023

TCP 27 - Akihabara Approaching Midnight

A blurred block of orange-red turns into a pale green silhouette of a walking man.

A man in his late forties or so steps off the curb and onto the white striped asphalt below. He pushes down on the wooden cross-bar of his ricksha, its two wheels gently gliding with his every footstep, rolling quietly into the sleepy chaos of the Akiba scramble.

The green walking man begins to flash, beaconing through the closing night.

His pace quickens. His grip tightens.

A tower of cardboard boxes
found,
salvaged,
stolen,
gifted,
both treasured and hated, yet
packed with the most delicate intricacy
in an endlessly enigmatic pattern,
a structure Penrose in design,
built upon the ricksha's nomadic foundation,
slightly sways with his footsteps,
with the wind,
with the static noise of the neighboring Showa Dori's constant traffic;

A floating castle
in a night of frantic silence.

TCP 26 - The midnight train home

He cradles a dumbek, carefully blanketed in a soft, protecting blue blanket, its base resting in his lap, its head held closely against his chest.

A pair of headphones fastened to his ears produce an electronic percussive rhythm -

Beep
Chirp
Chirp
Chirp
Beep

- that sneaks it's way through the cold, silent, and exhausted atmosphere of this last train of the night.

He shakes his, a involuntary reflex, an impulse, an instinct, to the rhythm.

Beep
Chirp
Chirp
Chirp
Beep

His right foot follows with the down beat.

Thump

Thump. Thump
Thump
Thump

His head continues to shake.
In a trance, in a spell, his fingers follow with tabla poly-rhythms on the clothed rim of his treasured dumbek.

Tap tiddle taptap
Tiddle tap tiddletiddle tap
Tap taptap tiddletap

The surrounding drones, dazed in the wake of the capitalist machine,
sit
and
listen
Perhaps ignoring it.
Perhaps pretending not to be lured into it. His percussive symphony remains the only sound within the train, accompanied only there by the hollow howls of the sleeping night rushing beyond the train's windows.

Beeptiddle tap
Taptaptap
Chirp
Thumptiddle
Chirp
Thump thump
Tiddletaptiddle tiddle tap
Beep
Chirp

TCP 25 - Sakurajosui

The train pulls to a stop, calmly, steadily.

He focuses his eyes along the platform it approaches, surveying the crowd of blurry-eyed morning transients awaiting it's opening doors. He dresses head to toe in shades of an inconspicuous grey,

a camouflage,

save a black hat that blends with his hair, a pair of pristinely white gloves, and a neon yellow vest, several sizes too small for his stout, round, physique. He keeps an eye out, gently pushes the overflowing crowd into the train's closing doors with his white gloves and a satisfied expression.

The doors close.
The engines resume.
The train departs.

He aligns the cuffs if his jacket, smooths the surface of his gloves, allows his back to hunch as he stares to the ground and sighs.

022

inside a train station
a technician steps between two ticket gates
in a row of twelve

he wears a pale turquoise jacket
and a grape arm band
giving him some kind of authority

he places his black plastic tool box on the ground
and opens the lid which displays a hand-painted stop sign
so that people avoid his temporary workstation

he takes a key from his orange jelly chain
hanging from a belt loop
sticks it into the side of the machine
and turns the lock

he opens the brushed aluminum case
to reveal a skeleton of moving parts
hundreds of them
all silver and layered
shallow in depth

so much complexity
just to shoot through train stubs
and open a gate

with a carefully trained eye
he reads the machine
like a user’s manual
noticing each piece for its purpose
with no gap between symbol and referent

leaning over at 90 degrees
he inspects every minute detail
for the slightest imbalance

he loosens and tightens every screw

rotates a dial

tests the belts

replaces a part

and adds a little oil
where needed

he conducts this operation
to a crowd of unsuspecting travelers
entering and exiting
rushing past him
an invisible man
tending to a fragment
of our everyday existence
we so easily take for granted

finally he takes a can of air
with a long thin red nozzle
and sprays each crevice between gears
removing every last dust particle

afterward he puts all his tools
back into his tool box
and slides it over
to the next machine on the line

