After returning to Japan, I wrote a script based on the prompt ‘If I could return to the situation I regret, what would I like to say now?’ This is my script for the man I ignored on the street on 17th March 2020.
‘Hi, I am leaving London tomorrow to return to my country for the time being, so I’m giving you the change I have now. This is a very difficult time for everyone. I pray everything will be all right soon. Please take care. I am not even sure this is the right phrase for you because, you know, I can tell you are in a difficult position to keep safe and take care of yourself. I feel sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. And please forgive me for talking of my feelings all of a sudden like this. Good-bye.’
If I could meet him on the street again, at that moment, I would like to talk to him instead of passing by without a word. I memorised my script and filmed myself with my iPhone7+ at a park in front of Tokyo Bay. Seaside is a symbolic place where is associated with foreign countries. I started saying my script, imagining the man in a blue sleeping bag on the cloudy, cold March afternoon. I changed my script following my mood. It was a strange feeling: I imagined that I was talking to the man but, at the same time, I felt that I was talking to myself in Japan in the present, the other myself in London in the past, the people I met at the day shelter for homeless people in London and the homeless people I met on the Overground and streets.
This monodrama became a part of how I experienced what I did and what I can potentially do. While it may not have changed our society fundamentally, it will affect my decision-making in the future.