
The Last Train Home
Nightfall in Shinbashi brings with it rain. A heavy, soaking rain that reflects the colours of neon signage in the puddles now gathered in the streets.
Underneath the sea of umbrellas, salarymen and career women leave their offices for the train station or one of the nearby izakaya just now firing gas heaters and putting out noren.
These narrow laneways have been waiting in quiet anticipation for this hour, and now as they fill, they become boisterous. Gregarious. Opening like a shy wallflower who has had one sake too many.
They take on a musical quality. The percussion of now constant footsteps accompanied by a steady baseline of falling rain as colleagues arrive at their preferred establishments. This rhythm section is punctuated by shouts of greeting from tenchō as customers breach their thresholds. The ever present overhead Yamanote line thunders regularly as trains arrive at Shinbashi Station, causing revellers to shout louder and foundations to vibrate.
Over the next few hours glasses clink and bonds are strengthened. The smell of grilled chicken spills from the yakitori bars as skewer after skewer is ordered, delivered and consumed. Stories of great exploitations are told amongst the requisite drinking games, while at other tables couples prefer quiet conversation. Steam covers the shopfront windows, providing a security blanket, a reason, an excuse, to forget, for a short while, the demands of modern life. They are here because of nomikai, a Japanese expectation of socialising with co-workers.




Amongst the crowds the occasional lone silhouette goes unnoticed. A single umbrella passing by the a-frames or table for one in a corner. With nowhere particular to be but unwilling to go home, they congregate on the fringes. Perhaps hoping for an invitation. Or merely an acknowledgement.
In the forward march of the megacity their lives have been dominated by commitments. From childhood they have been preparing for the next stage. Attending elementary school to be ready for high school, high school to be ready for college, college for working life. Expecting and expected to climb the corporate ladder. Diversions have been kept to a minimum, ignoring what is missing until they can no longer. Now they turn to nomikai to fill the void. Stretching out the night. Making it last as long as they can while those with families start to drift away, thinning the crowd.
The tables for one also persist. Appearing engaged in a book or phone screen while eyes flit around the room at regular intervals, still hoping for a moment human connection.







Finally, in the small hours all that remain are the now drunk groups of co-workers, and the stubborn lonely. It is the time when they must now leave or risk missing the last train home. Bills are paid, coats are gathered and umbrellas are unfurled as people begin an unsteady march to the station. The clattering of overhead trains shoving the modern world back into their conscious with frightening violence.
Some sleep on the ride home, awakening at just the right time to disembark. What waits for them when they open their apartment doors, the laughing, smiling mask of public life now dropped? Falling into bed, they know that tomorrow and the days after will be another version of today. Days of meeting commitments followed by social expectations. Until the last train home.
