. Knowing that soon I will return to the ground. I accept my fate and cherish each spring with growing appreciation. Every sakura petal is precious to me, like every passing second.

What do I need of sleep?

2008-03-17T15:24:00.001+09:00

six hours sleep - enough.

A-san says that abundance is all about us and that even we, who are almost destitute, who have no possessions and no permanent place to rest our aging bones, have riches beyond compare. At first, most assumed he was being sarcastic. But I cannot recall him, even once, using that form of negative expression to make his points and reminded everyone of it. So then we decided he was simply being provocative in order to stir us from our lethargy and join a debate. But even then, we were wrong.

He said that in every moment we lived without pain or conflict, there was bounty. That our days were filled with peace and security without threat of war or famine or social dissolution. He said we can choose to celebrate our freedoms or we can think of ourselves as being restricted by our poverty. He, with joy and lightness, chooses the former and told the group that each of us could do the same. I understood this philosophical stance without completely endorsing it, but D-san and C-san would have none of his rhetoric.

D-san, particularly, was full of bile and despair. How could he accept that his life was rich when everything he saw around him was grey and empty? How could he choose to perceive his world as being full of opportunity when every moment was darkness? C-san argued that A-san was trying to manipulate perceptions and create a false reality. But A-san had no interest in our contradictions, he wasn't asking our opinions, or seeking agreement.

He was telling us his truth.

2008-03-10T17:47:00.001+09:00

two hours sleep - pitiful

Last night, A-san had returned to the subject which drives many away, and declared that we need education about what love really is. He has studied this and believes it is now appropriate for a book to be published entitled; “How to Love”. Of course, he said, someone else would have to write it because he refuses to put anything down, believing that the necessary blurring and updating of facts which occurs when information is passed by word of mouth is more valuable.

He said the book must start with a definition of what love really is. Only myself and C-san were left around the fire then, but we both objected strongly, and I think with real conviction, that this was not only impossible but dangerous. How can something so personal and powerful be limited by a few words on a page? Surely, we argued, one of the most cherished aspects of love is that it cannot be tethered to a handful of inadequate symbols?

A-san was adamant that we must do this service for all those people who cannot even conceptualise what it is they lack. Love, he insisted, is so fundamental to our mental health and spiritual nurturing that we need the basic tools to help us seek it out. Words, he said, are simply tools to help process thought in a constructive way and are only limitations in the minds of the limited. He wanted to drag D-san from his pit to back up his claim, but we wouldn’t let him.

Why wake a poor soul to remind them of what they long for?

2008-03-03T21:03:00.007+09:00

five hours sleep - adequate

A-san was highly animated last night. The main thrust of his argument was that he considered himself one of a mere handful of people who had insights of great value to contribute to civilisation, but he had been outcast and ignored by the very society who he believes should value him most. He justified his reasoning with a long list of personal traits and experiences, valued each as unique assets, then added his age to the list as if it was a crowing glory.

Growing old, he insisted, has many benefits. Prime among them is the ability to separate what is truly important from the cacophony of mundane chatter that fogged our youth. He believes, and gave many entertaining examples to prove it, that most people are immersed in and blinded by the inconsequential chaff of life. Whereas he has allowed everything unneeded and unnecessary to simply blow away. Age, he insisted, brings simplicity, perspective and enlightenment.

Being an outside observer of society and one who has dedicate his life to studying the traits and failings of his fellow man, he claims to have uncovered truths that are hidden to those who have spent their lives competing for irrelevant career benefits or the fickleness of peer-group recognition. I felt compelled to point out that he, more than any of us, is most guilty of seeking peer-group approval, but he wouldn’t have it. He says he has no desire to solicit the esteem of our ragged band of outsiders and works only to spread knowledge and understanding for the benefit of others.

Still, I detected pride in his words.

2008-02-25T13:37:00.000+09:00

six hours sleep - very good

I have never liked mornings. It amazes me when others appear refreshed and emerge bright-eyed and re-energised from sleep, while I squint through silt and force my aching limbs to make my coffee. I much prefer mornings when they are still the night before. That’s when my mind is at it’s clearest after the city has calmed. Then I feel alive.

I cannot do what so many seem to do with ease and I can't pretend otherwise. This is one reason why I am a refugee. We all have our reasons, always personal, often different although A-san has so many reasons that he may not live long enough to describe them all - but that doesn't stop him from trying. Last night, the issue of pretence dominated our debate. Everyone had some story to tell about mindless obedience to conformity and insane self-delusion.

