on the raised asphalt grade of the former Temiya rail line, flanked by late-summer overgrowth — leggy goldenrod and seeding grass pressing in from both sides, a strip of flat grey sky above, and ahead a long shallow puddle in a settled dip of the track bed returning a sky the colour of unbleached cotton — stopped mid-grade, looking down at the puddle reflection beneath her, one foot poised just short of the water's edge
The tracks are gone but the grade is still there. You can feel it in your calves before you see it — the street tilting up at the angle something heavy used to require.
I found the old Temiya line by following the cut in the hillside rather than any map. The overgrowth on either side was late-summer overgrowth: leggy, going to seed, the green starting to look tired of itself. Someone had planted marigolds at the edge of a garden that backed onto the grade, and they were the brightest thing I'd seen all morning.
Abandoned railway grade cutting through overgrowth, uneven asphalt holding long shallow rain pools reflecting white cotton sky
The light was flat. Diffuse grey, no shadows, everything sitting equally in itself. Good light for noticing surfaces. The asphalt where the rails once were has settled unevenly and holds rain in long shallow pools that gave back a sky the color of unbleached cotton.
I walked the grade up into the residential streets. Dahlias in gardens, going leggy the same way everything was going leggy. Vending machines in colors that suggested the nineties without committing to them. I bought something cold and sweet in a can and stood next to the machine for a while, looking at nothing in particular, which was the view of the harbor, incidental, undesigned.
on the residential street at the top of the old grade, standing beside a squat metal vending machine in faded orange and cream — its plastic fascia age-yellowed, a condensation trail running down its side — behind her a corrugated fence and the incidental drop of the harbour grey and flat below — just pulled the cold can from the slot; not yet drinking — holding it at her side, looking out past the machine toward the harbour she has not decided to look at
Somewhere between the machine and the soba-ya the drizzle started and I put on the olive jacket, a practical decision.
Cold soba in pale dashi broth, noodles coiled in a ceramic bowl, chopsticks resting on the rim
The soba-ya had a handwritten menu and no photographs. I pointed at a character I recognized. The bowl that arrived was what I expected — cold soba, pale dashi, a few things I could name — eaten at a table by a window that looked onto a wall with a downpipe that was doing serious work in the rain.
inside a narrow soba-ya, at a window-side table — the glass fogged at the lower pane from rain outside, beyond it a raw concrete wall with a galvanized downpipe running full with rainwater, the pipe bracket leaving a rust streak down the wall's face; the restaurant interior bare: pale wood, a single overhead tube light — bowl finished and pushed slightly aside; she has turned to the window, watching the downpipe run — a private, unguarded pause before she rises
The drizzle was steady on the awning. A different sound than it makes on stone. Softer, more regular, like something being repeated until it becomes true.
What she wore
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I wore the olive skirt because it felt like the right thing for a walk that doesn't have a defined path — nothing precious, nothing that would make me think twice about stepping onto gravel.
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The jacket went on somewhere between the vending machine and the soba-ya — the drizzle made it a practical decision, not a style one.
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By evening the knit was necessary — not cold exactly, but the kind of cooling that makes you glad you have something with actual weight to it.