Mono no Aware

A Short Story

Friday 10th January 2025

My first post of 2025 is something a little different. A short story.

I wrote “Mono no Aware” in 2021, just as the world was shaking off COVID and vaccines and lockdowns. Strange, unprecedented times which have led to even stranger, unprecedented times, it seems.

I reread the story as this new year was dawning. It has never been published anywhere before. It’s a strange, experimental story, written almost in connected haikus: clipped and sparse. It probably has more in keeping with screenwriting, or perhaps poetry, than prose, but something about it interests me, so I thought I’d share it here. Why not? It’s better than just sitting forgotten and unread on my hard drive, right?

The story is 1,835 words long.

The phrase "Mono no Aware" is a Japanese idiom. It means being aware of the impermanence of things, the melancholia of life. It is the gentle sadness in the state of being, the strangeness of reality. A clear sense of the passing of things, of time, of people, of life.

It is how I feel most of the time. All my books are filled with it.

I set the story at the dawn of the 21st Century. At the end of what has been called the Last Party. That is certainly how the 90s feels to me now. When I was in it, I thought the party was going to last forever, but that’s all a long way from here now.

See - Mono no Aware.

This is clearly a story written by a Gen Xer and concerns, in part, a key Gen X band.

Radiohead’s album Kid A was released on October 2nd, 2000. Like many others, I was disappointed by the album when I first heard it on its day of release. I was expecting a new OK Computer - more fool me - and was not ready for the strange, bleak soundscape of Kid A. Twenty-five years later however the album sounds more prescient and chilling than ever.

It ushered in the new millennium with dystopian electronica and now feels like an eerie foretelling of the technological numbness of our modern world. I think it’s a masterpiece and an album I return to again and again. Far more than Ok Computer and even The Bends for that matter, although those albums are still great.

Anyway, I tried to talk a little about the strange, prescient nature of the album in my story. I hear climate change, AI, loneliness, and a society fraying at the edges in the music on Kid A. Which is where we are now.

2025 is going to get very weird. Buckle up.

Please check out my story “Mono no Aware” below, and if you like it, please share.

(Warning: does contain some shagging, as we used to say in the 90s.)

(KID A Artwork by the brilliant Stanley Donwood)

Mono no Aware

by Andrew David Barker

October 2nd. Uni dorm. A new century. A new record. Saffron’s black dress. Her smile. The shape of her.

My torn Fight Club poster on the wall. Blade Runner over my desk. Blair Witch rental in the machine. Dirty plates. Piles of washing. Half-finished English assignment. Saffron lighting up the spliff. Darkness coming on. Bare trees against the sky. Window overlooking the campus. Lights coming on.

Been into town. Came back on the bus. With Saffron, for the first time. The new vinyl record in a plaster bag. The bag reads: Mercury Sounds: The Future Is Now. And it is. This moment. I’ve waited 3 years. Lifetimes at 20. OK Computer saved my life. Now this. Kid A. Are those ice caps?

Drop the needle. Saffron hands me the spiff. We sit on the bed. My bed. Notice her against me. A piano. Manipulated voice. Everything in its right place. Rain begins to tap at the window. Dark sky. Smudges of light.

Sparse song. Voices upon voices, swirling. Colours in my head. Where are the guitars? Saffron’s legs. I hand her back the spiff. I wait for the tab to kick in. The rain is heavy now.

Kid A. Title track. Still no guitars. Is that Thom? This isn’t Black Star. This isn’t Yes I Am. This isn’t Just. I can feel my hands tingling. Pins and needles. Saffron rolls another spiff. I could never master the art. The song washes over me. I push away a gnawing feeling. I won’t allow it to enter my thoughts. The track ends. The rain beats at the glass. Saffron lights up and the bass kicks in on The National Anthem. This is close. This is them.

Saffron hands me the spiff. She is sweating. She says she has an idea and takes off her dress. She is all that she is and all she will be. She tells me to do the same. I stand and feel the buzz rush through me. I swim in it. We stand. Both in our underwear. I’ve known her for two weeks. It’s the first time I’ve seen her naked. Or semi-naked. Black bra. Pale skin.

We lie on the floor. Side by side. The moored bassline of The National Anthem pounding into us. I can feel it in my chest. We share the spiff, passing it back and forth. I can feel the floor. I see colours. The rain at the window has spectrums.

The National Anthem pounds on. An uproar of brass. A traffic jam of sounds. It’s holding on. Sweat pools between Saffron’s breasts. She grinds her teeth to the beat. Is the floor moving? The squall of The National Anthem shortens my breath. My chest feels tight.

Then it ends. Relief.

The rain. The dark acoustic of How to Disappear Completely. Release. Now here is true beauty. That there. Saffron finds my hand. That’s not me. Makes me close my eyes. I feel myself sink into the floor. Boards becoming liquid. Oh, to disappear completely, wouldn’t that be glorious?

Full dark now. Saffron’s hand keeps me tethered to the world. I’m not here. I reach up out of my hole and turn her head to me. Those eyes. Those strings. This isn’t happening.

I kiss her. Strobe lights and blown speakers. My hand on her skin. Her lower back. She presses against me. I see colours in my head. The strings swirl. They eat away the drums, pull the melody into a vortex. Thom's voice is being dragged down. Then. A bank of light. Thom soars. Breaking free of the vortex. Breathing the air. Feeling for life. I keep my eyes closed. Saffron is taste and smell and touch and female. She presses against me.

