107

Three days ago there was a glowing, fat mikan orange tucked in a candlelit niche in a cave at Hasedera temple in Kamakura. Last week in Onomichi there were orange peels scattered elegantly down the embankment leading from the path in front of Jodoji Temple – where Setsuko Hara and Chishū Ryū stood after the funeral in Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story – down to the train tracks. Last March in Nihonzutsumi in Taitō-ku there were orange peels that had been carefully Scotch taped back together into a husk with the form of an orange. Two days ago running west along the Shakuji gawa I heard classical piano again, another koto lesson, and as usual I saw a cat, but I did not see a single orange, or even notice anything that was orange colored. I did notice that the narrator reading of Heart of Darkness in my headphones delivered the lines “The horror, the horror” in a breathy voice just as I ran past the nurse’s dormitory across from Teikyō University Hospital (another zombie hospital perhaps?). Last night in Moriya I was given a plump orange for desert at an izakaya. I am curious if growing up in a room painted orange has predisposed me to seeing orange wherever it is available to see and desiring it where it does not exist.