021

its hard to breathe
when the windows are shut

and there are too many people on the train
standing huddled together
smashed up on the doors
pressed into each others bodies
stabbed by elbows and bags

one man is lucky enough to have a seat
sandwiched between two strangers

he wears a dark suit
and bloodshot eyes
he chews gum
under a white surgical mask
as a line of passengers stand in front of him
swaying gently back and forth like ghosts
not making any noise
except for the hand straps creaking on the metal bar

he takes out his phone
to make a calculation
12 x 288,000 = 3,456,000
he lets out a sigh
and puts it away

his high blood pressure
radiates through every movement

he continues to chew his gum
clenching his two floors of teeth
turning his face pink
veins popping out at his temples

he taps his shoes
in broken staccato

he bobs his knees
up and down

he folds and unfolds his arms
his comfort unrelenting

he rolls his skull on his neck
until
cracking it
like concrete

something ain’t right
someone should ask him if he’s okay

he starts rubbing one of his fingers
on his left hand
agitating a repetitive stress disorder
up and down
squeezing the joints
putting pressure on the bone
painting the skin more and more red
a prayer to soothe his ill feelings

down the line
the train reaches his destination
and stops on the platform
the doors slam open
a song plays
he gets up
and bullies his way through the crowd
before the doors close on him

TCP 24 - Keio Line

She sits quietly, peacefully, motionlessly, a photograph etched into a movie; trains and city participants, stars and city lights, architectural creations and monolithic shadows, darkness and lightness, pass in bursts of life behind her, her face frozen in a pleasant expression, the book in her hands spread and inviting.

TCP 23 - Iwamotocho

They stand, a wall between them, she standing nonchalantly, relaxed, yet somehow excited, her expression as if filled with the satisfaction of winning a game, her right arm extended towards he, on the other side. Her hair is long, simply cut. Her dress is synthetic, worn not by choice but rather by regulation, but she makes the best out of it; her socks pulled up to her knees - their red emblems perfectly aligned, the top button of her neatly pressed shirt unbuttoned - the collar spread over the neck of her beige cardigan, the sleeves of which are pulled past cuffs of her dark green blazer and over her knuckles - exposing nothing more than her finger tips. He, dressed in the same outfit - save slacks in exchange for her skirt, a certain ruggedness for her cleanliness, and a missing blazer, rests his right arm upon the chest-high barrier separating them, with his tilted head resting upon that arm, his right cheek pressed firmly upon the wool fabric covering his forearm. His left arm extends out to her right, a tear dropping from his eye and onto the sleeve of his cardigan, as he gently clasps her finger tips. She turns her head, her fingers slipping from his grasp as she walks away, her train now approaching.

020

she
stares
into
a
collage
she
made
herself

on
the
cover
of
her
diary

the faces
of
pop
idols

pink
and
white
roses

glitter
and
stars

she
brings
it
up to
her
lips
and
closes
her
eyes

taking
the
train
on
the
way
to
somewhere

019

looking up
from a book
a tiny bug
crawls over the city
speeding past

beneath her

power lines
rise and fall
like ocean waves

sunlight
shimmers
on the outlines
of buildings

concrete walls
bleed into
brick facades

chain links
and tree leaves
disguise the landscape behind

where

apartment blocks
and painted pylons
float in a confetti
of houses
as far as
the horizon

like ships
at sea

all this
she sees
beneath her

but as soon as
i look away

she disappears
into the carriage
of the train

and all that is left
is her view
which falls
like a see through cloth
over my mind

018

on a low pillar
of white concrete
she walks
in constricted circles
with her arm
around a light
which reaches
for the sky
and spreads
its metal wings

alliteration/rhyme_flex

form is frosting at a pace
recognize your face in passing
time is now but you are other places
flicker sign a selfless inside
i'm reminded many nights
lying beside
swimming sighs of blue
shade of you

017

He and the train.

