I woke up heavy and blurred, my dreams like fallen persimmons, soft and sticky on my face. The dreams that day in January were right behind my eyes, but hidden and quiet behind memory and wondering. My wheat colored curtains were glowing peach-orange. The day was cloudless. I knew this because it was that kind of clear winter light that illuminated the curtains just so. Today there would be no snow and the air would feel cool and light on my ears as I rode my bicycle to work.
All day I could not remember my dreams. They were lost to me. Spiraling upwards into the abyss of clear blue sky, up up to the edge of space where they broke apart piece by piece and forgot themselves.
In the days that followed, snow fell. It was a weightless dry snow,
tiny flecks flit-flittering light as air, wisping through moist sun,
riding the breeze as if
that is their life’s only
dream and they are
dreaming
as they
live it.
By the second day of snow I remembered all my dreams and by the morning on the third day I could picture each dream as if it had just happened and I had not been asleep at all:
I go to a novelty store and buy a giant straw like an elephant’s trunk and slurp up the sunlight
in the curtains
so that my body becomes swollen and bulbous with clear winter sun
and I am warm forever.
I receive training from a karate master.
I realize my purpose in this world.
I miss an airplane at the airport but a little floating contraption like a dingy boat appears
at the gate and I fly my friends and I to California from Japan
– all the way across the Pacific fueled by mind power
dodging redwood branches in Yosemite valley and almost skimming the water
near Catalina Island.
The world is beautiful and I run in the air like the Flintstones, my feet flailing underneath our vessel.
The dreams were vibrant and clear and the snow was bright white on the ground. It crunched under my feet and I rode my bicycle in the tire tracks of other bicycles. Yuri and I talked about our dreams at work. We had good dreams and bad dreams too. Yuri was in my dream with the contraption that flew us all the way across the Pacific. Yuri is scared of flying in dingy boats so she was glad that I had that dream and not her.
On the third day of snow, I rode my bike to work, very carefully because by now there was lots of snow on the ground, the first time that winter any had really stuck. I rode next to the train tracks and emerged at the city center, next to Nagano train station. I waited for the green man and the crosswalk jingle that always makes me feel optimistic and as I was waiting I looked at the Giant Apple Clock that is directly above my classroom and the convenience store and the souvenir shop. Nagano is famous for apples. I often visit the apple orchards along the mountainside. The apples are large and inviting but I don’t take any because they belong to the farmers’ who tend them.
It was one minute until the hour. In one minute the blue pigeons would come out of the apple clock and move their heads side to side while teeter tottering up and down and chirping along with the clock’s song, which would overpower the crosswalk jingle two hundred to one.
The green man flashed on and the crosswalk song began, signaling to the people that it was safe to walk. Snow was falling. I began to ride and my tire slipped a little. Snow stuck on the fur lining around my jacket hood.
My eyelashes felt heavy with snow.
The snow was not light anymore.
It was heavy and sticky and didn’t melt on my skin.
The birds began to sing and many people looked up at them. The birds were blue and snow was falling on them. The snow wasn’t white. The snow was sticky. The birds collected a yellow sort of egg-yolk snow.
I could see the snow shining on the ground. The birds were cheerful as ever. People were looking around at their hands and at each other, looking at their arms and umbrellas and at the ground.
The snow wasn’t white. It was yellow. The snow was soft and squishy. It stuck and slid on the ground like grease. The snow slipped off the birds’ eyes and wings. The birds’ wings were flapping and their heads were turning side to side. The snow was yellow. The snow was butter.
This was the first butter snow in Nagano.
I ran into work and found Yuri and told her that there was butter outside.
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, butter. The snow is just like butter. I think it is butter.”
“The snow is butter? What?”
“The snow is not snow. It is coming from the sky but actually it is butter. It is snowing butter!”
“Really? But-ter?”
“Yes!”
“Do you mean – “
“Come on!” I hurried Yuri to the door. We stepped outside. The birds had stopped singing. Yuri and I walked down the steps. Sure enough, the snow was still butter.
Yuri reached out her hand and I did the same. We licked our fingers.
“This is butter!” Yuri said.
“Yes,” I agreed, “It is.” We didn’t know what else to say – what else was there to say? - so for a minute we just stood and licked our fingers. There were many other people standing around in groups of two or three doing the same.
