Fragments EN

I was walking through Madrid when a light beige building stopped me. A sign out front read: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

After a hiatus of several years, I recently returned to coding, and the experience caught me off guard. I discovered a striking resonance between programming and fiction writing — two disciplines I had long considered to be at opposite poles of human endeavor.

“It really comes down to whether you find it bothersome,” the tinnitus specialist says, not even glancing at my left ear.

The day after arriving in Phnom Penh, my plans — the whole reason for the trip — fell through. With nothing left to do and having been to this city many times before, I had no interest in hitting the usual tourist spots. Besides, we were in the thick of the rainy season.

My scheduled flight was canceled due to heavy snow. The aircraft never appeared at the gate, and announcements calmly relayed the facts.

The British magazine The Economist publishes an annual “Big Mac Index.” It compares the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac across roughly 55 cities worldwide, measuring each country’s economic strength and currency value.

A couple I know lives in northern Tohoku, and every few years, I drop in on them. Back when I was based in Tokyo, I’d take the Tohoku Shinkansen or the expressway and head steadily north.

The moment the ferry crossing the western end of the Mediterranean pulled away from the wharf on Spain’s southern edge, I felt something slip away. Not the sway of the vessel — something finer than that.

As the eastbound Doto Expressway approached the Minami Furano area, the snowfall intensified. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel slightly, thinking this was only natural for November in the mountains.

Whenever people hear about the nightlife districts scattered across the world, they tend to develop fantasies alongside a vague desire: “I should visit someday.” I’m no exception.