Only hard work could save him now

One of those books I read again often is Franz Kafka's "The Trial" . Some find it a depressing novel - OK, so it is depressing! - but there are many elements captured in it that seem to haunt my own dreams. And as I seem to dream vividly around six hours a night at the moment it's a lot of dreams...

He was a great writer, Kafka. Towards the end of the book the main character is being pursued relentlessly by an unspeakable 'reality' in his life. At the bank where he works people look at him with sidelong glances. Do they know his awful secret? About the 'trial' for undisclosed crimes that he is facing in a parallel existence? "Only hard work could save him now" comments Kafka. It's a sentence that would look good on your tombstone eh?

How often do we feel like that? That sense of an almost oceanic anxiety as we wake up in the dark? Suddenly life has lost all it's roots - we realise at last with a dark horror that is really only gravity keeps us stuck to the planet and prevents us flying screaming into the void. For the moment anyway. Maybe we could put some strong glue on the soles of our shoes as an additional safeguard. Do you think it would help if the world did end suddenly? I mean - just stopped? If we were fixed to the floor with Evostik maybe we could live forever after all.

On the train back from Tokyo last night we were watching someone very drunk; another middle aged office worker in a reasonable suit. There are lots of drunks on the later trains, people (usually but not always men) who have been drinking as an anaesthetic to take away the discomfort and stress of a long hot day.

At the start he was just loud and mildly abusive like they usually are but then his friend got off at Shin-Koiwa and he fell into a stupor and slid down the seat and onto the floor. Competely insensible, like a sleeping child. It's the first time I saw someone so bad here on a train although as a one time brewery manager I'm no stranger to drunks and drunkenness. Been there myself on occasion.

We got to Sakura - end of the line for that service - and those of us left got off. Concerned - but what to do? Best leave it to the professionals eh? It says a lot about Japan that his (very visible) wallet and valuables were safe - and indeed if he'd been in physical danger I'm sure many of us would have intervened. I hope so.

The JR station staff got him onto the platform where he vomited and then lay there in the cooler night air. Stuck to the platform by gravity - for now. Later someone in uniform escorted him away, perhaps to a returning train or a taxi or an angry wife.

Where was he going? Who knows - there must have been a season ticket in his pocket but landing on the correct JR station platform last night was the least of his worries eh? A crisis in life? Unable to face change? The pain and confusion of addicton? Despised by people that mattered to him?

But only hard work could save him now for sure.