Thread Island 1・Gonna Sleep

On the table, in the background, we see a glass filled with water. There are purple orchids in it, a species of Vanda, maybe Pachara Delight.

Right in front of us, we have a miniature billboard, lighting up, giving the title of this here exercise in two rows of lean black letters, as if it were a big Hollywood movie - this ability to vision a vision.
Thread Island.

The first episode of a string of infinity theater. A single high note strikes and resonates, itself a thread island of sorts, a singularity vibrating onto itself.

The vision opens to a woman lying there, next to us, on something comfortable. Not a bed, a sofa. A beautiful woman, it must be said, a beautiful doll of a woman, with impossibly perfect legs. Our gaze is not male, it is floral, our eyes follow the curves, toward her gorgeous ass, displayed in hotpants, for us to ignore if we could. She lies sort of sideways, not quite on her belly. We hear a voice of a young woman, another woman, saying something about reaching the age of adulthood, giggling about possibilities and eventualities. We’re watching a movie.

The sofa has a flower pattern. We think of France, the colors of the fabric evoke strong blues and reds and whites, a bit of orange. The woman lying next to us has her left hand on, or under, her hip. She’s wearing some cabaret outfit; we could think of Liza Minnelli - remember her autograph? A signed photo in the mail, back in the days long gone on the other side.

Be sure for Shiraishi to want to impart something here. Always, the impartations of Shiraishi, 白石, the little white philosopher’s anti-stone. Turning gold into crap, belief into doubt.

Shiraishi imparts, note number 23, “If I don’t know whether someone has two hands (say, whether they have been amputated or not) I shall believe his assurance that he has two hands, if he is trustworthy.”

If he is trustworthy.

Or if she is trustworthy. Or they. The male gaze does exactly what the female does, or the queer or transgender, it is in fact an orchid gaze, a hybrid of underground testicles and an in-your-face vagina. There it is, the voice giggles.

We see a glass, a finely cut glass, blue. Someone’s drinking. Satsuma kiriko, Chinese technique of overlaying colors fused with European cutting to create the delicate and graceful masterpiece we’re drinking from. A clear liquid. Must be tequila, what could it be other than tequila, breathing up the lady’s ass. She’s a brunette, almost a redhead, with a silly top hat.

“Oh something,” the voice says, as we try to burrow our gaze all the way into the brunette’s behind. We could be feeling a little drunk, such shapeliness. With an out-of-body loop we now see that we’re in fact in full battledress, we the crusader, sword drawn. On our shield a two-headed black bird, an eagle presumably, with bright-red beaks and claws, and a big red diagonal across the family crest, a giant slash, a crossing-out.

The orchid gaze digs deep into that ass.

“Oy,” says a male voice just then, and starts talking. We don’t listen. He’s not talking to us.

Our glass moves across the screen, along the side of the face of a woman taking a shower. The movie is in black and white. Or rather gray and white, saturated with light. She’s enjoying her shower quite obviously.

The lady lying next to us gets up, declares in an AI-generated voice that she’s going to bed already. 

“Gonna sleep.”

We vaguely protest, but she moves steadily away from the sofa. “Miki,” we grumble in a low voice. This is Miki, 美紀, the Chronicle of Beauty. She repeats her resolution twice, in lower volume.

“There’s a bit of wind rising,” says the male voice. The blue glass is still flirting with the woman in the shower. She’s caressing her breast, and our tequila is doing that, too.

We’re positively diving into the drink now. Gulping it down, drowning in it.

Miki’s “Gonna sleep” resonates once more. And of course, there just had to be some effing cherry blossom. A handsome couple, both in kimono, stroll underneath a row of trees in the full nature of lust. Luckily the noise of a passing train takes us to blackout.