eated on the floor in the center of my sparsely furnished room, I took a long deep drag on my cigarette. My head started to spin with an intensity and velocity that made me feel nauseous. This was not the first time I had felt this way. My first ever toke had created similar feelings of sickness. But this time was different. This time it was fuelled by an anxiety that had taken root deep in my soul; an anxiety that had spread like a wildfire to the extremity of my very being.

The ash clung to the end of my simmering fag, the shaking of my hand threatening to send the spent tobacco all over the tatami floor. One more drag then reach for the glass ashtray I told myself. I brought the filter to my lips again, the smoke making tears well up in my eyes. I felt like a wanted to throw up just like the first time.

Outside, the sound of an ambulance’s siren pierced the silence of the night. A dog, taking objection to the racket, yapped until he could do so no more. The sirens came and went, but it was a good while before the vexed canine followed suit. The cicadas still filled the air with their summer screams, although with somewhat less intensity these days. I could hear two of the little critters out there tonight; one setting off a round of verbal abuse while the other rested, then  vice versa. If I could just locate one of them, my brain could enjoy a blissful break.

I collapsed down onto my futon, rolling onto to my side to cover one ear. A fifty percent reduction in CNP (Cicada Noise Pollution) ensued, only to be replaced by a rising level of NOTB (the little guy that threatens to send one over the brink).
     “Hey Johnny boy…..take a look out the window…..you can get the little monsters if you try….c’mon, you can do it.”
       “Ah, but I just lay down. I don’t have the energy to do that.”
       “C’mon Johnny……..caaaaaaamooooon…..get up……get up…”
So I pulled myself up, giving in to the seductive whispers of NOTB. Why could he control me in such a way? Why was I so weak in his presence? I slid open the mosquito netting and leaned out of the third floor window. The suburban quiet was unnerving. How could a city of nearly half a million people be so quiet? It was only nine thirty in the evening but the streets were empty, and the houses looked deserted. A ghost town with its seventies style street lamps flicking spasmodically in the evening warmth. A middle-aged man wearing a suit and riding the ubiquitous shopping bicycle meandered down the lonely street. His pedals produced an oil-less screech every rotation and you could see a glow surrounding him; the glow of Asahi contentment.

A great mass of wires cut through the air in front of me. They stretched from the concrete pole to the buildings like a spider’s web reaching out for supports. Electricity wires, telephone wires, wires used for espionage. They were all there in their raw ugliness. Excess wire was not merely cut off, but looped up like a big lasso ready to catch the next bicycle-riding drunk. The concentration of such sinew before me raised my anxiety a notch. I longed for the openness of England, the freedom that came with buried power lines.

I could see the two cicadas sitting on the trunk of the tree to the left of my apartment now. They were each the size of an opaque disposable lighter. I couldn’t possible reach them, even if I did have the use of an old battered broom that sat in my entrance hall.
       “It’s no use, I can’t get them.”
     “Well that’s just too bad Johneeeee boy……of course, you could do it if you really tried….a better man in your position would reach those little devils…” NOTB taunted.
       “I’m not listening to you any more. You don’t know what you are talking about.”
I pulled myself back in through the window and slammed the mosquito netting shut. Lighting up a new cigarette, I walked over to the front door and pulled on my boots. I felt like my feet were swimming in a cavernous pool, the absence of socks making my boots a whole size too big. I wrenched at the tattered laces, one breaking off in my hand, before tying them in a half-hearted bow. I walked out of the door and down the stairs doing my best to avoid the cobwebs at every turn. Out into the clear night.

The road looked a little different from down here. The messy wires being pushed into my peripheral vision. The shops that were interspersed with regular houses looked stuck in a time warp during daylight hours. Now they were all closed up, their shutters signaling that another day had passed.  As I walked past each shutter, a mental image of the shop windows that lay behind them, sprang into my head. There was a school uniform shop, the sunlight having faded the uniforms on display to a washy blue color. The styles had remained the same for almost four decades, and these particular samples had obviously endured just as long. A small sports shop with a stock list that rivaled that of any normal household. A post office with only enough floor space to serve one customer at a time. How did these places still operate? They obviously could not compete in this modern era. Their only function being to support the embedded routine of their aging proprietors.

