Nishi Yamato Run
A story about running at night
Following up last week’s Night Moves post, here’s a story about running at night. It’s a country run, but there was enough light. It was a lonely run, but there were enough houses and people to make me feel safe. It was also in Japan, where there isn’t much to worry about in the way of street crime. I hope you enjoy! Let me know in the comments, and for today, remember: go run.
The Family Mart’s blazing fluorescence only extends a few feet across the narrow sidewalk and the curb drop before it terminates in a perfectly straight line that denotes the tops of the crystalline plate glass windows. Small, nondescript buildings line this country road through this country village. The Family Mart inhabits the ground floor of my building: a squat, three story rectangle, brown at the edges and concrete gray everywhere else. It faces the road and backs up to a bare-rock mountain that overshadows the crevice through which the road and the town run. The stairway door leading up to the apartments above is in darkness that is made more dark by the proximity of the Mart’s brightness. I stand on the threshold for a moment to breathe the air. It is salty but not heavily so. It is humid but cool enough to wear leggings instead of shorts. I step off the threshold and turn left.
The road runs steadily uphill. After just a few dozen feet, buildings give way to rocks and trees on either side of the road. One my right I pass a cemetery with square-based monuments that are as tall as a man. I come to a switch back that leads up a further incline.
I am as light as a wraith as I climb the black asphalt in the black night up the black rock mountain. I have not eaten much lately; there’s been no money. Eggs, rice, apples, and just this week, peanuts. I cried when I tasted peanut this week. The rich oil oozed out of the nut meat and melted, coating my tongue. I broke a few nuts into my palm and consumed them one after another with bites of giant, juicy apple. I felt the sugar and fat combine in my bloodstream. I was giddy, and then I was tired.
I had come to Japan without wanting to exceed my resources, but having worked a minimum wage job before coming, those resources were not vast. I had never had to not eat before but like many American girls I had done practice in not eating voluntarily, so at least I knew the parameters. That made it easier.
None of this matters as I climb the mountain. My head is light and my feet are weightless. The crown of houses at the top of the mountain cling like sea urchins to the sides of the cliffs, and the moon glints off the blue tiled roofs. I imagine what the insides of each house must look like. I imagine living inside them, driving up this crooked road, seeing the mountains and the sea every day.
I see the ocean far below in the gaps between the houses. The rocks near the shoreline cut jagged profiles in the white moonlight while small waves slop and slap at their edges. I circle all around the top of the mountain. I begin to descend. At the switchback I pivot on my right toe to catch the turn just right, to make it swing. I fling myself down the rest of the incline, feeling my own lightness, daring my hips and my knees and my ankles to come apart and to stretch as far as they might as I kick them high behind me and land, toe and toe and toe again, light and almost silently. The trees and the cemetery give way to the few dark buildings and then to the blaze of the Family Mart windows.
My landlord stands outside the door to my building. His heels hang off the back of his wooden platform shoes; his broken-in tee shirt and sweatpants sag comfortably. He looks meditatively out into the middle distance, as though the building on the other side of the narrow road. I surprise him as I come to a stop.
“Are you out?” He asked
“Yes” I answered
“Why?”
“To run”
“Where to?”
“Up the mountain.”
“Ha! That’s a good one! This isn’t a mountain. This is just a hill. Do you know Mount Black Hair?”
“No.”
“You should go - it’s really beautiful, Mount Black Hair, and it’s a good name!”
“Yes it is a good name. I think….” I stop. I know what I think but I cannot tell him.
I am confused and look at him again, as a stranger. He looks back at me with slack cheeks and a big nose and eyes that are still meditative. He has not registered surprise to be speaking Japanese in the moonlit country-darkness with a blue-eyed, freckled, sweaty girl. But mid-sentence I had heard the Japanese coming out of my mouth and I am shocked into silence.
“Good night.” I finally remember.
“Hum” he grunts. He looks back up at the middle distance, at the buildings across the street, at the moon. I go inside. I am as light as a wraith, and the run seems like a dream.
Another enjoyable read!