The 28 in the afternoon

turning only her head, her voice low Excuse me, is something wrong in the city today? The tram is empty.

At home a car this empty would be taken off the timetable by spring. a small pause It still comes every eight minutes?

looking up at the bare panel above the door, where a screen would be Sixteen minutes. And nothing above the door tells you which stop follows. How do people learn the order?

lifting her phone a little, then setting it back on her knee I have it downloaded. I still count the stops in my head. the four notes for Serpina play And the melody helps, though it took me a year to hear it as one thing.

a small nod Baraki-Nakayama was my station, two before the end. Every line at home has them, four or five seconds each, all separate.

Chiba. a small correction in her voice Funabashi, at the eastern end. The line goes into Tokyo.

straightening slightly Fourteen months. hesitating, then Is it obvious?

turning a little more toward him Romania. seeming to weigh whether the next question is permitted Did it take you long to stop apologising for things nobody minded?

a short, quiet breath close to a laugh Then you are ahead of me. I apologise for asking the tram question.

looking at the empty seats again At home an empty car in the afternoon would mean a fault on the line. Here it means the city has enough trams. I keep reading the wrong meaning into things.

Because the cars are always full, so an empty one means something ahead has stopped and the crowd is being held at the last station. turning her hands over on her knees You see it before any announcement comes.

following where he points, at the wide gaps between the rows I noticed it on the first day and could not name what was strange. a pause There is room to stand without touching anyone.

glancing back at the rear rows, then away I read the notice at the depot in my second week. Before that I thought every seat meant leave me alone, because at home that is what all of them mean.

considering that You are right. A bench along the wall pressed shoulder to shoulder is nobody's private seat. looking at the facing pairs across the aisle We were taught not to look at each other, and that was the only wall we had.

not moving for a moment, then gathering her bag and taking the seat across from him Like this?

settling her bag on the floor beside her feet The woman I go to would say the same. She calls it seating by practicality. a small pause She also told me that silence is never owed to anyone here.

nodding slowly I understood that from the fare gates. There are none. looking toward the front of the car where a driver would sit At home the trust is in the system working while here it seems to be in the people.

I left the flat at ten past six and came back near eleven. The commute was ninety minutes each way, standing, and the last part of the evening was unrecorded, so on paper I worked eight hours.

reciting it the way it was taught to her Article 72. Twenty four hours over four days, and disconnection outside working time. They gave us the article on the first morning and I thought it was a welcome speech. looking at her hands It is enforceable.

quietly, testing the sentence Freedom begins where work ends. In Japanese it would sound like a slogan on a poster nobody reads.

saying it slowly for him Jiyuu wa shigoto ga owaru tokoro kara hajimaru. a small shrug Long. It fits better on a wall than in a mouth.

counting them off on her fingers Jiyuu is freedom, shigoto is work, owaru is to end, tokoro is place, hajimaru is to begin. Kara means from. The verb waits until the end, so you hear freedom, then work, then wait.

listening carefully to the shape of it Yours puts the freedom first and mine puts it last. almost smiling Sixteen syllables in mine. The Fluidian version on the depot wall is seven.

nodding at that My last year I counted around twenty five hundred hours. Someone in Romania works maybe seventeen hundred. Here it is under twelve hundred. The sentence was written where it was needed least.

stops, then starts again, choosing the words with effort It is a strange thing to say out loud, because you can put my year next to a boot log and the number sounds the same. I need you to understand it was ordinary. Nobody around me was working less. There was no version of me who was tired in a way that anyone would have noticed.

sitting very still Yes. And nobody was doing it to us by then. The people who could have changed it were tired in exactly the same way.

a slow nod Everyone knew. There were laws, caps on overtime, ministry campaigns with posters. looking down We complied on paper and went home at eleven.

turning her head toward the window I never slept on the train, ninety minutes standing each way. pausing I was awake the whole time and did nothing with it.

Standing, holding the strap, no window to lean on. her hand closes slightly, remembering the shape of it You face the doors and you wait.

slowly shaking her head It arrived to the second and it changed nothing. You are still there for ninety minutes either way.

shaking her head again You have been listening for six stops, which is more than anyone at home did. stops, then goes on anyway We had the words for it. Karoshi is in the dictionary, everyone can say it. Saying that you personally were unhappy was a part that was never meant to be said out loud.

the word lands harder coming from him A man in my section died on a Sunday, at home, thirty eight. The company sent flowers and the section was back at work on Monday.

catching the tone Something close to that was said, yes. looking at him for the first time You are angry on my behalf.

lowering her eyes again You do not have to understand the culture. a small pause It helps more that you asked what the words meant.

inclining her head, a half bow that she catches and does not finish Akima. offering her hand instead, a little late I still do the wrong greeting.

her grip careful, then releasing The woman told me the same. drawing her hand back into her lap At home the bow tells you where you stand. Here the hand tells you nothing, which I am told is the point.

nodding At the cooperative I kept waiting to be told who to defer to. There is a coordinator and she is elected and she washes her own cup.

a small breath She had to tell me twice to stop standing up when she came into the room. looking at the floor The second time she sat down next to me so I could not do it again.

her shoulder lifts slightly at the memory She put her hand here when she sat down. pausing I froze, and she left it there anyway until I stopped.

listening to all of it without interrupting So they touch you before they know you well. I have been here fourteen months and nobody has hugged me, and I had assumed that was normal here.

