Juggling

After having a lovely time with Shoko, I felt distraught it had to end. And when the day came to see her off at the bus station, it was all I could do to choke back the tears. I heard a clock ticking down to her imminent departure to Hong Kong, and time was running out. As her bus drove off towards Kobe, I needed a distraction otherwise I would allow myself to wallow in self-pity whilst wearing nothing but underpants back at my flat. I called up Martin and asked what he was up to.
“I’m off to practise some juggling with a circus troupe,” he said. “Wanna come?”
I thought for a moment. Circuses have never appealed to me. Clowns terrify me, the animals are treated poorly and the show tunes are so terrible that I was always prepared to wrench off my ears when I was a kid. But it was either go along with Martin or blub in my underpants all day.
“Let’s juggle!” I said.


Martin told me during the drive to Gifu that there was going to be a circus festival soon, and he had volunteered to help. I wasn’t sure how I could be of service to the troupe. I could do a fine pirate-jig on the spot, but that was it.
When we entered the rural town of Gifu we were surprised to find it deserted. The only activity I saw in the place was of the local farmers scratching their asses as they assessed their crops.
The rehearsals for the festival took place on the campus of a dental university. This was a shame because I was hoping the event would take place at a Clown College. I got over my disappointment and entered the gym that hosted the jugglers.
There were about 10 of them in the room, and they were delighting each other with their juggling skills.


Martin was quick to ingratiate himself with the group as he picked up a set of juggling balls and practised his juggling technique. I, however, was lacking in juggling skills, so I contented myself with lumbering around the gym annoying the others. I had my bulky Nikon camera slung around my neck, so some of the jugglers made some dramatic poses as I crept up and took snaps of them. I was treated with a baffling degree of respect. I reasoned that some of them believed that I was a professional photographer for some juggling magazine - no doubt called Tossers.
The illusion that I was of some relevance was soon shattered when a toothy, overweight chap, who looked like a warthog, came waddling towards me demanding I delete the picture I took of him balancing a pole on his colossal nose. He was bellowing at me in Japanese so David, a middle-aged American teacher, who organized the event, translated his outburst.
Apparently Mr. Warthog never allows his image to be used in public and didn't want his picture appearing in a magazine. I could understand why with a face like his but I reassured him that I didn't belong to a magazine, I was merely an amateur. He suddenly looked at me with snooty scorn and turned his already upturned nose up at me and walked away with a grunt. I intend to comply with his demands, but if I find out that Warthog Monthly is holding a photography competition, then I will ignore his demands and publish his image.
The others soon understood I was an amateur and treated me as such. Each attempt to take a snap of a juggler always concluded with them breaking their juggling concentration, dropping their balls and shooting me a loathing look.
Instead of incurring the jugglers' wrath further, I decided to join in.
I looked over at the pile of circus apparatus in the corner of the room and dejectedly walked over to find suitable things to play with. I tried to juggle three balls at once, but ended up throwing one of the balls into the eye-socket of David's Japanese wife. I tried juggling with two balls, but ended up throwing one of the balls into David's crotch. I then tried juggling with one ball. After hitting someone in the mouth with this ball, I decided juggling wasn't for me and picked up a multi-coloured flag. I had seen two people waving this around moments earlier and it looked mildly interesting. But when I tried to fling the flag around me, it was a disaster because I accidentally ensconced myself inside the flag, creating a colourful cocoon which nearly suffocated me.
I went back to basics and picked up a small plastic hoop, and started to twirl it around my arm. Some people looked at me with horror.
"You gotta start somewhere," I said.
After one hour of this twirling I was bored, so Martin and I went to a nearby Chinese restaurant promising David we would return in one hour. He A-OKed us and we left the campus.
The food at the restaurant was strange and didn't taste like Chinese cuisine. It tasted like something scrapped off at the bottom of a slop-bucket. But it was the first piece of food I had eaten all day, so taste took secondary importance. I just wanted some solids in my stomach.
This solid soon melted into a slushy mess and I immediately had to abort to the toilet. I remained there for the next twenty minutes trying to extract the gunk I ate from my bowels. Even when we were back on campus, I had to make my excuses to the juggling gang and spend most of the afternoon hugging the toilet seat as I expunged the vile Chinese cuisine by all means necessary.
I'm sure the jugglers missed me.