His head bobs with the trains bumps and curves.
He examines the text of a meticulously folded newspaper.
His eyes are fixed on the story developing before him.
He itches the top of his right ear with the index finger of his left hand.
The morning sun shines through the gaps between buildings passing behind casting bursts of light on his head.
In the course of a minute his expression gradates through confusion, depression, irritation, and boredom.
He closes his eyes for a temporary bliss.

He waits...

She and the train.

Her eyes are closed.
She carries a guitar over her shoulder.
She stares out the train's window.
She giggles with a friend.
Her eyes survey the windows reflection.
She transcends the world, encompassing herself in the world of her book.
They speak of a girl in a cabaret.
She itches her nose as a train passes behind her.
They critique her physique and work ethic as a hostess.
She stared into the monitor of her cellphone.
She sits alone on an empty train.
Her smiles shines with an empty infinity.

She says...

016

thousands of footsteps
are heard clapping
on the ground
just outside the station

a student
stands before
a map
on a signboard
unsure of where to go
in his hands
he holds another map
printed on a piece of paper
carefully investigating
matching up
the points in space
looking up
at the signboard
and down
at the piece of paper
back and forth
over and over
hoping to find
a lead

015

014

A young thin
boy with glasses
and a sports cut
stands on a
restless train
holding onto
the ring straps
with both hands
wearing a white
polo shirt
tucked into navy pants
and carries his navy bag
round his neck
while listening to
some music
on headphones
while he taps his
untied
unstrapped and
scuffed
white high tops

013

a traffic officer
conducts the morning
flood of traffic

dressed in powder blue
and navy
a yellow rope
hangs from his right shoulder
his shirt and tie
are tucked into his trousers
his shiny black loafers
reflect cars and buildings

he wears white gloves
and carries an orange baton

he moves not
to the sound of engines
or violins
but to to the movement
of vehicles

he spots an oncoming bus
he makes eye contact
with the driver
the driver nods
he raises his baton to the sky
and waves it in small circles
he extends his other arm straight out
like a construction crane
and with white fingertips
he calls his partner forth
it passes slowly
into his arms
and out
into the rotary
leaving him behind
he then bows
and turns on his heel
to another

a taxi
a car
a motorbike
he treats them all the same
with the same extended arms
with the same white gloves
and orange baton

one by one
they enter and exit his life
while he slips through
the cracks of banality
into the magnificence behind

TCP22 - Sakurajousui

A young lady, long straight perfect hair flowing over her shoulders, beautiful, comforting, and humble face, sits collapsed on the paved train station's platform, before her broken wheelchair. She holds the weight of her upper body off the ground with her sturdy, toned arms, her face illuminated with a smile of gratefulness and hope, as she gazes up to the kneeling station employee, fully focused, with the stare of an artist in creation, of a boxer in training, on repairing her wheelchair.

Your voice echoes

She wades through a sea of doubt and business people,
Clutching her briefcase from the ten years as a claims adjuster,
It’s been five months of these interviews with no luck,
Stepping through the revolving doors the air tastes like poison,
Starting the car she remembers her son waits for his ride home,
Thinking “How to get 20 min across town 10 min ago?”
She un-parallels her car, and is immediately cut off by her interviewer’s Bentley.

A twenty-two year-old on a flight from New York City flaunts an $1200.00 watch,
Talks about her happenstance trip to Aspen to meet her brothers’ fiancé,
“I just want be the supportive sister, y’know”, images of jellyfish float on the screens,
Three soldiers on leave from Afghanistan sit in coach mashing shoulders, one reads Ayn Rands' “We The Living”,
while a teenager complains about her private school’s misplaced philosophy that everyone is a winner.

“In life, there are winners, and there are losers”

TCP 21 - Meidaimae

The train comes to a stop, gently, precisely, the windows this train, headed into the city, and the windows of another train, escaping the city, meet, for a brief moment, creating various designs of visual passage; a cold wall of shining and bolt-ridden steel, a platform carrying the sleepy footsteps filtered through a conversation of businessmen.

