DEPAYS4 stack001

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2 You call that one la Derelitta. Despite the stubborn legend,
the Tokyo trains are not always packed, they don’t always need the
white-gloved people-pushers that the films never spare us. One can
spend entire days navigating from train to metro, underground to
sky-rail, without being jostled any more than in Paris or New York
(and more courteously in any case, even if they don’t fool around
when it comes to grabbing seats). Plus there are plenty of long
empty stretches allowing one to choose a strategic angle or a
face-to-face position. Then begins the hunt for the sleepers. They
fascinate you. You take the tube to see them, you forget your
appointments, you neglect to change trains, just to remain a few
more minutes before the absolute short, the ideal close-up of a
sleeper’s face. Their slumber frees up a range of expressions that
social standings and a concern for appearances hold back in the
waking state, and on their dozing faces you can read entire life
histories, smiles and stress, nodding and ecstasy. How many
scenarios did you invent in those moments -that woman, for
example, between Kobe and Osaka, for an hour you tracked all her
seasons, the sudden jumps, confusing like the airport departure
board where the name of each city scrambles into the next. For
an hour you scrutinized her metamorphoses with (almost) as much
demanding attention as you would watch the upsurge of pleasure
on a loved one’s face. Don’t look for her, she isn’t in these pages.
There are a hundred pictures of her, but publishing them would be
a betrayal.