Tohiro.

Tohiro Makimoro

Tohiro was the only child of Yorihashi and Tumi Makimoro, his family had an excellent reputation in the business world and were renowned for their dedication to their work. Yorihashi was a CEO and Tumi a CFO. This success in business was what formed Tohiro’s identity before he was even born, everything was dedication to the family name and dedication to the institution.

Tohiro’s life could be reduced to a set of simple numbers:

21 120 Hours spent at school over 11 years.

5 500 Hours spent with extracurricular activities.

18 000 Hours spent on homework and study.

Tohiro was number 08796789421 in the Japanese education database.

Age 17

657896 – His bus pass number

799 000 – The number of characters submitted in assessment tasks.

900 000 the characters written in class.

7472- His pin number for his bank account

090 987 678 543- Phone number (Mobile)

78kg

250 000 000 Yen set aside in his trust fund

30GB used for research

10GB used for leisure

1095 hours of sleep per year.

While these numbers detail numerous aspects of Tohiro’s life they tell us very little about him. But there is very little to know about him.

One figure dictated aspects of Tohiro’s life more than any other. ‘’There are 1 Billion Chinese people that are competing for your job. Shape up, you don’t have the privilege of an American citizenship’’

Tokyo was an enormous and sensory city, waves of light bathed every corner and the cacophony of insomnia and conformity penetrated every inch of concrete and steel, reverberating back to give a harmonious ‘’hummmmmmmmm.’’ The faces of the city were not so loud, millions of people going about their daily business, grunting and bowing, exchanging pleasantries and quick ‘’Konichiwas’’, completely indistinguishable. Trains ripped past at astounding speeds while traffic trickled like the slowly coagulated blood of a dying beast, everything seemed to have an opposite. Alley ways emitted powerful wafts of ammonia from last night’s drunken urination, gallons of sake were drunk each night in the hope of seducing a foreign investor.

Soft concrete blues were banished from the streets with the domineering towers of yellow arches that were on every street corner or even the abstract mermaid that promised gigantic drinks people like to be seen with. Bill boards were on a campaign, kill or be killed, lights shot out like cannons in a futile attempt to strike each other from their gargoyle’s perch, occasional hits were met with electronic sound as a lure.

Tohiro remembers when he was little his father told him a story, one day a mouse tickled the back of a monkey, the monkey ignored it and slept on. The mouse did this for 1000 more nights. Every night he pressed harder, and harder, the monkey felt less and less. On the 1001st night the mouse started to chew, he chewed deeper and deeper until he came out the other side and the monkey was dead. The mouse stopped the monkey from feeling and feeling nothing became normal. Tohiro was the monkey and Tokyo the mouse.

Tohiro had to change before the mouse pressed deeper; he bought a suit and pants, Burberry metallic white. It was the most tasteless thing he could imagine but lit up in the sun like a thousand diamonds. It was time for a show.

The plans were written on Facebook, in code so the enemy couldn’t stop him. ‘’Tomorrow I will fly. Higher than anyone has before and yet so much lower’’, with this done he started his pilgrimage. The SkyTree was a lattice style building that rose higher than any other in Tokyo, in addition to height it boasted over 100 powerful lights bathed it’s shaft in more light than seemed to come from the sun. Tohiro got in the elevator, pressed the button and went up. For forever, forever and a day he went up. Once on the roof he lit a cigarette and embraced the acrid smoke as the first testament to his liberation, 8 drags of indulgence. He pulled out his iPhone and called the news stations to summon his audience and they came faster than he could predict, within the hour helicopters threw light upon him and there were hundreds of people, in buildings, on the street. And then he jumped.

Tohiro fell through the sea of light in pure euphoria, for once in his life he felt something, for once in his life he mattered. His white suit shimmered like the most beautiful of gems, every lash of the helicopter light refracted and shot off him, he was at war with a city and he was winning. He had a face, he yelled and he had a voice, he was not the Makimoro boy, he was Tohiro.