A-san became angry when he told that as a child he was crushed by demands of his family and the community to pretend to be normal when he knew he was not. He says a society that relies on the pretence of adherence to narrow bands of normality to provide stability, does so at the expense of the individual who could otherwise grow up to change and improve things. He proclaimed our world to be run by the blind who gouge out the eyes of the sighted for fear of being exposed. But his eyes can still see the truth and his heart will never let go of the desire to expose it.

I have no energy left to fight for the truth.

2008-02-18T23:07:00.000+09:00

two hours sleep - insufficient

There are a few among us who are here and not here. We accept them without question, but they can disturb those who are not so ready to tolerate differences. These people have special gifts. They are themselves gifts, as long as we can find the space to listen. They hear the unspoken, see the invisible and commune with the world that fits between the real and the imagined.

E-san has, and is, such a gift. Her life though, is a continuous dilemma. When she walks the streets, her red and wounded face contorts with anger while her eyes plead for rescue. She frightens those who don't know she is harmless because she looks so fierce and is unpredictable in her movements, especially when she is talking to the people only she can see. She was held by the authorities again two days ago. Although this has happened many times, she is always confused by the bullying and unjust detention. That is her story of course.

I learned many years ago not to question her. It disturbs her and threatens her fragile stability. There is nothing to be gained from asking her to explain herself, for the answers make no sense to her or the asker. If she is left to herself and watched over, she is usually peaceful, sitting a distance outside the group but not alone. Although she will not take part in our conversations, she will listen and move her body or shake her head, then she will go to tell her people what she thinks.

Last night, as I lay awake, I could hear her laughing.

2008-02-11T21:44:00.000+09:00

three and a half hours sleep - fair

Most of us are usually ready to debate almost any subject regardless of our knowledge or understanding, but there is one matter which remains impenetrable. A-san, refuses to accept defeat and regularly insists we must investigate its complexities but whenever he raises the topic, our late night sessions thin out rapidly. Last night it was left to just us two. The focus of our anxiety is, of course; love.

A-san’s theories are filled with ideas which he readily acknowledges as mere speculation. He says the fact that he knows nothing for certain about love, is proof positive that he is most likely right about it. I enter the discussion as a neutral because I have no connection with love and therefore stand as an outside observer. We are not afraid though, and we can talk for hours. In truth, I largely support A-san’s theory of inherited incapacity, but I will often take a contrary view if only for the purpose of exploration.

His main premise is that we are not equipped to know anything about love because we were never loved by our parents. He reasons that our parents were not loved in their turn and so were incapable of passing on something they had never received. As long as the basics of survival were uppermost in our ancestor’s minds, love was a luxury that no-one could afford. The comfort of modern life is that we rarely struggle for our basic survival – even we are all fed, clothed and protected by society – so our emotional starvation is uncovered.

Much more needs to be said.

2008-02-04T16:16:00.000+09:00

five hours sleep – good

D-san has been in despair again and hiding away from the world. Many of us are old enough to be his father but it was A-san, as usual, who adopted the role. After three days of isolation he bullied D-san from his pit to sit with us and talk. But he, along with the rest of us, only listened.

A-san said there is no fault in depression, that anyone who had more awareness than a stone would look at this world, this life around us, and must be, is forced to be, depressed. Not only is it natural, it is required; to show our humanity, that we feel real feelings and weep for our sorrows. If we could not feel the pain of living, he said, we would be worse than dead. We suffer for the love we lack. We suffer for our society and our role in it because we let these things define us.

A-san agreed that he was right to feel his sadness and that the sorrow of life fills us all. None of us there could deny it. But, he told him, it was his response to his despair which was wrong. He told him his deduction was correct, but his choices and actions were confused because of it. Instead of hiding, he should stand and resist the flood. He should deny the pain and refuse to accept that his life is defined by what happens outside him. Above all, he must carry inside him the hope that things could and will change. I know he tells the truth.

Without hope, we have nothing at all.

2008-01-28T21:00:00.000+09:00

two hours sleep - no good

It is bitterly cold here. Days upon days of northern winds have made our bones ache. Siberia descended from the sky, trying hard to crush our spirits, but C-san's spirits mixed with scalding hot water and sour plum held those wastelands at bay. I was more than happy to accept this medicine and must now find a way to repay his generosity.

A-san went around reminding everyone that while the cherry blossom is less than ten weeks away, until it blooms again we must be like bears in the woods; conserving energy and sheltering until spring. B-san said he was already sick of waiting and would pack up and head south. He urged us to come with him but when two or three agreed to go, he admitted, embarrassed, that he preferred to travel alone. He left just yesterday.

