Spider Fight

Hikone in the Dark
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

Hikone is a strange, quiet city along the shore of Lake Biwa. At night, reluctant to board the train directly, I turned back toward the castle and park. The sky was black as pitch, and the chilly breeze was full of the heavy silence of the Japanese countryside. Cars would intermittantly roar past, but the silence would remain. Students strolled by me in groups of three or four, wearing the unadorned and charmless uniforms of at least 30 years ago (for the boys, perhaps not 100 years ago). Nobody had dyed hair. I didn't notice a single pair of loose socks. Some were smiling as they strolled, chatting, joking. Others held their silence behind troubled frowns, the depths of which no one else would ever know. Theirs is an unassuming town, where the stores close at 6:00PM, and nights are most often spent in warmly lit homes. I was envious, nostalgic.

One lap around the park, and angry thoughts entered my head. Around and around they went, (as tends to happen these days). Then as I passed a lamp-post, I noticed a tangle of spiderwebs where two spindly spiders were frantically struggling under the wan light, stabbing each other with their needle-like legs. Faintly bouncing on sticky silken strands, theirs was surely a poisonous, victorless struggle. The perfect visual metaphor.