Jiayi Fang: 'Disappearing in Tokyo', a short story

I’ve been thinking these days that disappearing in Tokyo might be the easiest thing in the world.

A year ago, I found a flat in Shimo-Kitazawa and settled down. The flat was tiny, with an area of only seven tatamis. Thick sweaters for winter were messily tangled with linen summer shirts whose colors were fading as if they were a bunch of mismatched couples. The giant cherry blossom tree blocked most of the sunshine that tried to enlighten the room, giving excuses to the brown blots to hide themselves.

Last autumn, when the air became colder, I saw a cat on the cherry blossom tree from the window.

It was really an unflattering cat. Its pupils were light-colored, shining chilly lights between the dark-brown branches. It was not elegant, but it was freer than any other cats I’ve ever seen. Suddenly, my eyes met the chilly lights. That fella glanced at me scornfully and right when I was in a trance, it disappeared.

From then on, I never met him.

Tokyo is a big city and there are so many cats, but I have never met one with light pupils again.

At this moment, I’m queuing in line for a tramcar at the crowded Shibuya Station.

The dark-haired girl on the left is wearing a black blouse with lace and white wide-leg pants, and the brunette girl on the right is wearing a mazarine blouse with lace and dark green wide-leg pants. In Tokyo, probably no one can escape from the trend, and probably no one dares to escape from the trend. People bend their necks and bury their heads on the screens of their cellphones as if their heads were huge fruits hanging down from autumn trees. No one's eyes meet me. I kind of miss those cold, light-colored pupils.

Opposite the station is a huge billboard. The man on the billboard has a very beautiful silhouette. The cellphone in his hand seems to be the one used by the black-haired girl on my left. He is smiling, but he doesn't seem to be smiling. I can tell that smiling isn’t his intention, but some people, including him, are born with gifts, such as being able to draw a fake smile without any other facial expressions on the face. I notice his right pupil is light-colored and the left one was hidden in the darkness of the night. Probably, he has heterochromatic pupils like David Bowie, but I am not able to know.

If I hide into the darkness with the left pupil of the man on the billboard at this moment, or simply become a model in the most fashionable clothes in the window of the busiest street in Shibuya, will the people who focus on their cellphones notice me? Isn't it still true that no one will give a call to my seven-tatami large flat? Is it therefore possible for me to successfully disappear in Tokyo?

So I make a bold decision. I step to the forefront of the queue, carefully move from the ground to the rail track, and then to the opposite platform, then I grab the pole next to the billboard, climb up like a sloth. When I approach the man’s left eye on the billboard, I look back and look down. No one notices me, everyone is staring at his cellphone and everything is peaceful.

But of course, I am just joking. Everything is only happening in my imagination.

At the fifth minute I am queuing in line, the tramcar comes and the scene of people on the opposite side burying their heads in cellphones was erased by the approaching tram car. Before I board the tram car, a beam of red light suddenly flashes on the billboard, illuminating the left half of the man's face, and suddenly turns purple. There appears a slight burst of noise in the air.

It is fireworks.

Somehow, only fireworks can make me feel summer in Tokyo, but even the rise of mercury in the thermometer is not the best evidence to me.

I board the tramcar. The billboard still blazes with color, and the man's left pupil changes colors along with the fireworks.

I think I will never know the color of his left pupil. The secret of his left pupil disappears in Tokyo with the cat on the cherry blossom tree.

Jiayi Fang, also known as Frida Fang, is from Shanghai and currently based in London. She majors in MA Arts and Cultural Management at King’s College, London. She is also a photographer and enjoys writing stories. Her works are often inspired by films and novels, trying to explore the delicate emotions of human beings. You can follow her creative works on her Instagram account: fridafang_7. Her photo series, 'The Presence of a Dinosaur', is available to view here.