Chapter 13. The Back That Carries

I

A muggy Thursday in a gap of the rainy season.

Three in the afternoon. The studio’s automatic door slid open. The man who came in was tall. Navy work clothes. Brown safety boots. A white towel around his neck. A sunburned face, deep lines at the eyes, close-cropped hair.

“Um — I heard you could talk to someone here about one’s body —”

The voice was low, a little rough. The polite speech did not sit easily in his mouth.

“Yes. Welcome to Life Compass.”

I stood up from the counter. Sono, who covered reception, was off today. It was only me.

The man hesitated in the entrance. He looked as if he were unsure whether to come up in his shoes.

“Please, go ahead. Slippers, here.”

“Sorry.”

The man fitted his large feet into the slippers and came to the counter with a stiff stride. He was leaning his upper body forward, protecting his low back; at every step he unloaded his weight toward the right hip. He was not dragging the leg. But he was clearly guarding the back.

“Himuro.” I pointed at my name badge. “Seri.”

“Hayakawa. Kenta. Thirty-eight.”

Before he sat down, Kenta put a hand on his low back. The hand pressed around the pelvis, checking.

“Is your back hurting.”

”…Yeah. Well.”

Kenta rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly.

“It hurts whether I’m still or moving. Mornings are the worst. It takes me five minutes to get out of the futon.”

“Five minutes.”

“Every day. I drag myself up somehow, go to work, run the site, and by the time I get home I can’t move.”

Kenta took a cigarette and lighter out of his work clothes and set them on the table.

“I went to an orthopaedic clinic. They took an X-ray, said the bones were fine. Gave me a patch and ran electricity through me. It didn’t get better. The bone-setter’s massage helps for a while, but the next morning it’s the same.”

“Your work?”

“Construction. Site foreman. There are times I’m hauling steel beams and materials, and times I’m on my feet all day. Lately there’s more desk work with drawings. Half moving, half sitting — they tell me that’s the worst for it.”

Kenta broke off there. He looked at his big hands on his knees.

“My wife told me to come. You’ll break your body — go to this place.”

“Your wife said so.”

“Three kids. The youngest is two. Lately I can’t pick her up. The back gives out.”

Behind those words was something else. A pause he didn’t fill. He said no more. But that silence was heavier than the pain.

“All right.” I said. “Kenta-san. Would you give me a little of your time. There’s a special kind of measuring I can do.”

“Special.”

“Different from an ordinary measurement. I think I can show you your body three-dimensionally. But I need your permission. It’s your body’s story.”

Kenta looked me in the eye. Sunburned, direct eyes.

“Story, you say.”

“I can’t explain very well right now. But I think you’ll understand when you see it.”

I was repeating the same words I had said to Misaki.

Kenta was quiet a moment.

“You do say strange things.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But all right. The one in pain is me, anyway.”

Kenta stood. The way he stood was hard to watch. He pressed a hand on his knee and raised his back in three careful stages. What would have been an instant for a young body, done with care.

II

The Circle, below.

Kenta stood at the centre. He had taken off the top of his work clothes and was in a tank top. The shoulders were broad. The arms were thick, sunburned. But the belly sat forward. He said that when he lay on his back, two fists fit into the gap beneath his low back. That was an anterior pelvic tilt — lordosis.

“Please close your eyes.”

“Yes.”

Kenta closed his eyes. I stood at the edge of the circle and started Contura.

Contura. The body tells the story of you.

“Coh.”

“Mm. I’ll read.”

The light ran.

Pale blue particles bled out from the screen, swelled in the cool basement air, spread, and fell onto the circle where Kenta stood, soft as snow.

And the particles began to trace the surface of his body.

From the shoulders to the back. The broad ridges of back muscle. And then — the low back.

When the light reached the low back, I held my breath.

Kenta’s low back. There the light hung. Particles swirled, circling the curve of the lumbar region again and again, as if searching. The vertebrae curved forward. The muscles plastered there were hard. The light drew the hardness honestly. The outline line at the low back seemed to shudder, to stall. As if the body there alone were wearing armour.

Hip. The light circled round the hip and stopped again. The right hip and the left hip were differently shaped. The right was higher. The left sat a little lower. Bias of centre of gravity. The trace of years of loading weight onto the right leg.

