The Tokyo Domain

Maybe I had lost touch with the real world. Sometimes I wished I could just give up on it. Sometimes I would sit on the couch in my apartment and just stare at the ceiling and wonder why I even left the room anymore. Life had churned to a halt sometime between that summer before I left for college and the summer before I stated sophomore year. I struggled to remember what it was exactly that had brought it all crashing down around me. My once great optimism, my once great intellect, my once great desire to become the greatest man I could possibly be… all of that was gone now.

If you had asked me years ago what I wanted to do with my life I could have told you without even thinking about it. I wanted a loving wife, a nice house, a couple of kids and a job that I could look forward to going to. Where did all of that go wrong? Every time I looked back on those simpler days it would seem that I had moved myself farther and farther away from anything of the sort. I had a one room apartment above some Asian restaurant, and a crush on a girl that I couldn’t even talk to. What did I have that wasn’t just some wasted materialistic possession?

I glanced back at Konpyuuta Chan. She flipped her hair out of her face with a little toss of her head. It streamed out behind us in some twistedly beautiful pink whirlwind. She reminded me of someone I had met ages ago somehow. Sometimes it almost felt like she had lived her entire life with me and I just never noticed it before. She took care of me in ways that no other person had ever had the time to do. A smiling face every morning, a kind word every time I looked depressed, and solid kick in the right direction every time I was starting to fade away.

There was a lot about myself I didn’t know, and quite frankly didn’t care to. When I was younger I always thought I knew exactly who I was and who I was going to be. Now I just was. Everyday I woke up. Every night I went to sleep. Its amazing how much time you can put into planning your future and somehow just not get around to living it yourself. Maybe there was someone out there living the life I had all planned out. There he is tucking his two daughters into bed and standing in the doorway with his loving wife watching them drift off to sleep. He looks over at her and smiles contentedly. In the morning he gets up early and heads out the door to catch the train into the city for work. Not ever knowing he is living the life I was supposed to have been. In the meantime I was driving aimlessly with no destination in mind at all.

“Is there something on your mind?” She leaned over my shoulder whispering into my ear.

“Just thinking about what could have been.” I sighed heavily.

“Hmmmmmmm?” She sounded puzzled.

“What if somehow I managed to care, not now, years ago, just what if I had managed to fake interest in something?” My voice trailed off.

“Well you have plenty of interests you know.” She smiled.

“Interest in something like getting a real job, settling down, applying all of those years of study that I wasted” I pushed the bike a little harder, watching the diagnostic displays intently.

“Maybe… just maybe you managed to figure your own life out. I mean, you managed to live this long without any of those things. Who says you have to conform to the life that someone told you years ago you had to live?” She draped an arm over my shoulder and leaned around me so that I could see her face more clearly.

“What if the person that told me how my life was supposed to have been led was me?” She looked puzzled.

“Then aren’t you quite capable of changing your own mind about yourself?” She pouted a little.

“You’d think so wouldn’t you. Still, in some ways I still feel some regret.”

“Just imagine what you would be thinking right now if you did live that life you had always wanted.” She smirked.

That’s true. What if I did live that other life? What is that guy who is living my life thinking to himself right now? He is probably bored out of his mind. He probably wishes every day that he could have gotten out and done something great with his life. Instead he is doomed to sit in his living room every night and watch the news and pretend. Every morning I go to sleep he is waking up. Every night I spend on the net he spends helping his kids with their homework. There he is, bills piling up everyday, barley saving enough to cover his kid’s tuition in ten years, wishing he had his youth, wishing he had something to do on Saturday besides sleep in an extra hour and take his kids to the park.

“I still get bored though. Regardless of how much ‘fun’ we have out here.” I squinted against the darkness, trying to figure out where exactly we had ended up.

“Just imagine how bored you could be.” She waved her hand and a satellite overlay had us about ten miles out from home.

“Have we just been driving in circles?” I watched as a red line quickly traced out our path.

“You hit the same couple of corners back there about eight times. You tell me.” She giggled.

“Right… maybe we should just head for home then.” I threw the bike hard into the next turn and started heading back towards town.

“Not such a good idea.” She giggled again.

“Why? It’s a straight shot into town. What’s wrong with it?” I glanced at the map again.

“Oh… just that.” She pointed as we passed a small police cruiser parked on the side of the road.

“Oh you have got to be kidding. They still have those out here? I thought everything was automated these days… Christ.” I watched out the rearview camera as the flashing lights hit the road.

“Maybe he will let you off. We are only going like double the speed limit for this road.”

“Great, thanks for the heads up by the way.” I paused for a second as the cars lights got brighter and brighter.

“Well?” She looked at me expectantly.

I just stared at her as the police cruiser caught up and pulled alongside us. She was starting to look worried. I let out a sigh as the cops voice came over my radio.

“Pull over immediately.” He sounded angry.

“So, what’s the plan?” I watched as she cut out the limits on the engine output.

“Looks like you already know.”

“Pull over immediately. You are operating and illegal non-registered vehicle. Pull over immediately or we will force you from the road.” He definitely didn’t sound happy with me now.

“Did you know this vehicle was un-registered?” I looked over at Konpyuuta Chan.

“Oh my… you rebel.” She let out a loud laugh.

I waved my hand and the voice from the cruiser went silent. I looked back at the car and waved. I could barley see the driver starting to yell and gesture with his hands wildly. I jammed down hard on the accelerator. The gyro spun up hard to keep the bike from pitching me off. The front wheel almost left the ground for a second as I rocketed away from the police cruiser. I watched as its headlights slowly faded away from my sight.

“Bye bye!” Konpyuuta Chan waved.

“That was almost fun.” I smiled.

“I just erased his cruisers hard drives.” She stuck her tongue out in the direction the police cruiser had been.

“That was kind of a mean thing to do you know.” I shook my head.

“Oh well, it will teach him to download pornography on the job.”