Keep me far from the meandering crowd
Years ago, I thought of myself as infinitely patient, never feeling pressed for time. But over the years I’ve become aware that somewhere in the back of my mind is a ticking clock that compels me not to dally.
Maybe it’s because of my newsroom job, where deadlines are a constant presence — I always seem to be rushing.
So the arrival of Golden Week, with seven free days to do whatever I liked at a leisurely pace, was a tonic for the soul. And my wife was also free. We could spend the time together.
What with the gorgeous weather — it’s always sunny during Golden Week — we decided to go for long walks every day. First we went to a nearby park, but, tiring of following a long circular path and periodically encountering the same people walking in the opposite direction, we got more adventurous.
We had recently moved to a different neighborhood and still hadn’t found time to explore it. We set out each day in a different direction and walked for hours, letting chance guide the way. If we saw an interesting-looking street, we followed it, and if it led to another, off we went.
We had soon zigzagged our way to familiarity with the surroundings, so the walks grew more ambitious as we enjoyed the beautiful Golden Week weather and thinned-out crowds. We set goals, walking to more distant places we knew lay more or less in a certain direction.
On the last day of the week, we decided to head toward a well-known Western home goods retail store. As we got close enough to see the building, my wife asked, “What should we do when we get there?”
“Touch the outside wall and head back,” I joked — if only we had!
It was as though the crowds we hadn’t seen for days had been waiting for us there. A multitude milled about the entrance and hordes of people filed in and out. When we got there, we were sucked into the crowd.
We found ourselves in a stream heading inside toward an escalator and the store’s entrance.
We didn’t know it, but that was our last chance to escape.
At the top of the escalator, there should hang a sign like that at the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”.
A multitude oozed like molasses in one direction, and we became but two droplets in the flow, having no choice but to trudge along. Had there been music accompanying the procession, it would have been Song of the Volga Boatmen.
In the distance was an exit sign, but after the eternity it took to get there, it led to but another room of household goods. Room after room after room, that repeated itself until I finally saw an elevator and, e-x-c-r-u-c-i-a-t-i-n-g-l-y slowly, we were able to reach it and leave.
Happily, that was the last day of the vacation. I was in a hurry to get back to work.