Free Hugs in the Land of Moving Sidewalks

by Ken Brady

So what if when the trapdoor opens the world is never the same. A tiny room with just a 3 by 2 meter window. You don’t know where or when you are, but what you can’t figure out from signage and facial features is irrelevant.

Could be a screen, resolution being what it is these days. Don’t know if it’s the real world or if there even is a real world anymore. Not that the real world seemed real last time you checked.

Kneel under the 3×2. Put your hands in the wall-mounted silicone gloves, thick and squishy. A momentary disconnect when your arms extend through the wall, weird biofeedback tingle in your fingertips. Relax into the moment, searching the world outside for something – anything – to connect with. Vehicle lights are a blur of red and white blood cells. People stream by. Everything slows, masses become individuals. Contrast suddenly is.

Pop your gloved knuckles so loudly the sound echoes. Your eyes dart around. Salarymen, schoolgirls. Two seconds of decoding signs confirm it’s Japan. It’s like watching a kaitenzushi, that great conveyor of raw fish, rotate round (singing “the wheels of fish go round and round, round and round…”) and round. So many choices. Gotta start with one.

An office lady, thumbs racing over a phone keypad. Reach out and slap her tight-skirted ass. She stops, startled, looks around, sees nothing, shrugs it off, keeps going, dreams about it that night, imagines her long-ago high school English teacher, smiles, sleeps well. You relish in the afterglow of first love.

A stuck up blond Russian model type, hair sculpted with so much gel you don’t know how she holds her head up. Ruffle her hair and splay it out in all directions. She doesn’t look around, only screams, runs directly into the nearest convenience store, hides her head, remembers losing her metro pass in Moscow, struggling home in rain, beatings that followed, running away, drowning herself in another country and culture. You keep the adrenaline and shame.

A salaryman, staggering, tie loose, face red, combover uncombed over, cheap suit unruffled thanks to permanent miracle of polyester. You wrap your arms around him and hold him fast. He tries to pull away from the hug, eyes cast down, school bullies, failed diets, fear, the one girl who took pity on him in university. You let go and he pulls away, almost reluctantly, folds himself into the crowd and gives in to the familiar feeling of security, safety, anonymity. You’ll take those too.

Safety in anonymity in numbers in distance: for you this is everything. You are perfectly safe, yet alone. Trade-off. Weak smile.

You pull your hands from the gloves, slink down the ladder and close the trapdoor, sure to latch it good and tight, curl up, dream of connecting, in some small way, with someone, anyone, in any version of reality.

It’s enough for now.

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