Here the windows align leaving merely a sliver of passage, revealing a young woman, beautiful in her simplicity, framed perfectly as if a portrait of Renoir or Rembrandt, and nothing more. She is animated, cheerful and lively in a conversation she perhaps shares with a friend, perhaps her mother, perhaps a lover, perhaps a stranger. She smiles, laughs, nods affectionately, parts her hair away from her eyes, and the trains, headed in and out of the city, resume their respective courses, their engines creating a gradual synchronized crescendo, the sliver slowly closing off.

TCP 20 - Akihabara

Torn an distraught, yet somehow serene all alike, he stands, clad in filth and age, somewhere between a fallen angel and a sorcerer.

Guiding a hovering mountain of society's waste, so intricately constructed that one could only assume it to be a puzzle of the utmost difficulty miraculously pieced together with a magic touch of the highest caliber, he walks along the beat cosmopolitan street, indifferently, removed from his surroundings, as if his presence had been superimposed upon the current landscape of salarymen herded from work to feed and back. With an impeccably focused eye, sharing not a care with his surrounding critics, he surveys the ground for a treasure those peering eyes around him may not quite grasp.

He stops, kneels down, and procures a worn, contorted cylinder of hope from a shadow between a hideously fancy sports car and the curb. Extending his kneeling knees, he slowly rises upwards, taking a few slightly hunched steps back to his floating chariot, into which he carefully and precisely secures his booty, and continues on his way throughout the city's endless streets.

Tracker, Little Car

Beau Hagberry

TCP 19 - Akihabara

Automobiles pass along Showa Dori, sending their gnarling ruckus across, throughout, and beyond the nights stale backdrop. Drills of a nearby construction scream away, taking advantage of the night's calmness as their realm of creation. Footsteps of the tired, the beat, the drunk, the playful, pitter-patter across a bridge, the serenity of the below river amplifying the night's silence. Among the human percussive polyrhythms, a particular set of footsteps comes, not with a conquering force, but rather a sliding drear, marching to the audio foreground. He strolls, oblivious - whether intentionally or not, through this particular night's mayhem, tranquility, confusion, and methodology, his nose fastened to the pages of a manga. His thoughts surpass the moment, beyond the speeding cars and rippling lights upon the calmly flowing water, attaining, creating, destroying infinite worlds in synch with each and every step.

TCP 18 - Akihabara

The light, an ominous blue-green bearing a single white silhouette in its foreground, begins to flash between bursts of lightness and darkness, the eye filling in the interim with elegant trails of fading green. Cautious of the encompassing sea of automobiles, growling with impatience, she begins to run. The lights of each car she passes before produce rays of a somehow synthetic gold, sparkling with a filter of fluttering rain, which shine brilliantly upon her bare legs. Just before reaching the side of her desire, the dictating illumination above jolts to a vivid red. Her perfectly straight blonde hair and generously revealing clothing make her appear somehow lost, out of context in the surrounding flash flood of salarymen. Umrellaless, her high-heeled footsteps ease into a slower pace yet none the less bumping into perhaps every obstacle in her path, as her wallet, procured from a miniature Dior-esque handbag and held directly affront her perhaps rapturous eyes, serves as a shield, protecting her makeup from the now trickling rain.

TCP 17 - Approaching Meidaimae

He sits, wedged into a mass of business transients grasping for leverage and struggling for footing as the train rocks its way through the endless cityscape; a pawn shop of abandoned, coveted, forgotten, and unthought of architecture. 

The mob of beat hopefuls towering above him, he sleeps, folded into himself, hopelessly collapsed upon, over, and around his cheap briefcase; hiding in a contorted ball of self-loath, or perhaps of fear, or perhaps of disgust, or perhaps of longing, as if gravity had chosen to attack him and him alone, as if the city's endless sea of eyes had trampled him, over and over again.

012

you step onto stairs of silver teeth
outlined in yellow
spit out by the floor

they carry you like hands
up a mountain
bound by stainless steel walls
motionless
polished
reflecting shadowy figures

you hold onto
a blue plastic railing
which forms a continuous loop
around the outer edge of the walls
like a rubber band
moving in sync with the stairs
together they are infinity

near the peak
the stairs
become flat
and are eaten
by the floor

you step off at the summit
and look for the nearest exit

011

A woman crosses a bridge in a storm.
Her clothes are painted on by the rain.
Her head is hidden under a black umbrella
leaving her blind.
Strong gusts punch the nylon fabric
between its wire frame;
giving it a pulse,
threatening to turn it inside out.
She doesn't take any shit
from the wind or the rain.
She just slowly continues on
to the other side.