       “Are you heading down to banana land Johnny?” NOTB piped up, referring to the rather seedy district of love hotels and massage parlors south of the station.
       “I dunno, I’m just walking. Can you give me a break here?”
       “Gonna have yourself a bit of fun hey?”
       “Not tonight, no. Anyway, you know that’s not my style.”
       “C’mon Johnny…..have yourself some fun will ya….I’m fed up of this lethargic crap…..show me a good time will ya…..”
       “Well let’s just walk and see where it takes us hey.”
       “Alright……it’s a done deal Johnny boy.”

I took a short cut across the park, the old castle lit up in all it’s glory against the mat black night. Some kids let off a firework on the other side of the bushes and my body jolted back in surprise. Damn those rascals. Heading out of the park’s south entrance and onto the main drag, I was suddenly confronted with life. Neon life. I dodged the cars on Eki Mai Dori and then down a side alley with faceless concrete buildings. The white air-con boxes whirred on each side, spluttering out hot hair that raised the hair on my calves.

     “Take one of the doors Johnny….see where we end up…Russian Roulette if you please…”
       “I can’t just walk into one of these buildings. What if they are private properties? It’s trespassing.”
       “Oh Johnny….you know your problem is you worry too much…..that is what has got you in this state in the first place…..me, the shakes….it’s all a product of your tiny little worrisome mind. You need to let go for just one night.”
       “OK, well what about this one,” I said gesturing to a nondescript black door.
       “Take it my man…..go forth and conquer.”

I opened the black door and was immediately confronted with a flight of steps. I trudged up the steps, my stomach fluttering with the anticipation of what lay ahead. At the top of the steps was a corridor that extended far into the depths of the building. These places were deceptive, I thought to myself. There were red velvet doors on either side of the corridor, and as I walked further into the heart of the building, I could see that a silver plaque accompanied each door. Each plaque bore a solitary word. Love. Marriage. Addiction. Poverty. At the very end of the corridor was my plaque and my door. It simply read ‘Anxiety’. I opened the door and walked in.
      “Please come in and take a seat Mr. Kodera,” a voice boomed from the darkness. “I’ve been watching you, and it seems that our meeting is long overdue.”
       “Oh you have, have you,” my voice straining in disbelief.
       “Yes,” the voice said. “It seems to me that your system is about ready to crash.”
       “My system?”
       “Yes, your system…..the culmination of the neural networks that make up your brain. They are overloaded with bad history.”
       “Bad history?”
       “OK, let me put it in terms that you will understand. When you are surfing around on the net, you visit a lot of websites. Am I right?”
       “Yes, you would be right in saying that,” I replied.
       “And not all of them what you might call family favorites. Correct?”
       “Uh, I don’t know exactly what you are getting at.”
      “Yes, I think you do Mr. Kodera. Anyway, these sites send out bugs that latch onto your computer. Spyware, Adware….whatever you like to call them. They punish the computer for being a naughty boy…slow down the computer….eventually causing it to crash. Well, it’s the same with your system. The guilt and regrets of your life…the things that you shouldn’t have done…the things that you should have…they manifest themselves in memories that cause you anxiety and stress. The rising levels of anxiety are inversely proportional to your productivity levels; just as the rising levels of Spyware are related to the productivity of your computer. Are you  still with me here?”
      “Yes, I’m with you,” I sullenly replied.
      “You have been feeling shaky, lethargic, unable to think clearly, experiencing a feeling of otherworldliness. Am I right?”
       “Yes, but…”
       “Trust me Mr. Kodera, I see this everyday. You need to be cleared.”
       “Cleared?”
       “Yes, cleared. Just as we can download software to destroy our little computer bugs, so we can do the same with your system. You can still have your indulgences, just as you do in cyberspace, but they will no longer affect your psyche. Do you understand?”
       “I think so, but…”
      “But nothing. All you have to do is take this tablet once a day. It will clear you of all self-inflicted suffering. A life free from anxiety awaits you Mr. Kodera. Oh, and one last thing. Before taking the first tablet, you must bid farewell to you companion of several years. You will no longer be seeing your partner in crime, the far from venerable NOTB.”
     “I understand,” I replied. And with that I picked up the tablets that lay on a table before me, and walked out of the door.

       “So, this is it then - I wish I could say it has been a pleasure,” I said under my breath as I played with the tablets in the palm of my hand.
       “It doesn’t have to be this way,” NOTB replied with solemn resignation. “We can learn to live with each other….”
     “No, I don’t think that is ever going to happen. Farewell my friend.” And with that, I placed the pill at the back of my mouth, gulped hard, and entered a new and more fulfilling period of my life.