What a waste

“Man, sometimes I think I don’t like her…”
“What about it?”
“Don’t know… she’s cool and all, but I don’t feel like I’m in love.”
“Mate, don’t you feel good when you’re with her? I mean like, today, when you were at the movies… how did you feel?”
“Oh, it was cool! I felt so good and being around her arms is really great and where now?”
“Left.”
“But even so it’s not as deep as I expected.”
“C’mon, you aren’t supposed to die for every girl you date.”

Silence then. We could only hear my footsteps and the sound of his bike. It was so cold and so dark that any other sound probably got lost our frozen before they could reach us. At first I thought about playing the iPod kinda loud, so we’d have some soundtrack, but with such a silence I couldn’t help but feel that I would be disturbing… just don’t know what or who. We kept walking. He was probably in some inner dialogue, while I was focused in something else and none of us bothered to talk.

“Isn’t it here?” He asked
“Yeah.” I said grinning.
We stood by the left entrance.
“Are you sure you’re gonna do it?” He asked as if it seemed absurd.
“What’s the problem?” I asked walking into that traditional Japanese gate.

I was tiptoeing, but he didn’t seem to mind about making noise. I was struck again by the feeling that by making noise we’re bothering something, and this time I wasn’t quite wrong, once we were inside a temple.

“This place gives me the creeps.” He whispered looking around, as if it was not for saying.
“Why? It’s empty.” I said quickly, looking ahead.
“ Look these buildings, they’re scary.”
“Haha they are beautiful!” I wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying, I was actually looking for something else.
“Yeah, they’re… but I dare you to go inside it at midnight, only by yourself.”

The temple had a stone-made garden, and two buildings. On the left was one white with brown rooftop and on the right was the bigger, creepy one; black with a red rooftop. On both of them was a stair that led into the building, or better saying, led to the door. No one could get inside the place. One second glance followed by one second thought made me realized he was right, they were scary. And actually I didn’t think they were beautiful. Anyone would probably notice them at first because they carry that classic Japanese architecture - the one you think about when someone says “Japan” - but actually, they don’t really get my attention and I can’t feel any different atmosphere or spiritual feeling around them. They were superficially good looking (and not that much), but had no deep significance. Not for me.

“There it is!” I pointed to a small iron box, placed under a little house between the two buildings.
“Man, you’re going to steal money from the temple… are you sure?” He still couldn’t believe it.
“Hell sure! What’s the problem?”
“It’s a… temple!”
“That’s exactly why I came here. Anyone who threw a coin inside the box didn’t need the money, and I bet that Buddha doesn’t need it as well.”
“People threw their coins because they were expecting that it would help them with their wishes…” He didn’t have much conviction in his voice.
“Is Buddha’s will for sale now? It’s the same with western religions, they charge for people’s place in heaven. Besides, I guess that what’s worth is not the money, but the intention. I think that Buddha or god are only interested in knowing if you want that wish to become true so hard, that you even sacrifice your money for it. In case it’s for the money, I’m just making things fairer, that’s why I take only one-hundred yens coins. Because, you know, some people can’t waste one-hundred yen in a temple, and they're are the ones who probably need more help, so I take the one-hundred yen coins out of the game, giving the poor more chances… you see, I’m like Robbin Hood, man! except that I don’t cause any harm not even to the riches.”
“But neither give the money to the poor.” He had a “now I got you, huh?” tone in voice, but I promptly said:
“Of course I do, mate! First, because I’m one of them! and second because I’m going to spend this money. You know, buy stuff or food
“Or cigarettes. Haha”
“certainly haha, put this money to circulate again! And there’s no better help to the country economy than this.”
“I still think you’re kind insane… haha”
“Not insane, I just need the money… blame the country, not me. And damn, it’s locked.”

During all my deceiver speech I was walking around the iron box, looking how I could open it, and when I found, there was a locker blocking my way. I couldn’t and wouldn’t break the locker.

“Wha tta bi ig was teoftime!”
“It happens… but I know you would take a coin or two if I had opened it!”
His grin and silence were more affirmative than any other answer. We walked outside.
“Do you want a cigarette?” I asked.
“huh, yeah... no, later.”
As I had already taken from the pack I gave him anyway, and he put it in his pocket.
“There’s another thing…”
“What?”
“I’m afraid to like her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want my heart to be broken again. Fuck off! I wouldn’t bear it one more time…” He seemed a bit angry.
“For sure you would! I guess you already went through the worst you could in a matter of love, and got out of it alive. In case she breaks your heart, you’ll know how to deal with it.”
“But I don’t want to get terribly said again.”
“Are you really going to avoid her because of fear? What if it works out?”
“Then it’ll be really cool… but if we don’t?”
“Then you didn’t. You’ll get sad for a while, and then get ready for life again. This is it, mate! It’d be such a waste to let her go afraid of how you’re gonna feel if she leaves you or you break up. And you’re not even in a serious relationship yet! relax, enjoy what you can. Even if you lock yourself inside your room, future sufferings are unavoidable.”
By this time we got into our well known park. He finally lit his cigarette and so did I, again.
“At least hear we can listen to some music!” I said.
“Yeaah.”
“Which?”

He took the iPod from my hands and put A Certain Romance to play. A hell of a good song. I leaned in the wall and looked to the trees and everything else in front of me as if they were good friends of mine and then said:

“We really shouldn’t be here, mate!”
“Why?” he asked automatically.
“We’re in the very beginning of 2010, and things shouldn’t start as they ended last year… keep coming to this koen is not good! We should start doing something different!”
“Yeah, yeah… we can go to some different koen tomorrow. What about it, huh? Hahaha”
“Hahaha Ok, I forgot, it’s still Japan.”
“Yeah, man… nothing to do. Unless you have the money, and I still have my doubts…”
“That’s why I recur to temples, man! Hahaha”
“Oh, again?! Fuck you! haha”
We kept with our stray talk for about 15 minutes, until cold and hunger sent us back home.