Joji's Mission

Out in the wild lands of the material world, no two things genuinely connect by association. But Joji believes the mind can do otherwise, can make it so. Morning coffee steaming at the window. He holds the mug to light. Ghost-wisp-tendrils not unlike hair. But look, he thinks so. So the comparison has been accomplished, leaving behind not a single visible trace. Split second, happened, behind his eyes, like a migraine. These are very private acts, these comparisons. Ephemeral. Unless he wrote them down, and maybe not even then, they’d vanish like drizzles of rain on a pond. Since Joji has a sentimental regard for fragile phenomena, he has long kept a log of such visions in a series of notebooks. Begun on a whim when he was nineteen. 
That was over thirty years ago. There, suddenly, no sooner does this realization occur to him than an image of a young man follows. He’s sitting at a makeshift desk built from cinderblocks and a wooden door. A clay flask rests by his right hand. It arrived by mail earlier that morning, a package sent from a friend in Portland. The flask filled with homemade Kahlua. Joji’s so green about liquor he doesn’t know this is meant to be mixed with milk. He drinks it straight, shocked by the force of the flavor. Scene complete. Time retracts back into present moment. Had he really been that boy once? He had, never to be that boy again. Instead here with coffee in hand imagining himself as a fresh unrealized future. So go the zigzag parlays of the mind, wandering.
Should we mention one of Joji’s current fascinations? He’s very excited this morning. Please remember, from the look of his face none might register the exact dimensions of his excitement. Merely a guy with bare feet propped on a windowsill, hands cradling the coffee. He’s recently come into awareness there’s a radiant being among the human scene, living somewhere in Japan (which island? which city, town? what prefecture?). The radiant being in question is Katsuyoshi Takenaka. A young man, well, more a middle-aged young man who found his calling some time ago after wandering into an artist’s studio for people with disabilities. His radiance is very exclusive in its interests. Over and over and again, it takes pen in hand to meticulously draw networks of skeins on paper. When finished they convey a consummate striking image: towers of various shapes and height, some fully visible, others obscured by clouds of mist. Such busy kinetic excitement looking at these towers of Takenaka! Just a day before, Joji had been unaware they had existed. 
These were not ivory towers. They were seemingly made of chicken wire. There were dozens to choose from, too many, Joji was resigned to appreciate them all equally until he flipped through the small book which had brought him the good news of Katsuyoshi Takenaka’s existence. Yes, it was possible, he could claim a favorite. An outlier among his parade of towers, page after page. Inversion of his established habit, black wires on white paper. Against a solid black background, white lines wriggled and interbraided into a fantastical construction, acrylic paint and marker. This our radiant being titled, as matter-of-fact counterpoint to the farfetched elegance of his vision, Tower Series II. This was too good, this was plenty. More than enough for one day!
As was usually the case, soon as Joji proclaimed he’d had enough, fate would complicate the situation, send him another signal from beyond his quiet window. Toes touching the chill of winter on window glass, the sensation of toes were added to these visions of towers. Then, at random, a song began playing in his head. One he’d first heard earlier that morning lying in bed. As a humble servant to the cosmos, its plentitude of coordinates and reference points, he had long observed the practice of searching out a song he’d never heard before, to listen to while he wrested himself awake. Earlier, before he’d made coffee a reality, he’d chosen one at random, sinning against working musicians everywhere by consorting with an algorithm on his phone. A nearly fourteen minute song from 1986, of all years, an Algerian chanteuse living in Egypt, depicted in digital copy of the album cover resplendent with big 80s hair. Warda Al-Jazairia, stage name “Warda”. The song one of her most famous, “Batwanes Beek”. Took a few minutes to gather and unfold, orchestral strings and cheesy synth and traditional live percussion. Whimsical, mysterious, edging sexiness in a goofy way. This version of Warda had died many, many years before, followed by the woman herself more recently, but she was elegant and alive again, slipping melodic lines through the music. 
Joji rebuilt the towers of Takenaka in his mind as he listened. Here was a new relation, Ms. Warda and Mr. Takenaka. A “Wardanaka” of his own making, hybrid in nature, as he often felt himself most days. Was this the reason he’d been created? Carried to term half a century ago, birthed, raised, pushed through adolescence into adulthood and confused most of the way? To provide occasion for a duet between two figures more than likely unaware of the other and more than likely to remain so. What a privilege to be the one to introduce them! A fresh link between vibrancies.
Was this his mission, Joji wondered. To create conversations between good things of this world, secretly his but also everyone’s? It took so little effort but did not happen naturally. Nature merely evolved such beings, Takenakas and Wardas, so by happenstance he might join them.