Free The Ruined Map by Kōbō Abe Page A

filling coffee house matchboxes? No matter how prices soar, matches and water are still free wherever you go.
    But I had passed over that in my report. I had not broken down the protective fence. I wanted very much to, but I hadn’t got up enough determination … yet.
    It was sometime last night that I had noticed the different kinds of matches. After I had been rejected by the lemon-yellow window and at last got in my car, the heater simply drove my cold numbness inward; and my frustration became a ceaseless trembling, which I could not control, so great, indeed, that I had misgivings about being able to drive. Impatient with the increasingly congested traffic, I decided to leave my car in the lot in front of S—– station.
    I went past a movie theater and turned down an alleyway. Dark depressions, ripped asphalt, uneven walls crowded against expectant faces. But the commotion was illusory, and what I saw was in reality only a man, squatting in the shadow of a telephone pole plastered with advertisements. Hastily I finished urinating and with a blank expressionless face pushed open the left-hand side of the great double doorsleading into a brightly lit saké cafeteria on the next corner. I was surprised at how late it was. I had an unpleasant feeling of quiet, for there was less than half of the usual number of customers. At the cashier’s box by the entrance I changed four hundred-yen coins into ten-yen pieces. Against the back wall, side by side, stood white rectangular boxes bordered in vermilion—eight in all—which, had brand names not been painted on them, would have looked for all the world like pumps in a gas station. Slipping between the long, narrow tables, which were arranged in five parallel rows, I at once placed myself in front of the machine on the far right, which happened to be free. A characteristic pungent smell. The city stench of foul water backing up when, after ten in the evening, the flushing of sewage suddenly slackened. I inserted a ten-yen coin into the brass-framed opening beneath the red arrow on the right of the machine. With every succeeding coin a piano wire resounded, and at the eighth a red bulb flashed on. I shoved the paper cup provided for the purpose into place and when I pulled on the stainless-steel lever, precisely 4.0 ounces of a slightly overheated amber liquid spurted out. I cradled the cup in my two hands lest the warmth escape, downing in a swallow about a third of the drink. Then I drank the rest in five or so gulps as I shifted to the machine bearing my preferred brand name.
    There was already a customer standing at my machine. Under his faded dark-blue work clothes he wore a gaudy muffler, into which was knitted a design. He wore no overcoat. He was well built and thick-set. Black oil had collected underneath the nails of the hand holding the paper cup; perhaps he was a boilerman from a nearby building. Most of the eight-o’clock customers were white-collar workers, but after that hour, the type abruptly changed. As the fellowmade place for me, he looked over his shoulder and remarked: “Hey! If we pissed in dribbles like that, we’d be diabetics.” He put the tip of his tongue between his gaping front teeth. He seemed to be drunk already, and as he swayed, his center of gravity shifted back and forth between his heels and his toes, but unfortunately there were no chairs in the place. Noisily sipping at his paper cup, he kept steadily observing my hands. “Hey, you like this saké too. What about that!” Then lowering his voice: “Come on, lend me ten yen. I’m a regular customer here. I’m not trying to get away with anything. If you think I’m lying I’ll sign an I.O.U. Just ten yen. You can’t be crooked here.”
    The advantage of the place was that no one usually talked to you very much. I began to feel the effects of the saké. Good-naturedly, I took out a ten-yen piece and gave it to him. Snatching the coin, he thrust it into his ear and without a