All alone I set out to work. The air around me is quiet, but you can begin to hear the sounds of the machines starting up, the sputter of their base engines, and the sound of metal making connections with other metal. The sounds are faint, and most people wouldn’t be able to identify what was making them, but I work at a plant similar to these ones in the surrounding neighborhoods, and I am well attuned to the sounds. It is still dark, but not too dark that you can’t see past the street lights, and the sun is beginning to peak over the mountains to the east of my house. That light fills me with warmth and encouragement, and I slide my door shut behind me. No need for a lock; I don’t have any possessions that a thief would desire, and my house is on the outskirts of the outskirts of the bustling cities. (We call the cities toshi, the outskirts, gaihen, and the outskirts of that, hazure.) Actually, I have never seen any wanderers anywhere near my house. At least never before early morning or after night when I am at work. Although I live in the hazure, my house closely resembles those of the fancy toshi-dwellers’ houses, just the smallest unit. But instead of being stacked high on top of each other, mine is situated on the ground. It has sunk into the grass beneath it and looks like the hill behind has extended to grow around it because of the landslide a few years back, so it looks like it has become one with the nature around it.
The air is cool and damp as I cross the bridge that connects the hill on which my house sits to the area from where I work, and there is so much fog that it keeps me from seeing any of the surrounding view. If there wasn't as much fog, like in the winter months, you would see the factory where I work, off to the left. It is at the ground level of the river, as are most steel factories, because it is convenient to dump the byproducts made from manufacturing right into the river. Also, being connected to a river makes shipments easier. All of the earth where I live is made up almost completely of hills and valleys, with rivers running through them. I imagine it to look like the great body of curled up Yanzaki, with its bumpy body and veins running throughout it. After getting off the bridge I walk down the slope to the flat area in which the factory is settled into. Our factory is called a hybrid factory because parts of it are indoors; production areas closed in with ceilings and walls, but most of the actual infrastructure is outside. There are two long steel runners stretching across the work yard with tracks where the crane machines can run along that carry the steel from the pourer to be loaded onto the boats. In order to get into my workspace, I have to go down past the river's edge, and around the whole perimeter of the factory until I get to the back entrance, which is a small square door suspended about a quarter of the way up the wall, accessible by a series of metal rungs that have been welded into the wall in order to form some sort of a ladder. As I lift the door and it slides shut behind me, the intercom is already ringing for me. The only reason that the A-7 section manager would be calling me this early is because there was a problem with the delivery last night and he had to come in early to work things out, so he would be irritable and want his breakfast early. I have other jobs than delivering food, like oiling the machines and sweeping up metal scraps, all menial, but primarily I am called on to deliver food and supplies to the managers of the plant. The workers have to bring their own food, but sometimes there is so much work there is no time for breaks, and they go the whole day with just two meals spaced out from morning to night.
“Bring me a bottle of Orichinu sake and the tofu block meal today!” I get yelled at from the A-7 intercom.
“That's weird,” I thought, “He doesn’t usually order tofu”.
It’s early June so as I leave work around 8:00 pm the sun seems to be resting on top of the hills behind my house. I just got finished cleaning up the metal shards in the finishing room with the magnet sweeper and had begun walking adjacent to the river’s edge across the factory to return home. This time of year is my favorite because sunset happens right as I get off of work, and if I stand in the middle of the bridge between my house and work, I can see the most beautiful view of the sky. I stand still on the bridge as the last light shimmers just over the mountains right before it turns to dusk. I look at it every chance I can get; the last sign of day. Each day it is like I am saying goodbye to the light forever. I know that every morning it returns, opposite the place that it left, but each night I feel myself getting anxious, wondering if it will leave forever, just like how my parents did. Perhaps because I was deep in thought or because he appeared out of nowhere, suddenly I noticed ahead of me a young boy, maybe about my age, standing on the side of the bridge in the shadows, wearing a conical straw hat, and holding a tray of something in his hands. He probably thought I was acting strange, just standing in the middle of the bridge staring at the sky, but then again he was doing the same, and more than that it was strange that anyone else would be on this bridge at the same time as me. Regardless, I started on past him and gave him a small nod as I passed. I tried to get a glimpse at what he was holding without making eye contact and I saw it—it was Tofu! As I lay on my futon that night I thought about that strange boy I had seen on the bridge, how did he get there? Why was he there? No one ever comes out this way, especially to just stand on a bridge, and holding tofu? I didn’t understand, and I knew I would need to sleep for the early day tomorrow, so I shut my brain off and tried to sleep, hoping maybe that I could see him again tomorrow.
