Existential Angst
After a night of fretful dreams in which Mizuki appeared in turn as an ill-mannered, suicide-prone girl immersing herself in Ainu culture; a femme fatale; and a dancing shadow, I got out of bed with a bad migraine.
I picked at some fish and rice for breakfast, after which I went to the onsen with one of Titus’s books. Tipping a bucket of water over my head as I washed myself, I told myself that he would be very disappointed to learn that I hadn’t managed to find any new material for his study.
I’d been in Japan for ten days and had made no progress with the subject of wabi-sabi, apart from my visit to the three wise monkeys and reading Tanizaki. I didn’t even know why my ryokan was called The Blue Frogs. Where on earth were those impossible frogs?
I immersed myself in the bath, grunting like a sumo wrestler. When I sat on the underwater ledge, the pain of the migraine began to spread from my head to the rest of my body.
Alone in the onsen at that late hour of the morning, I imagined that the other guests in the ryokan must be busy doing business deals or leaving offerings in one of the city’s 1,600 temples.
I hadn’t seen a single temple yet—which, combined with the little research I’d done, made me feel totally useless.
The best thing I could do would be to return to Barcelona as soon as possible. I could help Titus write the book and prepare my courses for the coming academic year.
But when I thought about going back to my old routine, I was swamped by a feeling of bitterness. In Kyoto, at least, I was having unforgettable adventures. To begin with, I’d discovered a karaoke bar for the lonely and had spent that incredible evening with Mizuki.
Nevertheless, I knew that, like Gabriela’s sojourn in Paris, this was just a detour from my everyday life.
I would have to leave soon—partly because I’d almost reached my credit-card limit.
In four days’ time my Japan Rail Pass would expire.
If I didn’t want to pay a fortune to travel to Narita on the bullet train, I’d have to get back to the airport before then.
Caught up in this jumble of practical and existential thoughts, I picked up the wabi-sabi book. But I found no comfort there. It only made me see that other people much less fortunate than myself were able to enjoy things that I, a completely free man, was denying myself.
How often had I spent a day in the open air these last years?
My peaceful walk in Nikko had been my first contact with the countryside in ages.
Not to mention other pleasures in life, which brought on moral dilemmas typical of someone who self-sabotages just so he can go on feeling sorry for himself.
Wasn’t I a bachelor whose only responsibility was to have the best time I possibly could in one of the world’s loveliest cities? What was the problem?
I didn’t know about the frogs, but I did know the answer to this question.
I was the problem.