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A strap on the train.
The handle of a bag.
A paper coffee cup.
An elevator button, a pen, a mouse, a phone.
Chopsticks over a set lunch.
The phone, again.
At night, before the bath, I open my fingers, and the knuckles follow a moment late.
Fine white lines run across the backs of my hands.
Hands that have been holding on to something all day.
To my face, I have given time every night.
One serum, settled on, pressed in with my palms, cupping my face.
The hands themselves get whatever is left, rubbed onto their backs, and that is all.
Perhaps the hands come last because the hands are always working.
While they hold on, no one looks at them.
Maybe the season gets in first where no one is looking.
My mother’s hands were always holding something, too.
A kitchen knife, a clothespin, the handlebars of her bicycle.
I can hardly remember seeing her hands with nothing in them.
Only for the moment she wiped them, wet, on her apron.
On my lunch break, I bought a small tube of hand cream.
It is still sealed, at the bottom of my bag.
My days were much the same as my hands.
Filled with something from morning to night.
When five free minutes do turn up, my fingers are already reaching for the phone.
On the way home from work, I got off at Kannai.
I am slowly getting used to renting a table on my own.
That night, I kept watching the left hand of the person at the next table.
The index finger curled to meet the tip of the thumb, making a small loop.
The cue slid through that loop, forward and back, perfectly straight.
With every stroke, only the right arm moved.
The left hand stayed where it lay on the table, not moving at all.
I try it myself, curling my index finger.
The loop is too tight.
The cue catches on my finger and stops.
I loosen it, and now the tip wobbles.
Just enough space for the cue to pass through.
I can’t seem to make it.
I glance down. My fingernails are digging into the cloth.
I had been trying to grab hold of the table.
I let go of the tension.
I let my palm rest on the table.
Only the loop of my index finger stays.
The cue slips through, clean.
The cue ball rolls away, straight.
My right hand made the stroke. My eyes followed the ball.
My left hand only stayed there, the whole time.
And still, the shot set out from that hand.
On the table, my left hand alone was holding nothing at all.
Out of the bath, I press my usual serum into my cheeks.
Then I take the hand cream from the bottom of my bag and break the seal.
Onto the backs of my hands.
Between my fingers.
Into each knuckle, one by one.
I work it in, without hurrying.
When I am done, I lay both hands on my knees.
Palms up.
The phone stays face down beside the sink.
My fingers start, on their own, to form a small loop, then let it go.
I stayed like that for five minutes or so.
Space, it turned out, is something you make with your hands.
Why not make pool your next beauty habit?
👉 I haven’t changed a thing.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
👉 Billiards resources from Japan and around the world, organized by purpose: Billiards in Depth (latest updated hourly)