010

It is hot and humid. Small buildings bookend a narrow street. Many shops are open for business. Many people are walking to and from the station. A shiny black car makes its way down the street, careful not to hit anyone. It carries with it the sun's rays and reflects them off the windshield. For only the slightest moment, a bright flash of light is projected onto a woman in passing. Her body is rendered shadow under a translucent dress. The moment soon disappears. Every strand separates from its entanglement. The powerful light fades. The shadow becomes body. The woman walks closer to her destination. The car moves ahead. The driver puts on his signal to exit the frame.

009

The horizon flashes in multiple hues of violets, indigos, and whites. Shadows move across neighboring buildings. The rain connects heaven to earth in continuous lines. Lightning tears apart the sky like paper. Thunder cries heavy on the clouds. Hammering the atmosphere with a wreckoning noise. Shaking the very foundations. Echoing upon the windows. Commanding everyone's attention like a five star general.

008

Against a backdrop of bud like green mountains a young boy stands in a cool river on moss covered rocks. His reflection is seen upside down superimposed over the rippling water heading down stream. He smiles in the moment. The past and future are without a thought.

007

Three safety orange backhoe excavators with long hinged arms and buckets remain motionless on a landscape of chalky white rubble and re-bar sticking out like grasses. They are surrounded by four semi-demolished discolored gray walls with empty window frames punched out uniformly.

006

On the platform, at a kiosk, a brief electronic sound goes off as a young man slides open the window of a refrigerator to grab a cold plastic bottle of green tea. The sound goes off to alarm the clerk that someone has slid open the door on the side of the kiosk which is invisible to the clerk.

005

It is the morning rush. The train is crowded with passengers standing shoulder to shoulder. There is little room to move about. A rugby player in a finely pressed gray suit sings with the sound off. He is rehearsing for what looks to be a chorus recital. his accompanying music is audible only to himself through white earphones. He carefully accentuates each word taking great pains to perfect the movement of his tongue, lips, and jaw. He stands up straight and firm on the floor of the rocking train with shoulders pinned back, feet spread apart, and breathes correctly from his lower abdomen. Beads of sweat trickle down from his sports cut to his freshly shaven face. His confidence is paramount. He is a testament to perfection. To doubt him would be a mistake. However, the other passengers pay no attention other than a brief glance. They have all created their own private space on this public packed train by way of books, cellphones, folded newspapers, headphones, and game machines. The rugby player in a finely pressed gray suit singing with the sound off might appear to be an anomaly, but really he is all the same as everyone else in his self made room of see through walls.

004

003

A young man wearing a big black t-shirt, baggy black sweat shorts, black socks, and black shower sandals stands at a listening station. He stares into a mirror with eyes and mouth wide open like a starving animal, playing an invisible guitar to an invisible crowd of adoring fans. He's completely immersed. Nothing can penetrate his fantasy, not even the staff who chuckle nor the customers who are bewildered. He has broken into into his reflection, taking his desires for reality.

TCP16 - Hibiya

He sits patiently, quietly, his hands delicately clasped, legs folded in perfect form, and in an equally immaculate posture. Though sitting sheltered in the shade of a tree, lushly green with the season, his purely white dress shirt seems to radiate the suns brilliance.

In front of him are neatly placed his black leather shoes.

Beneath him a humble mat of the day's news offers him a simple comfort from the hard sidewalk below.

At his side a single perfectly organized box contains all his worldly possessions.

Before him the endless static of the metropolis passes, in a variety of different costumes, in a variety of different rhythms, in a variety of different speeds, in a variety of different purposes.

He sits, the overwhelming roar of the cosmopolitan machine surrounding him, yet only hearing the fragile rustling of the leaves above, dancing in the blissful breeze.

