Invisible: Part 1, in convenience store

My mother calls often and asks me why I am in Tokyo. I lazily murmur something barely discernable while staring blankly at meaningless Japanese variety shows running in mute on an old cathode ray tube television set. The tiny apartment, worn and poorly insulated, is cold and damp with paper-thin walls that every scream and shout in the neighborhood is audible. The building shakes slightly with every passing train. Why do I intentionally place my soul in the unwelcoming land of bloodless monsters?

Today is work day, and I dress myself in a poorly fitted gaudy red uniform and stand behind an overstocked counter in a corner covenience store. Above my right shirt pocket pins a ridiculously large circular tag displaying my surname in Katakana. In the day time, rowdy young crowds enter in groups, chatting and laughing boisterously, buy sodas and colorfully packaged junk food in large portion. In the evening, legions of middle-aged "salarymen", carrying nondescript black suitcases and dressed in dreary dark suits, march in single file with their heads hanging down. With heavy rings deeply carved under their eyes, they pick out one of many unhealthy, refrigerated bentos, perhaps a can of cheap beer or hot coffee, throw money on the counter and exit without muttering a word. At night, the barely employed young men in their twenties stroll in silently and line the magazine rack like bathroom's urinals. They hold the adult-targeted comics and fashion magazines closely, read and reread them till they are wrinkled and smeared, and after an hour or two, leave as aimlessly as they enter without any purchases. To all who come, I am neither male nor female, neither human nor machine; I am a pathetic wallflower -- spurred annoyingly out of an off-white cement wall crack -- that exists purely by accident and out-of-place, whose life is not celebrated, whose death is not mourned or noticed. I am invisible in a city of perpetually buzzing street cars and bright neon lights, in the heart of the empire of the sun.

At work I am most fascinated by the occasional young, fashionable Japanese women who pick out a warm bottle of hot green tea or a low-calorie nutrient bar during lunch or afternoon breaks. Rail thin and heavy with makeup, they are always impeccably dressed -- tightly wrapped fishnet stockings behind long polished leather boots, knee-long mini-skirts with wool blazers seem the popular items now in winter -- with seductive, elongated eyelashes and dyed-brown and perfectly iron-curled long wavy hair. Money, gripped loosely by slender fingers with carefully manicured, multiple-painted fingernails, is always taken out from the latest European handbag costing at least twice my monthly salary. To think we are the same-aged girls occupying the same time and dimension, to fathom we breathe the same city air only meters apart ...

"Hey!! She asked you if you have any cigarettes! Are you listening?!" The muscular young man standing next to the female customer shouts. Smelling of smoke and wearing tea-colored and gold-rimmed sunglasses, a black leather jacket and long shiny chains across his jeans' pockets, he tries hard to present a menacing appearance. You bastard. If I were six-foot tall, you would whimper meekly like a neutered dog trying hard not to pee on the spot. Sensing a sign of disturbance, the owner of the store rushes and steps in front of me immediately, "Cigarettes? Right away madam. What brand would you like?" The owner, Ozaki Jun, a balding, thin man in his 30's with no sense of humor speaks quickly in an overly obsequious manner. The couple, staring about in a newly acquired air of superiority, seems temporarily satisfied and leaves with their purchases in pretended triumph. "Go back to China if you can't speak Japanese, bitch." The young man mutters in a low tone audible enough for the store audience to hear as they exit the door. That's right, flee, you pathetic dog. Once a coward always a coward. I stare after him in hatred. Feeling a bit embarrassed, Jun whispers, "Just... just go back to work." I mechanically check out the next customer waiting anxiously and nervously in line.