“Hmm.” Yuri said after several seconds.
“Hm.” I agreed again, nodding with my ring finger in my mouth.
Half of the students could not make it to their English lesson that day, on account of the butter. The roads were awfully slippery so most people cancelled work or school.
The students that did arrive spoke endlessly about their dreams. Everyone remembered their dreams. Their dreams were clear as day, they said. They had never remembered their dreams so clearly before. Also, it had never snowed butter before so everyone agreed that this was a highly unusual day indeed.
The next day it snowed butter again. By now people had had enough of it. They couldn’t drive their cars or ride their bicycles. They grew restless. The damn butter was everywhere. The trains had stopped running in and around Nagano as well. Strangely enough, it only snowed butter in Nagano. In Tokyo, the snow was just normal old snow. People from all around wanted to come to Nagano to see the buttersnow but of course there was no way for them to get there so they could only see pictures of it on television and in the newspaper.
The prime minister declared a state of emergency in Nagano. How long would the buttersnow continue? Nobody knew. When would the trains be able to run again and when would people be able to drive cars on the street? The prime minister assured everyone that, if need be, necessary food-stuffs and supplies would be transported by air into the city and, anyway, Nagano had plenty of its own fruits and vegetables and even sheep to eat.
Really, the people of Nagano had nothing to worry about. So most people did not worry too much.
Everyone continued to remember their dreams as if they were real. Actually, they were so amazed that they could spend whole days recounting their dreams to one another without losing interest. It was truly a phenomenon, especially for those who normally lost their dreams to the endless vacuum space above.
People didn't mind the yellow mess that coated everything. They gave in to the buttersnow and, they adored the dreams it gave them.
They visited other planets,
made friends with beings from all sorts of wondrous and beautiful dimensions,
and discovered the most fantastic meaning of life: butter.
Everyone decided that butter was,
without a doubt, the culmination and indeed the meaning of all human existence.
Nothing could exceed the magic and purity of butter.
Butter was greater than water,
greater than time,
greater than all the gods ever invented,
greater than cars and airplanes,
greater than everything.
And, moreover, butter was everything,
combined into a delectable spread that fell from the sky
and that people could lick leisurely from their dream-heavy fingertips
and that melted into their tongues to become a part of them
for as long as they existed, which was, obviously, forever.
The buttersnow lumped on the earth in tiny mounds. The old stone buddhas became aglow, as the butter draped as cloaks over their shoulders and foreheads. The main hall of Zenkoji temple collected heaps of butter on its roof.
The butter was smooth and creamy, not like sticks of butter kept in the refrigerator, but the soft, wonderful butter that exists after resting in a ceramic dish on the kitchen countertop for several hours so that it can be spread easily on bread or fingertips without breaking into chunks.
People could not go to work or school. They glided around outside their homes, laughing and slipping and licking butter off themselves. They let the butter cover their clothes. They let their hair become slick with butter, and fashioned it into the butter twist and the butter hive and the butter hawk.
They sat on their balconies with steaming coffee and caught flecks of falling buttersnow in their cups. To their delight, butter is most delicious in hot coffee.
The children, of course, made buttermen and butterangels and butterbirds.
The grown-ups did the same.
After one week, the buttersnow stopped. The sky cleared and Nagano became too warm for butter to fall. The butter dripped off of rooftops and fences and cars, melted into gutters and absorbed into the soil and the sidewalks.
Soon people could drive their cars and ride their bicycles. The people of Nagano returned quietly to work and to school. Nothing lasts forever, except of course for ghosts and dreams. Everyone remembered the dreams they had had that week for their entire lives. They lived by those dreams and never stopped speaking of them.
Later that year, the apples would be swollen with butter, and they would be the most delicious apples anyone had ever eaten. Farmers would sell them to people all over Japan and abroad and become famous and wealthy. Many of them would give their extra money to people lingering in the train station or in the underpass, who had no money of their own.
Everyone hoped that it would snow butter again but it hasn’t yet. Of course, that isn’t to say it won’t – in Nagano or perhaps anywhere on Earth or anywhere on any planet for that matter. But the people of Nagano still drink butter in their coffee. They don’t make any special effort to remember their dreams but sometimes they do, clear as butter on hot toast, and the dreams are fantastic beyond measure.