002

TCP15 - Akihabara

A young Japanese man, presumably college-aged, walks through the turnstiles and into the Electric City. Wearing baggy khaki pants, an olive green dress shirt untucked and buttoned to the top, and a black top hat, he walks with an aloof curiosity, studying each step of concrete beneath him.

He gazes upwards, as if looking for something, as if having solved a cryptogram etched into the city beneath his feet. Before him he finds a wall, a battalion of foreigners, of aliens approaching. His eyes light up, like Christmas ornaments illuminated by a crackling fire. He gazes throughout the mob, studying their faces, movements, languages.

He drifts beyond the reality of the moment, fantasizing a sudden ability to communicate using any or all of the languages barraging him. In his thoughts, he speaks with a mastered eloquence to be longed for by all, sculpting the moment with his tongue.

TCP14 - Keio Line

A salary man, face stained with age, sits quietly yet anxiously upon the train's burgundy bench seat. He holds in his hands a newspaper, perfectly and strategically folded with the precision of a watch's gears and the elegance of origami. The text of each story, bent, manipulated, sculpted in to new positions with every new fold, collides with one another, spawning, from chaos, new stories, new characters, new worlds.

TCP13 - Inokashira Line

He enters the crowded late night train, its passengers vividly animated in conversation, in gestures, in silence. He steps into place, turns his back to the crowd and gazes into the reflection of the closing door's window. He runs his fingers through his meticulously spiked conservative hair, tilts his neck, strokes the angles, and stares into his own eyes.

TCP12 - Shimokitazawa (YURAx)

He stands on the dimly lit stage, eyes closed, hands fiddling, clasping, throwing in a nervous, lonely, beautiful trance. His melody echoes infinitely.

TCP11 - North Yaesu

An old man, a salaryman nearing retirement, enters a modern Italian cafe. With a smile, he glances around for patrons he might know, for his people. He finds a few friendly faces at the other end of the cafe, he waves to them with two fingers extend and nods a warm hello as he approaches the counter. The barista greets him with a pleasant, welcoming look on his face.

"it's been a while."

"indeed... give me a hot one."

They chat and joke and laugh, the old man takes his coffee to a table. He sips slowly from the steaming cup, enjoying each and every drop. He loves this cafe, the barista and the perfection with which he sculpts espresso. He rolls up the sleeves of his white collared shirt, fanning off the humid rainy season heat with a tropical themed paper fan as he flips through the pages of a travel magazine.

H2DAC 100.

H2DAC 99. (cocoa version)

TCP10 - Keio Line

A rookie salaryman riding the dreary morning rush-hour train on his way to the office sits quietly and calmly, surrounded by sleeping passengers. He procures a pad and pen from his black briefcase and begins to draw with the utmost technique, emotion and beauty. The power of his passion reaches out from his pad, gently lifting the eyelids of his slumbering neighbors, and inviting them into the limitless world of the page. He creates absolute rapture effortlessly, his surrounding spectators observing in awe.

H2DAC99. (red tint and blue deleter version)

TCP09 - West Shinjuku

An old man, grey hair roughly slicked back, finds a seat on the curb shaded partially from the day's heat by the awning of an electronics shop and the fresh green leaves of a graffitied tree. His legs casually crossed and the sleeves of his blue collared uniform rolled up, he leans back, propped up leisurely on one hand and takes a few hits from a can of beer held in the other, and observes the surrounding lunchtime chaos. He checks his watch and tilts his head back, out of the shade and into the sun, soaking it all in as he stares into the heavens, his eyes closed and his weathered face sharing an unbreakable grin.

H2DAC 99.

a line of people waiting for __________________.

TCP08 - East Shinjuku

A parade of umbrellas spanning and multiplying upon the full spectrum of the rainbow passing below the 2nd floor cafe window before her, she sits quietly, the sole participant of an empty bar. Her legs crossed and hidden under a free-flowing black skirt countered by an orderly and professional dress shirt, she sits, perhaps completely oblivious to the grand polkadotted sea beyond the window, emerssed in, enthraled by, travelling through the stories of a newspaper, the pages of which have been backlit, illuminated, graced by the sole ray of sun offered by the magnificent grey-collaged sky of the rainy day.