A-san's has changed his tune. He used to be incensed by F-san's constant cheerfulness and had often scolded him that unbridled optimism was the sign of an ignorant fool, but now he has adopted a more positive outlook and is keen to spread it among us. This is good. I think without optimism and the belief that soon it will be warm again, that the blossom will burst out into the sunlight and renew our hopes, this cold might be the end of me. When I was young the earth was warm, soft and gentle and would cushion my falls but these days the ground is hard and cold and unforgiving. If I were to fall, I might never get up.

It may not be very long now.

2008-01-21T17:10:00.000+09:00

four hours sleep - fine

We had a little snow a few nights ago but the ground wasn't ready to let it stay. Last night we were promised snow again. We are still waiting. I like the snow when it changes our world into a clean, calm and quiet place. I have often thought of moving to the north or west where they have heavy snowfalls every year, but Tokyo is my home and I am too old to leave her.

The snow always reminds me of a dear friend, and because he died a mercifully gentle death a few years ago, I am free, perhaps obliged, to use his real name; Fujimoto. The memory of him stays warm in the hearts of all who knew him. No matter what the circumstances, he would always have a broad smile and be able to brush off any adversity with a laugh and a shrug. Fuji-san was the most reliably chearful person I have ever met and even though he was by far the oldest, had more energy than all of us together.

He was as bald as an egg which caused many to assume he had been a priest and had been outcast for some dark and terrible crime, but in fact he had been a shoemaker all his life. A singularly useful skill for our small band of refugees. We so enjoyed his infectious laughter that we used to tease him all the time, especially about his bare head. But he just use to laugh, point out our thin, grey hairs, polish his shiny dome with his fingerless gloves and say;

"No Snow on Fuji"

2008-01-14T13:19:00.000+09:00

no sleep - maybe tomorrow

D-san was in a bad way last night. He is a tortured soul who suffers life’s torments through sad, silent tears. He desperately wants to end it all but is unable to take action that would precipitate his death because he thinks it is morally wrong to run away from problems, no matter how bad they are. Although he is passive, he prays for a great earthquake to open the ground in front of him and swallow him up.

There were two simultaneous tremors on Saturday; one in the far north and the other in the south, so he proclaimed the imminent destruction of the city and was consumed by fear and excitement all day yesterday. C-san brought out a bottle and said that if we were all to perish, he wanted to be as drunk as possible when it happened. A-san said divine intervention to end all our sorrows was the best possible reason to celebrate and produced a bottle of his own.

Our impromptu party went on all night. Even D-san had a good time and wrote us all poems on paper cups as parting gifts. A-san played his usual game - boasting that whatever we said to be true, he could argue the contrary and prove us wrong. But when the dawn came, and no cataclysm had befallen us, D-san was distraught and accused the gods of betraying him. A-san told him that it was not the role of the gods to provide him with an excuse for giving up, especially when it is they who keep testing our resolve.

Still, I think some compassion might help.

2008-01-07T12:53:00.001+09:00

two and a half hours sleep - not enough

I was tired all day yesterday but yet I could not sleep last night - I don't know why. Was it the phase of the moon or the time of year? Is this a part of any recognisable pattern? Something I can control or at least be able to understand?

A-san says it is a mistake to try to rationalise everything that happens to me - that explanations are futile and dangerous things to desire. In his view, the world is simply irrational, despite all of us poor humans who think we are behaving rationally. He says that craziness is more common than sanity which is rare and unnatural. What, he asked is 'normal' anyway? By definition, taking an average of behaviour can only mean that almost everyone does not sit on the middle line but at some distance away from it. If there was a world of only two people and they were both mad but at opposite extremes, they would balance each other out to define normal – but neither of them would be, even if one of them was completely sane.

A-san’s idea is that we should all endeavour to move the line towards happiness and away from pain, towards good and away from bad. But, he laughed, when we define our lives in terms of good and bad, the average between these two extremes is zero. So to be normal is to be nothing. Then he did a little dance and clapped his hand in glee. I know one thing for sure; I am more sane than him.

So am I diminished?

2007-12-31T12:47:00.001+09:00

four hours sleep - OK.

B-san came back two days ago – just as we knew he would. I was relieved to see him return safely and happy to give him back his belongings. He rewarded me with a bag of brightly polished apples. So our late night talks have been spiced by the stories from his travels, but he is getting forgetful and some of the telling is vague and confusing. A-san, it seems, never forgets anything and challenged him that his funny story about the horse he supposedly owns in Hokkaido was the same tale he told us two years ago. B-san looked at him calmly and said he was right, but the exact same thing had happened again.

