woke up gasping for air early this afternoon. the air was cool and the left side of my nasal septal divide was clogged. i turned to my right and reached for my ipad.
someone pushed to my inbox a video of lucas debargue doing ravel’s gaspard de nuit. he is this twenty-something french pianist, largely self-taught, who quit playing before reaching twenty and simply worked bagging in a grocery shop. he picked up playing the instrument again some four years ago and ends up in the final four in this year’s tchaikovsky international piano competition.
when both my nostrils felt completely occluded, i turned out of bed and looked for my inhaler. i started to play whatever was left in the dvd player. it was of yasujiro ozu’s master work tokyo story. the movie started with a shot of a stone lantern and then this next door neighbor appears and he engages in small talk the patriarch of the film.
i stopped the machine and squirted more corticosteroidal spray to my unfeeling nostrils. i looked out of the window and saw laundry drying from the fire escape of the apartment across mine in the next building.
i also remembered the film ending in almost the same scene that i just saw. this neighbor appeared once more to do small talk with the old man, this time, alone, as his wife died in the languorous course of the film. i cracked open the window and a river of warm air ran through the apartment.