OM, RA

By Achilleas-Nikolaos Ververidis-Papakonstantinou

To Shuji Terayama, in the alley behind a colorful cinema

He was filled with angst, And so he burned himself with the tip of his cigarette. Can he cry? No. Can he fly? No. Can he speak? Barely. - someone from the audience jumped Of course, he can fly! He can fly on the human airplane!

“GLIDER CRASHES IN TSUSHIMA CHANNEL” Read the papers. The young Korean, named Lee-Hogen… You see, he had tried to fly back home on the cheap metal-framed wings of the human airplane.

The human airplane… The human airplane! On the last day of November, I went hunting with my friends from Yanaka, Michiko and Chin-Hae. Chin-Hae shot a bird with his rifle it died. “Even the flying can die, you see,” I heard him say So I spread my arms, “I’m alive!”

Can he fly? or, rather What good is flying? My father, Imamura Johnny, handed me a cigarette in the theater toilets. “You smoke. It will make you a man.” A man for the time span of a cigarette. I imagined the dead bird in my hand.

With 600 yen in my pocket, I Headed to a restaurant. In an alley I met Lee-Hogen, the young Korean.

“Can you fly?” I asked him. “I loved the November wind!” he shouted. I pointed my cigarette to the sky. “Can you really fly?” “Fly to where? Flight is short and besides, even the flying can die, you see.”

I crafted a human airplane behind the cabin I rented for 1.000 yen a night. In the middle of December, Chin-Hae paid me a visit he gripped the rifle at his side “Will you try to fly?” he mumbled. I wrapped the human airplane around me, “I’ll fly back home, I love the November wind! I’ll fly back home. I’ll fly back home! I love the November wind!!”

“GLIDER CRASHES IN TSUSHIMA CHANNEL” Haven’t we seen this before? It’s not enough to die for your country, go on, I know you want to fly away too. Goodbye sky. Goodbye father. Goodbye human airplane. The last thing I saw: the blue of the Korea Strait.

Can he fly? Yes. What good is flying? - the audience stayed silent The anguish of my mother. The loneliness of my father. Chin-Hae gripped his rifle.