Kobo's Stance, Position, Angle.

Japan Today Discussion September 26, 2006

Topic: Japanese Swimmer A---- M--------- goes missing while swimming off the coast of Brazil.

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User Comments (1)

"So, in fact, he may not have disappeared while swimming; he may have disappeared while walking (i.e. been kidnapped)." Comment provided by B---------

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A short respite from slow-rhythmic flapping, sickening now, rubbing swollen tortured underarms with hands now dry wells, devoid of oil, each crease painfully registering with each clinch. A man in the middle of the ocean mused on one of the few tactile concepts left to him: the relativity of warmth. The contusions here close to the arm pit warmest, shoulder cooler, water cooler still and temperature dropping. Near zero visibility below the surface presented the man with a more painful mystery. Dipping one's head in below, there is a faint mauve cushion of light undulating with the wavelet triangles, but descending further there is pitch blackness. Was it slag-sediment flowing in with ebbing twilight tides, snaking its way from some offshore geothermal hot spot? The clicking and ambient rushing of sand (or was it some dark entity employing echolocation?) kept time below. The unknowables terrifying--sensation of human hair, wool even, brushing against ultra-cognisant thighs--awaiting the death, puncture of the skin--skin thus rendered the flimsy first and only line of defense in this soupy black brine. Could creatures adapt to this filth, or--as he hoped--would they swim clear of this area during blackout conditions. He imagined himself amidst cracks of thunder wielding the closet flashlight--beam searching for matches candles and pewter candlesticks--for fun usually--the city blackout always provided a chance to light candles and not out of necessity (city light pollution almost always painted these fronts of precipitation see-through melange; tamed by electric man; impotent, effects to be mitigated, terror only of the ancients, a passing spectacle).

To be lost with no hope of return. Lost and engulfed in some damn impossibly frightful liquid mass tasting of buckwheat and salt-brine--simply clay sediment brushed up by an offshore tropical depression? A possibility, yes--Always. Nothing in sight of course. At a point when he wished he could resign himself to death, he was stuck in circular pangs of the will to re-trace the origins of his predicament---the static held suspended in it shards of causation. At exactly 5:03 P.M. A------ had left his luxury suite at the new Dolphin Hotel--a day which now seemed to lose definition in this exhaustion; the mind as runny egg (had he actually been in this soup for 2 days or just one, had the drugs he had taken caused this--he did recall two sets of hands that were not his throttling his underarms, causing this swelling, rubbing the swelling--I thought salt brine took away pain. Maybe just the pain of cuts--Right, right--shark bite victims lose sensation of their lacerations almost immediately due in part to the numbing effect of salt-water. Supposing I cut into the flesh here (pointing at tortured under-flesh, rusty purple now in correct lighting he's sure), I could sleep easily--perhaps shrug this ringing state of annoyance.