We would like to believe that B-san's tales are true but they always have happy endings and I am beginning to think he just makes them up to entertain us. He could, of course, be a skilful liar but one thing is definitely true - he is a gifted cook. Whenever he is back with us, he often volunteers to make our evening meal, creating tasty dishes from scraps and the disguarded, out of date, food from the local supermarkets.

Tonight we will celebrate the end of another year and welcome in the new one. I will share out my apples and the high quality sake which I have been keeping for this occasion. A-San will tell us jokes, B-san will produce a delicious meal and we will sit around talking and laughing and forgetting about every negative thing that influenced the turning points of our lives.

It is a good time to forget.

2007-12-24T14:01:00.001+09:00

five hours sleep - very good

A-san was in a dark mood and gave us blank faces when we tried to cajole him last night. It was cold and we had very little fuel so we huddled in our beds and thought our private thoughts. I listened to the night, not expecting to sleep, but the next thing I knew it was dawn and C-san was moving about outside.

I had been having a marvelous dream. I'm sure it was an epic saga, filled with detail and wonderful things because I woke up feeling excited, but all I can remember of it is that it was amazing. The substance of it disappeared along with my first misty breath. I don't dream very often - or at least I don't think I do - but when I do, all my dreams are full of strangers.

I can remember the dreams from my youth vividly. I used to have one particular dream. It was always the same mind-numbing repetition of scenes and sounds and inevitably ended in my death, crushed under huge blocks of jagged rocks. I remember a long white picket fence and a plain of short, neatly cut grass, dotted with tiny flowers - delicate and detailed - so fine I could feel my fingerprints as I picked them. Then the monotonous sound of dripping water, endless green rolling hills, the cold, grey sea shore and the menace of the overhanging cliffs which would break apart as I looked up at them. I always woke then, terror infusing my mind with confusion. My memory of this is clear and fresh.

But yesterday is a blur.

2007-12-17T17:35:00.000+09:00

almost no sleep – very bad

We are looking forward to B-san's return. He has been away for longer than usual but we expect he will be back soon because he never misses the new year’s ritual. He will return from his wonderings telling tales of crazy incidents and odd discoveries and insist he's tired and has had enough of travelling. Then one day we will wake up and he will be gone again.

Then he will leave behind a few of his things, all neatly packed and wrapped in plastic bags which I always look after for him. I can tell by their size and weight that they are probably books and framed things – certificates or photographs I think. He is a private man so I don’t pry. None of us can remember how long B-san has been with us which means he may have been the first here.

I hope nothing bad has happened to him. This is one of my biggest fears; that something terrible will happen to one of us and we will have no way of finding out. A-san says it is good that we can wander off into a bright blue day and never come back. We are, he says, insulated from the tragedies of life because we are never told when they happen. I said I would like to know if something happened to one of my friends and that he was just being contrary for the sake of another debate. He shook his head and told me that my desire was born out of a sentimentality which is entirely useless.

He is wrong, it has it’s uses.

2007-12-10T15:24:00.001+09:00

Four and a half hours sleep - adequate.

I think A-san is an insightful philosopher although he says he is just an old comedian. He thinks that the natural order of things is to first observe, then learn, then act, then laugh. Last night he told us there is a simple reason why almost everyone who endeavours to make others laugh has a very sad person hidden deep inside them and that it is no coincidence the finest humorists throughout history have suffered through great blackness and despair. Laughter, he suggests, is a symptom as well as an antidote.

He described how a drowning man, no matter how miserable his life, will clutch at floating straws because he has a undeniable compulsion to survive. He has no choice but to grasp at any opportunity to save himself. It is the same with laughter. Anyone who lives in darkness has no choice but to try to create light. A-san said the more we become aware of the reality of our lives, the more it becomes necessary to make fun of it - if only to try to save ourselves from drowning in the dark, awful truth. He asked us all; ‘if you are already happy, what need would you have to create laughter?’

In his view, laughing at life is a survival instinct and that is why he describes himself as a comedian and not a philosopher. I said that this, in itself, was a philosophy of great depth and value to others. But he laughed off my comments as if they were nothing.

However, there was not a hint of mirth in his glistening eyes.

2007-12-03T12:05:00.000+09:00

Three hours sleep - not bad at all.