The light returned upward. Neck. Head.

Kenta’s head sat forward. The neck was clearly forward of the line of his shoulders. The head floated in front. As if peering at something. Or as if holding something out in front.

The light completed its circuit and gathered into a single line in the air.

Kenta’s shape stood up.

A pale blue luminous body stood at the side of the solid Kenta.

“May I open my eyes.”

“Yes.”

Kenta opened them. Looked at his own outline. Stepped back a little.

”…This is me.”

“Your body.”

The luminous body wore no clothes. But a human form of outline. Broad shoulders. Thick arms. A belly thrust forward. And a low back, deeply arched.

Kenta walked round his own outline. Half a step at a time, on the circle. Round the back.

”…My back — it’s really arched. I never noticed.”

“Yes. The lumbar vertebrae curve forward. The lumbar extensors are pulled taut, locked. And —”

I chose my words.

“Your right hip sits higher than the left. Your centre of gravity has gone right. At the site, when you’re standing long — do you unconsciously put your weight on the right leg?”

Kenta looked slightly startled.

“Now you mention it. There are a lot of times I’m leaning on the right.”

“Also — your head is forward. Your neck is forward of your shoulders. It’s called forward head posture.”

“Forward head.”

“The habit that comes from long hours looking down at work. Drawings. A device.”

Kenta murmured drawings.

III

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice resonated behind my temples.

“Read the front-to-back balance.”

I stepped to the side of the outline.

Seen exactly from the side, the forward-back bias of Kenta’s centre of gravity surfaced clearly. The line that ought to drop almost straight down — from the hole of the ear through the shoulder, the side of the pelvis, the knee, the ankle — was drawing a wave. From the ear hole, slightly in front of the shoulder. The lumbar, still further forward. Behind the hip. Slightly behind the knee.

The body was drawing an S. Heavy head put forward; to support it, the low back arched; the hips thrust back; the knees adjusted. The classic posture of an anterior pelvic tilt.

“There’s muscular bias too,” Coh said. “Lumbar extensors, hypertonic. Gluteal group, weakened. Abdominal group, dysfunctional. It’s the arrangement for supporting the body by arching the back. A body that has spent years carrying heavy things, standing, leading others.”

Coh continued quietly.

“The height of the right hip comes from tension in the right gluteus medius. The habit of standing on the right leg as the axis. At the site, when you stop and give orders — unconsciously, you centre on the right. And — the shoulders. Your right shoulder is forward. Is there something you’re constantly supporting with your right arm?”

Kenta’s throat moved.

”…My tool box. I carry it — on the right. Always.”

“And the left?”

“Left is free, or — holding drawings.”

“The weight riding on the right continuously has rolled the right shoulder forward and hiked the right hip. The left-right asymmetry comes from there.”

Numbers began to surface.

Shoulder width 47 Chest 102 Waist 91 Hip 99 Thigh 58

And, one more.

Front-back balance +23 points

Twenty-three points forward. Centre of gravity tilted forward.

Kenta looked at the numbers and his face clouded.

”…Waist ninety-one. Bigger than at my last health check.”

“Kenta-san.” I said. “These numbers aren’t for blaming you. They’re for reading how your body has lived.”

Kenta went quiet.

”…Reading, you say.”

“What your body is saying. I’ll translate. — Coh.”

“Ah. I’ll read.”

The numbers in the air burst at once into particles. Shoulder, chest, waist, hip, thigh, front-back balance — every figure broke into light, swirled, gathered into a single line, and became letters.

Your back arched itself to support someone. Now support yourself as well.

The basement air stopped.

IV

Kenta stared at those words.

“To support — someone.”

He said it as if tasting it.

“At the site, I’m holding up the young ones. When a kid makes a mistake, I take it. If there’s trouble with a client, I go out. If the boss makes an impossible demand, I do it. Because that’s what a foreman is. Then I get home — wife, kids. The older two have school events. The little one, two years old, cries at night.”

Kenta cut off there.

“If I go down, it’s over. So there’s no time to rest.”

The words dropped into the cool basement air.

”…Is that why my back arched.”

Kenta looked down at the low back of his luminous outline. The deeply curved lumbar. The taut extensors.

