Gulliver's Travels

Posted on March 16, 2007 by Ruslan Kulski

When I washed up earlier this year on the shores of Japan, I had the distinct and eerie feeling I had wound up in a Jonathon Swift story. This feeling started growing at the airport, multiplied exponentially on the rapid carrying me into the city and manifested on the local train that took me to my digs. As I looked down the packed carriage I could see nothing but the top of heads. As I stepped off at my station I panicked. I had only brought one worn out pair of shoes.

The ensuing days justified my panic. False modesty aside, I am gifted height-wise. I look down at people most would call tall. But this gift turned to a curse in Japan. At the local department stores I couldn’t buy any clothes that fit. Shoes were objects to be looked at. I disfigured myself walking face-first into doorframes. Small portion sizes meant I was always hungry after meals. After a single month I was dishevelled, hunched, limping and emaciated. I had arrived in Japan a strapping Gulliver and now I resembled a starving Quasimodo.

I began going out only at night, moving from rooftop to rooftop, through the back streets to assuage painful human contact. My salvation arrived in the form of Don Quixote. One night the 24-hour department store that bears the old knights’ name rose out of the darkness before me as does the light of a beacon. I entered and scuttled through the lower levels before I found a garments section of the fourth floor. I was cowering in the back aisles when I brushed against a rack and an XXL shirt fell to the floor before me. So stunned was I that I fell onto the shoe wall behind me dislodging a 32cm NB sneaker that fell onto my already battered skull. It fit perfectly. I was saved. Now I eat double portions while ducking through doorways in my nice fitting clothes. Nothing can be done for the head though.