An ancient buddha once said

An ancient buddha once said:

For the time being, standing on the tallest mountaintop,
For the time being, moving on the deepest ocean floor,
For the time being, a demon with three heads and eight arms,
For the time being, the golden sixteen-foot body of a buddha,
For the time being, a monk's staff or a master's fly-swatter*,
For the time being, a pillar or a lantern,
For the time being, any Dick or Jane *
For the time being, the entire earth and the boundless sky.

-Dōgen Zenji, "For the Time Being"

*Jpn. hossu -  a whisk made of horse tails, carried by a Zen Buddhist priest.
*Jpn. chōsan rishi - lit. third son of Zhang and fourth son of Li; an idiom meaning "any ordinary person." Can also be "Any Tom, Dick, or Harry."



Nao is me, Naoko Yasutani, which is my full name but you can call me Nao because everyone else does. I'm sitting in Fifi's Lonely Apron in Akiba Electricity Town and Edith Pilaf is is singing another sad chanson. The French maid café is actually called Fifi's Lovely Apron but believe me, if you were here with me you'd agree on my minor name change. There's an otaku salaryman sitting at a table next me and staring. It's creeping me out even though I do find it a little amusing. I'm wearing my junior high school uniform and I can tell by the way he's looking at my body that he's got a major schoolgirl fetish. He's such a dope! Why is he hanging out in a French maid café in the first place?

Alright that was just a little mean.

Just a little.

The truth is that very soon I'm going to graduate from time, or maybe I shouldn't say graduate because that makes it sound as if I've actually met my goals and deserve to move on, when the fact is that I just turned 16 and I've accomplished nothing at all. Zilch. Nada. Do I sound pathetic? I don't mean to. I just want to be accurate. Maybe instead of graduate, I should say I'm going to drop out of time. Drop out. Time out. Exit my existence. I'm counting the moments.
   One...
   Two...
   Three...
   Four...
   Hey, I know! Let's count the moments together!

Babette has just brought me another Blue Mountain Coffee. Babette is my maid and also my new friend. I drink my Blue Mountain coffee black, which is unusual for a teenage girl, I know, but it's definitely the way good coffee should be drunk if you have any respect for the bitter bean.

I have just finished my coffee and I'm getting ready to leave. There's really not much preparation needed, I just need to sling my bag on and walk out. I get my coffee for free because Babette is my friend so it's not as though I'm stealing. A dine-and-dash actually. Stealing would be if I walked out the store with their coffee. Or maybe the cup. I would imagine trying to steal the coffee as is without a cup would be more problematic than getting away with stealing it.

Ugh.

That was dumb.

The creepy otaku salaryman walked out 15 minutes ago, well before I finished my coffee, I think that's about enough time for him to get bored of waiting in a dark alley with chloroform to catch me on my way home from Fifi's Lonely Apron. He'll somehow get me to a love hotel without arousing suspicion, perhaps the hotel is in on it too and they're waiting for patrons with the pass code, something inconspicuous like a room number, "room 7 please, for two," although room number 7 is always under renovations, to the public eye and staff. And then the otaku salaryman will tie me up and put the plastic shopping bag from my new cardigan over my head and rape me, and hours later the police will find my lifeless naked body bent at odd angles on the floor, next to the big round zebra-skin bed.

Or maybe none of this will even happen except in my mind and now yours, too.

If I never post again you will know that the otaku salaryman stood in the alley waiting with the chloroform for over 20 minutes to execute his hentai fantasies.