Free A Woman's Nails by Aonghas Crowe

stir-fried bean sprouts for the next four weeks: a small price to pay for not having to live an hour out of town in the middle of nowhere. What the hell was I thinking when I agreed to move there?
    In the first few weeks alone at the condominium, I dozed off on the train and missed my station four times. Four times! The first time was in the morning on my way to work. By the time I woke up, I had traveled three stations beyond my stop. I had to scramble out of the train and run across the platform and catch the train going the opposite direction. Had I not been warned so unambiguously by Abazuré that were I ever late, I'd be fired immediately, I might have taken it in stride. Instead, I was pushing people out of the way, dashing through the turnstiles and sprinting like an Olympian all the way from the station to the office where I arrived panting and sweating, a minute to spare on the time clock. The guillotine came to an abrupt halt an inch from my trembling neck.
    One evening as I was riding the last train home, I succumbed to such a deep, dream-filled sleep that I did not wake until the train had arrived in the neighboring prefecture! As it was the last train of the evening, I was left with two options: crashing for the night outside the station with the drunks or forking over five thousand yen--half a day's wages--for a taxi.
    The third time, like the second, was on the ride home after a long tiring day of work. When I nodded off, the train was shoulder to shoulder with equally exhausted salarymen and office ladies who'd had the very life sucked out of them and were now staring vacantly before themselves as if at the smoldering remains of extinguished dreams. I was fully reclined and drooling on the seat, the contents of my grocery bags strewn on the floor, grapefruits and apples rolling about here and there like orphaned children when the conductor woke me. I was the only remaining passenger on the train, which had reached its final destination. The conductor helped me collect my scattered belongings and groceries. Had it been America, I probably would have woken to find myself stripped down to my underwear. I didn't have enough for a cab, so I had to hump it rest of the way to the condominium. An hour's walk in the rain without an umbrella, and loaded down wi th a week's worth of groceries.
    The following morning I overslept again, yet by the grace of God managed somehow to get to work in time to punch the clock But, by then, I'd had it.
     
    2
     
    The Friday evening class consists of three high school students and a rônin , a boy who didn't manage to get into the college of his choice and has decided to spend the year at a yobikô , a kind of cram school for students like him, and give it another shot next winter. I ask him where he wants to go, but he's hesitant to tell me. He's either too embarrassed, or just modest. I prod, I poke, I cajole, until he finally gives in. He wants to go to Waseda University. As it's one of the best private schools in the country, I say he must be smart. He replies that he's not smart, that he's fat.
    When asked what he hopes to study, he says he's not sure. He just wants to get into Waseda like his father. He tells me his father's fat, too. I wish him good luck and he laughs. Everyone laughs when I say good luck. Ten years will pass and people will still be laughing whenever the words good luck pass my lips and I still won't understand why.
    One of the girls, a short roly-poly sophomore at a private girls' school, is excited about her up-coming school trip to Disneyland and the northern island of Hokkaidô . I ask when she's going, she says Tokyo. I ask her again, and she answers Tokyo Disneyland. I say “when? ” once more, and she tells me, “In Tokyo.” Is she doing this to me on purpose? Then, deliberately and very slowly, enunciating as clearly as I humanly can and giving the n extra stress I ask, “ When are you going?”
    She nods! She gets it! There's a big buck-toothed