One Night In Kabukicho

“These lights kinda hurt my eyes.”

“What?”

“I said, these lights kinda hurt my eyes.”

I never really got along very well with people my age. I mean, it’s weird interacting with people outside my age range, but that’s supposed to be weird. I don’t think interacting with my generation is supposed to make me feel like an alien, but honestly, I might as well be from Mars. They use words I only sort of understand to describe people I don’t know and talk about things that I desperately want to care about, but I just don’t. I always wanted to party, to drink, to have sex, to make stupid mistakes, but night after night I sat at home reading another book or playing another video game alone. I don’t get invited to many parties, and when I do I always end up in the corner on my phone trying not to feel like every eye in the room is on me.

So when I landed in Tokyo, I decided I’d find my own party. I’d hit the clubs, roam the streets, drink too much, and finally have the good time I’ve been craving. Drink too much I certainly did. I found the hottest club in Kabukicho, chugged some red bull and vodkas, hit on a girl for the first time, and absolutely tore up the dance floor. I felt even crappier than usual. No matter how strong the drink, bodacious the babe, or groovy the tunes, I just didn’t feel like dancing. All of it, the whole night, felt like I was contorting myself into someone I wasn’t, someone I wanted with all my heart to be, but just couldn’t be. I had always felt like an outsider looking in, but this time I wasn’t just looking in on a conversation or a party. I was an outsider looking in on my own body, doing all the things I thought would finally kill my loneliness, and only feeling it grow. I felt a little sick and I wasn’t even really that into the girl I was dancing with so I left. I wanted to head back to my hotel and bury my head in my pillow, but I was also starving. I walked the streets, looking for some grub, but only found hordes of people on their way to somewhere else. Ladies dolled up for a night on the town, men chasing them down for a phone number, bright lights, loud sounds, flashy clothes, beautiful people. Sickening.

I couldn’t find any food, but I did finally find a slightly quieter street to stroll down, which did wonders for my headache. As I walked, I heard a voice rise up through all the now slightly more distant noise. Naturally, I followed it. At its source I found a man around my age, humbly dressed, holding an acoustic guitar. Passersby would occasionally toss their pocket change into the Hello Kitty sticker covered milk crate at his feet, but not a single person even slowed to hear his song. Despite his absolute lack of audience, he belted out his sorrowful notes as if he was headlining a music festival. After each song had concluded, we awkwardly bowed our thanks to each other. I stayed for what might have been hours, hanging on to every word, every high note and every low. It was then that I felt something completely unfamiliar. I felt as if I’d known him my entire life. As if his sorrows, his joy, his loneliness, his solace were all mine. I felt as if he was me. People passed between the two of us, off to elsewhere, but in my mind they had already disappeared. We were the only two who existed on the planet. He had no sign, no name with which to find him, no cds to buy and listen to on repeat. Only him and his guitar. It didn’t matter that our first was our last because we were here now. I dropped every bill in my wallet into his crate and disappeared into the lovely night.