All day I could not remember my dreams. They were lost to me. Spiraling upwards into the abyss of clear blue sky, up up to the edge of space where they broke apart piece by piece and forgot themselves.
In the days that followed, snow fell. It was a weightless dry snow,
tiny flecks flit-flittering light as air, wisping through moist sun,
riding the breeze as if
that is their life’s only
dream and they are
dreaming
as they
live it.
By the second day of snow I remembered all my dreams and by the morning on the third day I could picture each dream as if it had just happened and I had not been asleep at all:
I go to a novelty store and buy a giant straw like an elephant’s trunk and slurp up the sunlight
in the curtains
so that my body becomes swollen and bulbous with clear winter sun
and I am warm forever.
I receive training from a karate master.
I realize my purpose in this world.
I miss an airplane at the airport but a little floating contraption like a dingy boat appears
at the gate and I fly my friends and I to California from Japan
– all the way across the Pacific fueled by mind power
dodging redwood branches in Yosemite valley and almost skimming the water
near Catalina Island.
The world is beautiful and I run in the air like the Flintstones, my feet flailing underneath our vessel.
The dreams were vibrant and clear and the snow was bright white on the ground. It crunched under my feet and I rode my bicycle in the tire tracks of other bicycles. Yuri and I talked about our dreams at work. We had good dreams and bad dreams too. Yuri was in my dream with the contraption that flew us all the way across the Pacific. Yuri is scared of flying in dingy boats so she was glad that I had that dream and not her.
On the third day of snow, I rode my bike to work, very carefully because by now there was lots of snow on the ground, the first time that winter any had really stuck. I rode next to the train tracks and emerged at the city center, next to Nagano train station. I waited for the green man and the crosswalk jingle that always makes me feel optimistic and as I was waiting I looked at the Giant Apple Clock that is directly above my classroom and the convenience store and the souvenir shop. Nagano is famous for apples. I often visit the apple orchards along the mountainside. The apples are large and inviting but I don’t take any because they belong to the farmers’ who tend them.
It was one minute until the hour. In one minute the blue pigeons would come out of the apple clock and move their heads side to side while teeter tottering up and down and chirping along with the clock’s song, which would overpower the crosswalk jingle two hundred to one.
The green man flashed on and the crosswalk song began, signaling to the people that it was safe to walk. Snow was falling. I began to ride and my tire slipped a little. Snow stuck on the fur lining around my jacket hood.
My eyelashes felt heavy with snow.
The snow was not light anymore.
It was heavy and sticky and didn’t melt on my skin.
The birds began to sing and many people looked up at them. The birds were blue and snow was falling on them. The snow wasn’t white. The snow was sticky. The birds collected a yellow sort of egg-yolk snow.
I could see the snow shining on the ground. The birds were cheerful as ever. People were looking around at their hands and at each other, looking at their arms and umbrellas and at the ground.
The snow wasn’t white. It was yellow. The snow was soft and squishy. It stuck and slid on the ground like grease. The snow slipped off the birds’ eyes and wings. The birds’ wings were flapping and their heads were turning side to side. The snow was yellow. The snow was butter.
This was the first butter snow in Nagano.
I ran into work and found Yuri and told her that there was butter outside.
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, butter. The snow is just like butter. I think it is butter.”
“The snow is butter? What?”
“The snow is not snow. It is coming from the sky but actually it is butter. It is snowing butter!”
“Really? But-ter?”
“Yes!”
“Do you mean – “
“Come on!” I hurried Yuri to the door. We stepped outside. The birds had stopped singing. Yuri and I walked down the steps. Sure enough, the snow was still butter.
Yuri reached out her hand and I did the same. We licked our fingers.
“This is butter!” Yuri said.
“Yes,” I agreed, “It is.” We didn’t know what else to say – what else was there to say? - so for a minute we just stood and licked our fingers. There were many other people standing around in groups of two or three doing the same.
“Hmm.” Yuri said after several seconds.
“Hm.” I agreed again, nodding with my ring finger in my mouth.
Half of the students could not make it to their English lesson that day, on account of the butter. The roads were awfully slippery so most people cancelled work or school.