I told A-san I had started writing down some of what happens among us and he was immediately angry until I told him I was writing it all in English, then he laughed so hard that snot came out of his nose. We have all had bad colds. It is the change in the weather that does it – it’s the same every year. We have vitamin pills to chew, but I don't like the taste and they always arrive too late to do any good.

A-san does not speak English and is very interested in the fact that I can. I studied it many years ago and enjoy using it whenever I get a good opportunity. I told him the reason I learned English was because I wanted to defile the gods and English has many suitable profanities, but this is not entirely true, because this language has many other good uses. However, he agreed that taking the names of as many deities as possible in vein was an excellent idea and asked me to teach him some suitable blasphemies. After trying out a few to see which fitted his mouth well enough, he decided his favourite word was damnation because he likes the sound as well as its meaning.

He seeks out people on the streets who he thinks might understand English and politely suggests the word to them to see how they react. Apparently, most people either look very confused or nod their heads and laugh. I don't think they would laugh if they knew he was telling them the truth.

Or maybe they would.

2007-11-26T13:13:00.000+09:00

four hours sleep - good.

It is much colder now, but I don't mind. Each passing season shows how we get ever closer to fulfilling the splendid accomplishment of living. A-san, of course, disagrees with my philosophy, but then that is his role - to question everything with bitterness and tenderness in equal measure. Last night he showed his disgust at the change in the weather by dancing around half naked, defying the Gods to give him pneumonia and a warm bed. I think he was trying to cheer us up.

Something happened during the last week which upset everyone. It was several days ago now so I can't tell if it was a dream or a reality. Someone may have died or perhaps they just moved away. I can't remember. I am sure there are less of us but even though I try hard to recall names and faces I cannot determine who is no longer here. There is a mood in everyone, it lingers among us, so I can tell something bad has happened. I am reluctant to ask what the problem is because I know they will think me strange for not knowing.

It is always the same with me - when people leave, they change from colour photographs into ink-drawn outlines in my head - as relevant as the political cartoons in last year's newspapers. After a while, the brush-strokes fade and I re-use the space for another sketch. I have no memory of my family at all except the vague suspicion that I once had one. A-san says this is because I am only half human.

He's joking of course.

2007-11-19T13:42:00.000+09:00

three hours sleep - fragmented - bad

C-san was drunk again last night and caused a ruckass. He returned with a four litre bottle of shouchu and challenged us to finish it before dawn. I do not drink shouchu. It is a peasant's drink and despite the fact that I look more and more like one every day, I am not a peasant and will never behave like one. There are levels to this madness - although it takes a madman to maintain them. I prefer ice-cold fresh beer, especially in the summer with ramen and gyoza, and anyway, it is uncivilized to take drink without food.

He said he stole the drink from a convenience store but I don't believe him. I have seen him secretly obtaining money from a post office machine. He has some resources, an allowance perhaps, but he doesn't want us to know about it - which is wise. Sometimes, an emergency of random decree means we must needs pool our meagre reserves. We have to support each other in times of hardship and when one of us discovers a crisis with another, he will let it be quietly known and make a collection. C-san is a generous man by nature and would not be able to do the hard thing if pressed. Perhaps that is why he drinks. Avoidance of hard things can form habits in us.

He complained noisily to his dead relatives until around four in the mourning. Then A-san got up, poured the rest of his bottle down the drain and put C-san into his bed.

At least the drain will be germ free for a few days.

2007-11-12T14:59:00.000+09:00

Two hours sleep - not bad.

A-san says that sleep is a curse inflicted on the outer tendrils of consciousness which is humanity by an angry and vengeful God. If he is right, then I wish I were more cursed than is already apparent. However, I think it is A-san who is angry, not his God. Sometimes at night we can hear him moaning through his sleep, sometimes whimpering like a frightened dog, sometimes screaming and waking us all up thinking we are being invaded again.

Most people avoid A-san but I like him and he is my friend. Many nights we sit up talking and listening to the city around us, imagining how the others are living, making up stories. He is a fine story teller. My imagination has no flare, no soaring dignity. He, on the other hand, can be inspired into heights and depths none of the rest of us can comprehend. He refuses to write. So I will write for him.

Last night, we had rain. My roof only leaked a little, which is comforting. The rain came suddenly and harsh. One moment it was calm, warm even. A pleasant night. Next it was deluge. In the middle of the downpour there was one, single flash of lightening and immediately a huge explosion of sound that shook the ground and echoed from the tall buildings around us. The storm was directly overhead. We waited for the next flash with expectant minds, now calmed after our instinctive panic. It never came. One bolt of incredible power during an otherwise gentle night.

So, inevitably, our talk last night turned to God again.