Real World Encounters

When I lived in Japan, I would go for runs before work at the abysmally early times of around 2-3am. It let me see a beautiful and empty part of the town, and sometimes I would have strange random encounters:

• A shiba puppy would occasionally be waiting near a turn and follow me for half the run. Eventually, we would encounter the old woman who was his owner and he'd play hard to get until I could catch him and get him on the leash. His name was Taro, sometimes I would bring a dog treat just for him. 
  

• Another runner came speeding around a bend and shouted "TIGER!" before ripping off at top speed. I didn't see any tigers, but the shadows seemed to be more lively than usual.

• In a parking lot near the seawall, a woman would set up a small grill before sunrise and buy fish from the local fishermen, then grill a few of them and feed the Overwhelming Cat Population.

• My normal route would take me along a small river inlet that I'd follow out to the sea. One night, I found lines had been run from one side of the river to the other, and in the air above were hundreds of koinobori (carp shaped wind socks). Without the wind and at that time of night, they hung still, eerily over my head as I ran under the lines.

• One night, I reached a park at the mid point of my run and found the trail was covered in thousands of small white crabs, the size of my palm. They weren't moving, just kind of standing there carpeting the side path. I turned back and chose another way home.
  

• Sometimes I would encounter a group of young and old women along the seawall diligently opening cans of cat food for the swarming local seawall cats.

• I changed my route through a more forested area and shortly into my run began hearing loud cracks wherever I stepped. At the time, I assumed this was just acorns or something, but as I looped back around and the sun was coming up, I realized that I had been stepping on acorn sized snails. The entire path was coated in them. After that, I decided to forego the forested path that early in the morning.

 

blurry still from an awful quality video

Where the inlet met the sea was a library. It was three-four stories tall and its ground floor was an open air garage that was usually roped off at night. One morning, at about 2:15 am, I heard a strange sound coming from the garage when I ran past it. My headphones were blasting either synthestitch or coloris though so I ran past. On my loop back, I heard the sound again and took my headphones out. That strange sound was circus music, echoing out from inside the dark open air garage. It sounded garbled, like it from an old radio. I couldn't see anything in the garage, and my run had lasted longer than I had thought and I needed to get back- so I didn't investigate further. 

For the next two-three weeks, each time I ran past that library between 2-3 am I could hear strange circus music. Sometimes there were voices that sounded like a manzai recording accompanying the circus music. Another odd feature was that usually I'd see fishermen out at that time of the morning near the library- but each time I passed and heard the circus music they were nowhere to be seen. To further test it, if I came by a bit later around 4-5 am there was no music at all. 

Finally, one morning I decided that I had to know where the music was coming from. After talking about it for weeks with coworkers, we thought the most likely source was some sort of speaker malfunctioning in the garage- or a gang of murderous clowns trying to lure joggers in to their untimely dooms. With no one willing to wake up that early and come with me, I checked it out on my own. Tucked away near the staircase that led up into the library I found the source- it was an old battered battery powered radio left about halfway up the stairs. At the top of the stairs was the glass doors that led into the library, a greenish exit light inside was all I had to see by. There was a man sitting at the top stair. I couldn't discern well enough what he was wearing, but he looked up at me and we made eye contact. He stood up, and I took off and continued my run. There would still be music playing for another three-four months. 

I'll end this with this photo. After a long night of inadvisable drinking we realized the trains had stopped running. Unwilling to pay out for a cab, we stayed out bouncing around Shibuya until the trains started again, and on the first train out we found this polaroid on the ground. Still have it around somewhere, it's a sort of cursed good luck charm.