The students that did arrive spoke endlessly about their dreams. Everyone remembered their dreams. Their dreams were clear as day, they said. They had never remembered their dreams so clearly before. Also, it had never snowed butter before so everyone agreed that this was a highly unusual day indeed.
The next day it snowed butter again. By now people had had enough of it. They couldn’t drive their cars or ride their bicycles. They grew restless. The damn butter was everywhere. The trains had stopped running in and around Nagano as well. Strangely enough, it only snowed butter in Nagano. In Tokyo, the snow was just normal old snow. People from all around wanted to come to Nagano to see the buttersnow but of course there was no way for them to get there so they could only see pictures of it on television and in the newspaper.
The prime minister declared a state of emergency in Nagano. How long would the buttersnow continue? Nobody knew. When would the trains be able to run again and when would people be able to drive cars on the street? The prime minister assured everyone that, if need be, necessary food-stuffs and supplies would be transported by air into the city and, anyway, Nagano had plenty of its own fruits and vegetables and even sheep to eat.
Really, the people of Nagano had nothing to worry about. So most people did not worry too much.
Everyone continued to remember their dreams as if they were real. Actually, they were so amazed that they could spend whole days recounting their dreams to one another without losing interest. It was truly a phenomenon, especially for those who normally lost their dreams to the endless vacuum space above.
People didn't mind the yellow mess that coated everything. They gave in to the buttersnow and, they adored the dreams it gave them.
They visited other planets,
made friends with beings from all sorts of wondrous and beautiful dimensions,
and discovered the most fantastic meaning of life: butter.
Everyone decided that butter was,
without a doubt, the culmination and indeed the meaning of all human existence.
Nothing could exceed the magic and purity of butter.
Butter was greater than water,
greater than time,
greater than all the gods ever invented,
greater than cars and airplanes,
greater than everything.
And, moreover, butter was everything,
combined into a delectable spread that fell from the sky
and that people could lick leisurely from their dream-heavy fingertips
and that melted into their tongues to become a part of them
for as long as they existed, which was, obviously, forever.
The buttersnow lumped on the earth in tiny mounds. The old stone buddhas became aglow, as the butter draped as cloaks over their shoulders and foreheads. The main hall of Zenkoji temple collected heaps of butter on its roof.
The butter was smooth and creamy, not like sticks of butter kept in the refrigerator, but the soft, wonderful butter that exists after resting in a ceramic dish on the kitchen countertop for several hours so that it can be spread easily on bread or fingertips without breaking into chunks.
People could not go to work or school. They glided around outside their homes, laughing and slipping and licking butter off themselves. They let the butter cover their clothes. They let their hair become slick with butter, and fashioned it into the butter twist and the butter hive and the butter hawk.
They sat on their balconies with steaming coffee and caught flecks of falling buttersnow in their cups. To their delight, butter is most delicious in hot coffee.
The children, of course, made buttermen and butterangels and butterbirds.
The grown-ups did the same.
After one week, the buttersnow stopped. The sky cleared and Nagano became too warm for butter to fall. The butter dripped off of rooftops and fences and cars, melted into gutters and absorbed into the soil and the sidewalks.
Soon people could drive their cars and ride their bicycles. The people of Nagano returned quietly to work and to school. Nothing lasts forever, except of course for ghosts and dreams. Everyone remembered the dreams they had had that week for their entire lives. They lived by those dreams and never stopped speaking of them.
Later that year, the apples would be swollen with butter, and they would be the most delicious apples anyone had ever eaten. Farmers would sell them to people all over Japan and abroad and become famous and wealthy. Many of them would give their extra money to people lingering in the train station or in the underpass, who had no money of their own.
Everyone hoped that it would snow butter again but it hasn’t yet. Of course, that isn’t to say it won’t – in Nagano or perhaps anywhere on Earth or anywhere on any planet for that matter. But the people of Nagano still drink butter in their coffee. They don’t make any special effort to remember their dreams but sometimes they do, clear as butter on hot toast, and the dreams are fantastic beyond measure.
1 comment:
I think this is my most favorite thing you have ever written, that I've read.
I think you might have inspired me to write in my blog, that I haven't written on in over a year.
I think I'll start with a haiku... or maybe a story.
I think I love butter even more than I did before.
I think...
Tony
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