Written for the game Snap Shot, Writing Prompt #15

 

The air was hot. Even at night, it clung to my skin as I walked down the bustling streets of Tokyo. Beneath the dazzling lights of Shinjuku, I wandered for hours on end. I had no destination in mind. I was just searching.

It had been two months since I moved to Tokyo in hope of publishing manga. Moving here, where the greats lived, where I wanted to belong.

I walked past the busy restaurants serving ramen to even busier businessmen. The fashionable women who owned the streets in Channel and Dior. The old man crouched on the pavement, with only cardboard for a bed. Here, I could see it all.

Warm, summer rain suddenly started falling. Gently at first, then round, fat raindrops began seeping into my jacket, my hair. An old lady was manning a roadside stall, I picked up a cheap plastic umbrella and kept walking.

Here, I was invisible, drowned out by all the life of the city. And yet, here, with the all lights and the noise and the unending failures, I knew this was where I needed to be.

This is my story.

This is where it all began.