Treefingers. Ethereal. Dark wood. Forests of snow. A soft bed of hope. Saffron pulls herself on top of me. She guides me into her. She arches her back. Moving. The soundscape against the autumn rain. I wonder who this girl is. What her childhood was like. Where did she grow up? I wonder if I am her first. I don’t think so. I look up at her. The window behind her. The rain and dark trees. Treefingers, I think. I reach up and touch her breasts, over the bra. I feel the floor taking hold again.

The song ends. I end. She falls on top of me. Breathing against the side of my face.

End of Side 1.

The needle at the innermost groove. Saffron whispers in my ear. This record is melancholia. Saudade. Like life. That's all, she says, then gets off me. She returns to the bed and sits in her underwear, folding her legs beneath her, relighting the spiff. I watch her face in the flickering flame. The October rain is heavier still. I pull myself out of the floor and stand. The needle in the groove. Round and round it goes. My fingers look longer. I walk to the record player, gently lift the needle. Everything is slowed down. Down in the campus, lights are on, but there is nobody around. In the dorms across from me, I see lights on here and there, some movement, a girl smoking at her window, a group of lads laughing loudly, tinnies in hand. I look down and see I am naked. I turn the vinyl over and glance at my Blade Runner poster above the record player. The tech noir city seems to be alive. Lights vivid and real. I wonder if that is what 2019 will really be like. Will I live to see it? I drop the needle on Side 2.

Optimistic. A true night song. An October song. I go and sit next to Saffron. She hands me the spiff. I take it in. Hold it down. I listen to the words. Try to make sense of them. The big fish eats the little one. Those guitars. Is this about capitalism? Evolution? What? In the amoral universe we must try the best we can. Is that it? I take another long drag, then hand it back to Saffron. She tells me she's on the pill. At that moment, I don’t care if she is or she isn’t. I think of my girlfriend back home. The night she told me I would sleep with someone else first chance I got. I think about how I convinced her that I would never do that. I've been at Uni for a month.

I'd really like to help you. The rain eases off. Is earth the prison ship we are floating around on? Are we the dinosaurs? Here for now, but not forever. Is optimism a fallacy? I wonder about where I'll be in ten years. Twenty. I wonder who I'll be.

The rain has stopped. Floaty, mesmerising guitars bring on In Limbo. This is a dream song. A call from deep in the mind. I feel myself sinking again. I look to the window. All that water. Glistening. Dripping from branches. The lights from the campus. I'm lost at sea. The drips run upwards. To the black sky. You're living in a fantasy. My desk bends. Saffron's skin is luminescent. She asks me if I'm okay. I cannot answer her. I float from the bed. To the ceiling. Saffron looks up at me and smiles. Her skin is shimmering light. It burns bright. White out and I'm blind.

Idioteque. My eyes turn to negative. Like images on a roll of film. The beats tap my veins. That beat. Insidious. My head rushes with imagery. Planes fly, buildings fall, stock markets crash, hurricanes tear through shack towns, cities ablaze, hundreds riot and loot and fight and hold their children. I see air strikes and flags burning, flags on the streets, in marches, in windows. I see people staring at tiny screens. Every person. In face masks. They stare at them on buses, on trains, in planes. In waiting rooms. In pubs. In beds, divided by darkness. I see no fuel. I see towns flooding and rivers drying up. I see ice caps melt and fall into the sea. Ice age coming. I see robots that look like us. I see rockets crossing the skies. Afterburn lighting up the night. I see attack ships off the shoulder of Orion.

I see myself driving to a job, wearing a suit I don’t look good in. I see a wife I don’t recognise. Two children. I see my face aged, still trying to fix a smile. A smile I can't feel. This is really happening. This isn’t happening.

I'm on the bed again. I feel for Saffron's hand. She's not there. I open my eyes. Saffron is standing by the window. She’s opened it wide. She has her dress on. She is smoking. The strange rhythm of the Morning Bell. I watch her and wonder what it means to be a young man at the turn of the 21st century. Saffron turns to me and says, You think we’ll remember this. Then adds, everything is bending. And, Do you see all the colours? I stand up and go to her. I stand at her back, hands upon her hips, looking at her neck. She turns her head. Good? she asks. I nod. My eyes feel big. She turns into me. By the window, the branches shake off the rain. We kiss. The clear smell that comes after a night storm. I think we will remember this, I say. Round and round and round and round and round.

I look at Saffron. Everything is going to change, I say. This album is a signal. She just looks at me. The ethereal organ of Motion Picture Soundtrack meets my ears and my heart. Help me get back. Saffron looks down into the campus square. Two girls walk from the dorms across from us. They splash in the puddles, laughing. Light rippling. The song, the album. The comedown from the 90s. The last party. This is the new age. It's not like the movies.

Saffron takes my hand. The harp. This is beautiful, she says. I saw the future, I say. She looks at me. It's a long way from here, she says. I will see you in the next life, sings Thom, and I have to close my eyes to its beautiful sorrow. Then it's done. But not quite. There is one final starburst of ethereal organs and synthesisers. Then the record clicks in the groove. The innermost groove. I feel the 20th century slip away. This is really happening. This isn't happening.

Saffron says, Do you wanna go for a walk? I look out at the night. The storm is moving off; the moon revealed. Halos of light upon dark clouds. I am aware of impermanence. The transience of things. Sure, I say. I turn off the record player. Close the lid.

We walk out into the 21st century.

A.D. Barker © 2021

(Stanley Donwood Artwork)