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.