North Korea and Ballerinas

Today I discovered my invisibility.

There were probably fifty mothers of fifty little ballerinas in the fifth floor lounge, each with additional surplus children and an afternoon of time.  I stepped through their preoccupied masses, barefooted on my way to the shower, and once in the locker room I stepped through more ballerinas of a more experienced age.  They were changing, their belongings strewn everywhere, the shower space being used for half-hearted modesty as they stripped their tights and replaced them with jeans.   I just stood there in the middle of this tiny space and waited.  Completely unnoticed.  Not a passing glance.  I'm just a strange gaikokujin who chose this singular spot in all of HPAC to stare at her phone.  Why should I be anywhere else?  They left me in my invisibility and I showered.

Normally I would enjoy my quiet Saturday lunch with a cup of tea and the newspaper on the fifth floor.  It occurred to me that perhaps I should go elsewhere today.  But then I upgraded my thought, grabbed the newspaper and a borrowed mug, and found a miraculously vacant seat.  I suppose the excitement of whatever was happening had most on their feet, hovering about.

"Bold Threats From North Korea."  I started on the article.  "In an angry response, North Korea said Friday that it was nullifying all agreements of nonaggression and..." Two cute eyes stared at me from a little girl smiling and jumping around on the seat across from me.  Dance leotards were being handed out to mothers waiting to hear their family name called.  And, and, and....ah yes, "and denuclearization with South Korea and was cutting off the North-South hotline."  I got through a few more sentences and then looked up at those cute eyes.  They were now staring at their mother as she sewed a tag with her daughter's name into the new leotard.  She looked backed at those little eyes and smiled, playing a game of faces.

A few more sentences closer to world destruction the young ballerinas emerged from their rehearsal room and were ready to be changed into their new leotards.  Their mothers helped them and ushered them into line to go back in.  A few of them looked at me and my newspaper, seemingly curious about my appearance and perhaps the writing on the page.  Perhaps I'm only visible to a certain age group;  maybe I'm Peter Pan.  

I finished the article.  Being in Japan, it seemed important to me to have some awareness of these things.  But who can say?  If we don't see it, is it there?