TCP07 - Toei Shinjuku Line

A young woman smiling vibrantly with tan skin and brown wavy hair, wearing a jean skirt and a purple t-shirt partially hidden by a black cardigan, stumbles aboard the morning train after her lover, falling into his chest, into his arms. Embraced, in love, she stands there serenely, as calmly as though time had stopped, her sparkling eyes staring up into his, forever grateful to the moment, forever grateful to life.

Man Playing A Video Game

On a crowded train a man is completely immersed in a video game. He takes deep breaths as he holds his phone tightly. He tries desperately to pass the level with a similar intensity to a sportsman down by a few points near the end of a match. His thumb taps the center key. He mumbles to himself. He kicks back his head and violently runs his hand through his thick hair. He sighs. He looks away and then quickly back to the tiny screen. He clicks his tongue. He mumbles. He places his hand on his face. He moans. He grits his teeth. He shakes his head rapidly. Its just not working out for him today.

98.

TCP06 - Keio Line

A man, perhaps in his late twenties, makes his way aboard the train entangled in the flow of rush hour human traffic and finds a seat in the priority section. He wears sneakers, basic blue jeans, and a forest green polo, buttoned to the top with a blue and white striped towel draped over the collar. His hair is a short and messy nest of pitch blackness, countered and amplified by his ghostly pale complexion. He gazes, with his glossy and dazed, perhaps sedated eyes, around the crammed train and out its windows, fidgeting constantly, never finding comfort, never finding satisfaction. The train is relatively silent, practically void of human noise, his neighboring passengers hiding in forced hibernation as they try to ignore his constant ramblings, a schizophrenic opera accompanied by a symphony of whirring engines and clicking tracks as the train makes its way through the city.

"Oh no, I missed my train...

What am I supposed to do now?!

...

My god, there isn't anything I can do, is there?"

H2DAC 97.

TCP05

A middle-aged office lady, adorned head to toe in a delicate dark brown to beige gradation of casual business elegance, makes her way through the perpetual chaos of Shinjuku's sub-terrain. In her right hand she carries a brown handbag and in her left a bouquet of radiant sunflowers. She walks with a staggered step, here expression changing back and forth between the masks of tragedy and comedy as her countless attempts to focus on the road ahead, and avoid collision with the million other frenzied office ladies and salarymen, are foiled, over and over again, as her vision is pulled away from the distraught traffic before her to the perfect beauty of the flowers. With each glance her face lights up, from the shadows of the city grey to the radiance of Venus.

H2DAC 96.

H2DAC 95.

TCP04

A station employee wearing spectacles, a white baseball cap, and a neon yellow vest stares vacantly into the void with an expression of depression, disgust, and longing. He takes a deep breath as the train approaches. The seemingly endless herd of awakening salarymen rush aboard the rush hour train. Just before the doors close the worker steps into position, his expression changing into a frantic determination as he pushes the last of the passengers to be aboard with his white gloves.

H2DAC 94.

TCP03

A young man, a college student in love, in lust, whispers into a giggling ear.

H2DAC 93.

TCP02

An old woman stares into the train's window. In the background, various shades of blacks and greys, periodically interrupted by bursts of white light pass in a collaged blur as the train makes its way through the city's subterrain. In the foreground, her face reflects dimly, yet somehow emphasizing the almost sinister intensity of her eyes as she studies and restudies the composition of her make up and hair styling.

TCP01

A middle school girl standing on the platform surrounded by dreary salarymen, suddenly bursts into a frenzied dance. Spinning in circles she ruffles her hair, flings her handbag around, and tosses her skirt about. The encompassing crowd stares at her with equal parts concern and fear. She tosses her skirt one last time and a bee flutters out in a confused flight.

H2DAC 92.

91d.

H2DAC 91c.

91b2.

Ssm

A girl wears yellow oversized flower headphones and plays her ds.

91b.

Ssm

An open door to the back room of the station soba shop.

A cart with a plant and various buckets.

91.

90.

Movie Stills

From: http://www.annyas.com/screenshots/