I’m borrowing a collection of short stories entitled Ijuin Hikaru No Hanashi by Ijuin Hikaru. I flipped through the table of contents to find a story that might be relevant to cycling and I found this short about aerial maps called “Roji Ura” No Hanashi「路地裏」の話(‘Back Alleys’Story). I refer to maps constantly when I cycle, hence the tenuous connection to bicycles. Here is a very rough first draft translation of the story.
I’m into aerial photographs. I bought a computer program for maps at a store that enables aerial photographic views and took a look at the town I was born and raised in. I could enlarge central Tokyo to a scale of 1:5000 and shitamachi to 1:10000 and though my roof was neither large nor small I pulled it up on the computer screen in 12 minutes. The elementary school and baseball field appeared nice and large. Looking at the aerial view I saw the route I used to take from my house to school and memories arrived of the way I enjoyed that route. I’d head out from the back entrance of my house, the picture barely showed the alleyway I’d head through. Then I’d go to Kondo Kun’s house and call up for the irrepressible Kon-chan. Me and Konchan would then head up the alley and the park and move on along the road with the candy store and the lumber store up to the factory with the pointless steel frame laying out front and cross it like a balance beam. After that we’d pass this disheveled store we called the haunted house, pass the stationary store and on to school.
The overhead shots were recently taken so some buildings were long gone and planned roads were completed. The steel frame was no longer there either and the area where the haunted house stood had apartment complexes in its place. But this didn’t stop the memories from flowing from the picture. This was where the first convenience store in the area near my house was built. On Sunday mornings when my parents thought it was too much of a pain to prepare food and everyone’s schedule was all over the place, we’d buy bread at the convenience store as a last resort since the normal bakery and supermarket weren’t open on Sundays. At that time I loved a brand of cup ramen called “Hachin” that had a TV commercial with Komatsu 政夫… There’s no way that this high-tech computer software could include something like “Hachin” but the memories kept flooding back.
In the first grade I’d go to Kihara-kun’s house on my way to school, but there was this scary dog, so I’d take a circuitous route, but eventually I got used to the dog and we became friendly enough to feed it some leftover bread after school. I lost touch with Kihara-kun because I went to a different junior high school, but I heard rumors from some neighbors that the dog had passed on, which made me feel so sad.
In the fourth grade there was this older kid called K-kun at the park who was a fighter so whenever I passed by a feeling of doom encompassed me. I would be at a loss at what to do and just go home. I would constantly say to myself I didn’t see him and would at all costs never forget this but I would imagine K-kun and 4 or 5 others rush me, with my prayers unanswered. At that time my mother incidentally stopped by the park to ask me to pick up some tofu from the nearby supermarket. The older boy was not in sight. Relieved, I then heard K-kun’s voice from the top of the wisteria tressle above the sandbox. “Ken! Can you help me get down from here.” K-kun hurt his foot. After he got down I thought he needed to ice his foot so I went to the candy store and bought two ice creams. After we iced it, the two of us ate. I didn’t know what happened because K-kun didn’t say and I didn’t ask.
After K-kun went home, I thought I would buy tofu but since I had bought ice cream I didn’t have enough money, so I only bought one container. “I ate ice cream, so I could only buy one container of tofu,” I said to my mother, who yelled at me for that. She yelled so much that I felt like I shouldn’t have helped K-kun out of that jam.
In kindergarten at this pharmacy with a post box in front of it, it was popular to mail new picture postcards with no name or anything else written on it. Over many long days postcards were put in the box. I couldn’t recall the psychological situation of that time. Aerial photographs sure are interesting.
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