平成

Heisei · 1989–2019 · A day recalled

Heisei 1 — 1989 [Heisei 1, January 8]
The cherry trees along the Meguro River were still in bloom when the market closed above 38,000.①
An afternoon of lacquered wood, of televised ceremony, of a new name for a new reign.
cf. Showa 64, terminal diagnosis, fig. 1
rice paddies | afternoon | the sound of a train②
1991
The bubble had not burst so much as begun, quietly, to exhale — long, slow, almost inaudible.
p. 003
Heisei 7 — 1995 see also: Kobe, January 17
Heisei 7. A winter of fluorescent light and vending machine hum.③

On Stagnation.

It is possible, the author wrote, that a nation can mistake the stillness of an afternoon for the stillness of a country, and, in mistaking it, lose thirty years to the quiet confusion of a light that refuses to fail and a shadow that refuses to lengthen.

— Tokyo, 1997. pp. 47–52

cf. economic white paper, 1997
cf. Murakami, H. — ‘the wind-up bird chronicle’ — Heisei 6, original publication
The ochre hour arrives earlier each year. Umber at the edges. A television left on in an empty room.
1999
the long hallway — fluorescent — no one at the desk — the kettle still warm④
p. 047
Heisei 13 — 2001 [the year of the quiet persimmons]

late summer —

the train to Morioka

empty of grief⑤

Tokyo, 2003. pp. 47–52. Translated from the original, with annotations.
see also: rural depopulation, fig. 7

rice paddies

afternoon

the sound of a train

The lost decade was not lost so much as misremembered — reassembled later from photographs that had themselves begun to yellow at the edges.
2005

persimmon tree —

the neighbor’s television

through the shoji⑥

cicadas | the hum of an air conditioner | the smell of tatami after rain
cf. Ozu, Y. — late works, color films
We had begun, without noticing, to speak of the country in the past tense.
p. 128
Heisei 20 — 2008 cf. Lehman collapse, September — fig. 12

a letter found pressed between pages —

the handwriting no longer legible

the date smudged, Heisei 21 or perhaps 22⑦

pp. 204–207: ‘the lost decade was not lost so much as misremembered’
[margin, in pencil]: “still true”
March 11. Heisei 23. The sea exceeded its maps.⑧

Annotation, in another hand.

The long afternoon of a country is not mourned all at once. It is mourned in the interval between one kettle boiling and the next.

— translator’s note, 2012

2013
the tape has been played too many times — the tracking drifts — the colors bleed
A home video: a child running along a seawall. The seawall, later, is no longer there.
[footnote lost — page torn]
Heisei 26. The afternoon refuses to end.⑨
p. 207
Heisei 27 — 2015
the tape is nearly worn through — characters missing — wo ds split by sc n lines
[illegible — faded]
Heisei 30. The last cherry trees. The last vending machine. The last afternoon.
2019
April 30. The reign ends at midnight.
平成

終

The tape runs out.

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