Two weeks passed and a huge shipment of pet coke came into the factory today so I got many requests coming into my workspace for food and miscellaneous tasks throughout the whole day, and, of course, we ended up working overtime. When you work 13-14 hour days, you learn how to conserve your energy, shifting from intense, focused work with a long break at the end of the day to a more spread out, quiet energy. This way you can work the whole day and still be productive. Whenever I take the train into the toshi to shop for food I can spot out which people have achieved this type of work, they almost seem like Nuppepo, walking around, thinking with only half of their brain, using just enough energy to complete the task at hand. It seems like all of the train drivers are like this, I think maybe they seem grateful for the chance to work and be alive but know that nothing can be done to lengthen the short hours they spend with their families. At the end of the day, as the sun starts to get cut in half by the hills behind my house, everyone, including the managers walk home looking like Nuppepo. I too start my Nuppepo-like walk home but as soon as I think of the view of the sunset from the bridge, my legs which feel like the station batteries when all of the juice has been sucked out of them are amazingly brought to life and carry me up the hill with vigor until the beginning of the bridge. Today must have been a big production day throughout the area because in the sky there are so many clouds in layers of streaks of orange, red, and purple from the smoke and chemicals that are produced by the plants that rise into the air. Today is especially beautiful. To behold such beauty tires me and I sit down on the edge of the bridge, taking it all in. In these summer nights, the sunsets last for a longer time, and I enjoy it thoroughly. But inevitably, the colored clouds change to a duller hue, then grey, and then black, and the street lights that line the bridge to my house sputter on. Some are erected on poles, some screwed into trees lining the forest, and some are just lying on the ground. But they are all connected by a somewhat corroded thick wire that runs all the way to the Kumano power plant, which powers it all. When my grandma, my parents, and I all lived together in our little house, we would often talk about creatures called yokai who used to live in our world, well, not our world but one that was connected to it, and that crossed over into ours. They said that yokai come out at the in-between of worlds, like at dusk, or on bridges and things like that, but now because of the lights always shining throughout the night, yokai can’t appear anymore. But to me, I wonder if they actually help yokai. After all, they lengthen that space of in-between; it is both light and dark for much longer. Along with the string of lights, I walk straight across the bridge headed towards my house and by chance happen to look behind me, and I see a short, dark figure walking on the bridge. I can make out a wide hat on his head and that he’s carrying something. “It must be Tofu Boy”, I think, referring to him by the name I decided on the last time we met. He is walking slowly, and I can tell that he carries with him that same sort of energy that someone who works long days with little rest has. His arms firmly holding out the tofu in front of him, but they seem weak at the same time, being able to hold the tray not out of strength, but just because that is all they have ever done. He walks to where I can just make out the lattice patterns on his clothing and stops. We stare at each other for a moment, well, I stare at him, I can’t see his face beneath his hat. Trying to figure out who he is and why he is here, and wondering if he is thinking the same, I feel that we are similar. Although we are far apart and do not speak, I somehow feel like I understand him, maybe he is just like me. I haven’t felt something like this in a long time, and I stay staring at him, sharing this mutual understanding, just like how I stay staring at the sunset. Somehow this feeling and the one I get from the sky are similar. But just as the sun must set, so I must go home and prepare for work tomorrow, so I turn around and start back home, walking with that low-level energy to the end of the bridge. When I reach it, I turn back once more to see if Tofu Boy is still there, and it seems that he too has left for his home, wherever that may be.
Doug Graham