I dreamed I was climbing up a hill. It wasn't a big one, and there were trees and plants, but their green was so pale that the scenery looked blurry. All I heard was the sound of my leather shoes as I walked step by step over pebbles. My destination wasn't clear. All of a sudden, a green cage appeared before my eyes, just as if they had built a zoo right in the middle of the city; a little paradise with crocodiles and parrots! Here the colors were bright and clear, with plants ranking all over the place.
I saw the bellies of countless sleeping young men going up ad down as they snored, even though the night was still young. I thought they might be attacked or catch a cold, but I didn't have the courage to talk to them, and since I didn't know the temperature, I couldn't decide whether or not I should cover them with blankets. I was hoping they'd sleep for another while.
I was getting tired myself, and every step I took was painful. Before long, I fell asleep as I walked along. I saw one, two, ten, one hundred sheep crossing the national highway.
A cute girl was bending slightly forward as she cleaned the floor. I began to feel bad, thinking that it was my fault. If I didn't keep walking up that hill, she surely wouldn't have cried. Perhaps I'd better turn around and tumble down the hill… But once I stopped, the sheep came toward me, entered my body, and flew around in it. Like in a sky burial, they ate my body and flew off into the blue sky. Yes, it was blue, although here on the ground it was dim. I wonder how far they went…
As I walked on - this time bending slightly forward myself - I realized that several shops that were once closed had opened again. This street of bars and restaurants was once the paradise of our grandpas. Beginning to feel thirsty, I found a vending machine that didn't look as if it was working, but I did get a drink for my two 100-yen coins. I emptied my can, but didn't feel fit enough to talk to the grandpas that were crowding the street now.
A dead cockroach was planted squarely in front of a projection, and while throwing a large shadow onto the screen, it reported that it had "been dead for four years now." Four years ago, the owner of this coffee shop closed the place and ran away, and rumor has it that he died because he ran out of food. He seems to be doing fine now that he’s dead, as his ghost (actually a projection of it) is dancing on the wall of the closed coffee shop.
After returning from my 2-second trip around the world, I found the girl again, who had now stopped crying, but instead told me to cross Highway 16 and go to Noge. She told me about a pretty observatory and a bar with lots of wild strawberries on the hilltop, but I decided to ignore that and kept walking straight further up the hill. I came to a row of huge castles - wonder if they were real - in which people were having parties. I would have loved to join them but was too scared.
I walked past a bright pink Tower of Babel, and finally spotted something that looked like the mountain pass I was assumedly heading for. I passed a square, then dozens of boutiques and other shops in which Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty must have been at home, and finally landed in a vegetable field with tomatoes, eggplants, broccoli and other greenery. What was I supposed to do next? Where to go from here? I saw a red railway train, a river, streets and buildings. That was my distant yet so familiar Yokohama neighborhood, all appearing in my little dream.
The "Landmark Project III" focuses on the dormant potentials of old bars, restaurants, and other places in Yokohama’s Noge area. A variety of artistic events are currently taking place in the "cage" in front of Sakuragicho station, the "Pio City" station building, and other empty spaces, as well as in the BankART-related Noge Mariya Building "White" that recently opened near Hinodecho station on Ookagawa river.
BankART 1929 website: http://www.bankart1929.com/