Widmopis

Little girls are like old cats. If they don’t like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to.

I’m going to tell you a secret. Everything is about wanting. Everything. Things happen because of people wanting. Watch closely, and you’ll see what I mean.

The sunset smelt of cooking. Baljin’s niece was practising the shudraga, a long-necked lute. An old man was summoning goats. How I envy these humans their sense of belonging.

One of the things that my years of wandering has taught me is, the more impotent the country, the more dangerous its customs officials.

Backpackers are strange. I have a lot in common with them. We live nowhere, and we are strangers everywhere. We drift, often on a whim, searching for something to search for.

Grudges are demons that gnaw away your bone marrow. Time was already doing a good enough job of that. Lord Buddha has often told me that forgiveness is vital to life. I agree. Not for the well-being of the forgiven, though, but for the well-being of the forgiver.

Lord Buddha’s lips were full and proud. Always on the verge of words, yet never quite speaking. His lidded eyes, hooding a secret the world needs.

The key to understanding Neal Brose is that he is a man of departments, compartments, apartments. The maid is in one, Katy is in another, my little visitor in another, Cavendish Hong Kong in another, Account 1390931 in another. In each one lives a Neal Brose who operates quite independently of the neighbouring Neal Broses. That’s how I do it. My future is in another compartment, but I’m not looking into that one. I don’t think I’ll like what I’ll see.

Gossip works telepathically in Tokyo. The city is vast, but there’s always someone who knows someone whom someone knows. Anonymity doesn’t muffle coincidence: it makes the coincidences more outlandish.

In smaller cities people can use the space around them to insulate themselves, to remind themselves of who they are. Not in Tokyo. You just don’t have the space, not unless you’re a company president, a gangster, a politician or the Emperor. You’re pressed against people body to body in the trains, several hands gripping each strap on the metro trains. Apartment windows have no view but other apartment windows.
No, in Tokyo you have to make your place inside your head.