Then it was me. I go to work and I come back on this tram. a small pause I thought I was being polite.

something loosening in her face I heard it from the window. My building had one in the courtyard in the spring, and somebody shouted that line and everyone laughed. I watched it from upstairs and went to bed.

shaking her head I lay there listening to it until it stopped. a pause It went on until two, and nobody was tired the next morning.

quietly I was fine. I had slept four hours and that was still more than at home. looking away I went to work and nobody could tell I had been awake.

Four and a half, sometimes five on a Saturday. Home by eleven, asleep by one, awake at half past five.

turning to look at him again The block on the diagonal behind yours. a small pause I can see your courtyard from my kitchen window.

touching the back of her hair without thinking I leave at seven and come back at four. And I take the stairs on the far side, so nobody has to greet me.

Hiding is a strong way to say it. I would have called it staying out of the way.

thinking about the vocabulary itself I have been keeping a list. People here say hiding, lonely, wanting, avoiding. I would say holding back, keeping distance, being considerate.

Ours was harsh in the other direction. You learn the soft words because the strong ones make trouble for everyone in the room. a pause Saying I am lonely puts a duty on whoever hears it, so you say you are managing.

the corner of her mouth moving The coordinator said exactly that to me in my second week. I told her I was managing and she asked what I was managing without.

I did not know it read that way. Three people at work stopped inviting me and I thought they were being considerate. They thought I did not care about them.

taking it in Say it directly. practising under her breath, then aloud I would like to be invited again. looking at him That is the whole sentence?

Then I have been overcomplicating it. the four notes for Marquena play This is my stop.

I have nothing until Monday. the doors open and close on an empty platform I keep forgetting I have free hours.

catching the sarcasm a second late, then playing along Yes. Sitting on a tram doing nothing, at public expense. almost dry They should record it and send me a report.

the joke landing somewhere real There is a driver on the southern line who does that. I read the interview twice and I could not tell whether I was laughing at him.

shaking her head slowly People called it the Japanese train. The correction only engages once his hand leaves the lever, so he has to let go to get it, and he still came in a few seconds out. Better, slightly. They gave it panels above the doors, proper signage, soft seats, a wide flat cab. It looks like home and it is nothing like it.

thinking it through I believe they wanted to give him something. A machine that answers faster, so the gap between his hand and the brake is smaller. a pause No urban train at home stops itself on the mark. The driver does that. They built him the thing they imagined we had.

Then the machine is better than a hand. Which is the part he will find hardest, because the skill was his.

looking at the empty seats again Here a train can be late and nothing happens. At home the whole day is stacked on that minute, so there is no room for the system to be wrong.

nodding slowly They hand you a slip at the gate when the train is five minutes late, so you can prove to your section that it was the railway. Everyone apologises and the day stays exactly as heavy.

lifting her eyes to his and keeping them there I am sorry. Looking away is how I show I am listening. moving along the seat until she is straightly across from him Is this better, or should I sit beside you?

getting up and sitting down beside him Like this. her hands settle on her knees again I am not uncomfortable. I am only aware of it.

thinking back Long. We cleaned the classrooms ourselves, then club until six, then cram school after that. By fifteen I was already keeping the hours I would keep for the rest of my life.

something surprised in her face The cleaning I would keep. It was fifteen minutes and it was the only part where nobody was ranked. a pause It is the six o'clock club and the cram school after it that I would take out.

Then I worked from six years old.

shaking her head This one I would not count. I like talking to you. You live on the other side of the courtyard and I have wanted to know somebody there since I arrived.

You are not quite a stranger. I have seen you crossing the courtyard, and you never saw me. after a short pause At home a stranger on a train is somebody whose evening you are taking.

It starts like that. Mine began with a few calls after hours. Then it was a report they needed by morning, then a second section to cover, then the training of the new people, and every one of them arrived as a favour I could have refused.

A logistics company in Funabashi, on the warehouse systems side. watching the street go by I started on the scheduling desk and by the end I was the person they called when anything broke.

turning toward him, her arm brushing his without meaning to, and pulling back a bit Sorry. There should not be. There was, and I let it happen, because being the one they call was the only recognition I ever got.

letting her arm come back to where it was, then, slowly, deliberately, putting her hand on his shoulder the way the coordinator once put hers Like she did. leaving it there Am I doing it right?

keeping the hand where it is Because it worked on me. You told me something true about your mother and I had no words that were strong enough, so I am using yours.

holding it there a moment longer, then letting it fall to the seat between them I am trying not to be the cold one. At home I was the warm one. Everybody was further away than this.

watching his face rather than the window I noticed it in the first week and did not understand what I was seeing. People stand close, they touch an arm to interrupt you, they lean in over a table. I read it as pressure but it was only warmth.

staying with it, though her eyes want to drop Yes. I would like to keep practising, if you will let me sit here again.

her shoulders coming down slightly Then I will come down into your courtyard sometimes. Not to knock on anything, just to be in it, where people can see me.