“To go forward, I arched my back. I —”

“Yes. The body makes a shape of whatever the heart is carrying. You have been trying to support, to step forward. That posture is scored into your low back.”

Kenta bit his lip. The cords on his sunburned cheek moved.

“My wife told me. You come home too late. The kids are already asleep. But it’s work. I can’t just leave the site —”

”…”

“And honestly — even when I’m home I can’t pick up the kids. Because of the back. The two-year-old comes over going hold you, hold you, and — I turn my back on her. I say sorry.”

Kenta’s voice shook a little. A rough man’s voice.

“She saw that, and cried. My wife. I’m lonely too, she said. You’re always work, work. But — she said, I’m not angry. I’m afraid. Afraid that you’re in pain.”

Kenta looked down.

I stood silently beside him.

Pain is a signal, Coh had said once. The body crying I’m at the limit. Not a number. The body’s own voice. Kenta’s low back was arched, locked, screaming. Let me rest now.

“Kenta-san.”

”…Yes.”

“The pain in your back is the body crying I’m at the limit. The final warning before something breaks. If it isn’t heard — this time, it really will break.”

Kenta raised his face.

”…What happens if it breaks.”

“At worst, surgery. If a lumbar disc bulges out and crushes a nerve — your legs may stop moving.”

Kenta’s eyes wavered.

“Legs stop moving.”

“Stopping that from happening is the work of now. — There are things we can do.”

V

I moved my fingers in front of the outline.

“First, we wake the glutes. When the back is arched, the hips don’t fire. So the back takes all the load. Training the hips alone will reduce the load on the low back considerably.”

“The hips. You mean the glutes. The buttocks.”

“Yes. Bridges. Squats. From easy ones.”

“Then — stretching the lumbar extensors. The muscle that’s hard and contracted now, we lengthen slowly. For people with an arched back, curling the body the opposite way works.”

“Curling.”

“And posture adjustment. When you stand, when you sit — don’t arch the back. Draw the abdomen lightly in and stand the pelvis up. Just that, and it changes.”

Kenta laid a hand on his own low back.

”…I’ll try. Are there ones I can do at the site?”

“There are. I’ll teach you a few you can do standing.”

“Please.”

Kenta’s voice grew a shade stronger. Rough, but facing forward.

“However.” I said. “At the root of it all is one thing.”

“One thing.”

“Rest. Resting the body. Your body now isn’t getting enough rest. However much we train the muscle, fix the posture — without rest, the pain will come back.”

Kenta was quiet.

”…Rest, huh.”

“Yes.”

“You’re telling me to cut my work in half?”

“No. Only — could you come home a little earlier? One hour would be enough. Before the children sleep. That hour is necessary — for your body, and for your family.”

Kenta looked at the ceiling. The basement bulb lit his sunburned face.

“One hour. The boss would laugh.”

“Let him laugh. If you wreck your back, laughing won’t cover it.”

Kenta laughed a little. A laugh that held pain.

”—— Right.”

The Arch of One Who Bears

Above the outline, the particles began to gather.

“The reading has come full.” Coh’s voice.

A pillar of light stood up and opened at the crown of the outline like a flower. Letters floated up.

The Arch of One Who Bears

Kenta looked up at the phrase.

“The Arch of — One Who Bears.”

“The Title of your outline.” I said. “It appears when the body’s story reaches a turning. — The Arch of One Who Bears.”

Kenta looked at those words. For a long time.

By and by the luminous outline thinned, became particles, and dissolved into the air. The letters of the Title brightened once, star-like, and went out.

The silence of the basement returned.

VI

After the reading Kenta stepped down from the circle. The shadow of pain was still on his face. But the expression was softer than when he’d come in.

“Himuro-san.”

“Yes.”

“I left this alone for a long time. The bad back — I thought it was just how it is. It’s work. But seeing the me made of light — I didn’t know it was that arched.”

“Yes.”

“To support someone, it arched. When you said that, I understood, for the first time. I’d been holding on. And the body — had been holding on too.”

Kenta took his phone out of his pocket.

”…Could I phone my wife.”

“Of course.”

Kenta stepped a little away and made the call. I kept my distance. But Kenta’s voice was low and carried.

”…It’s me. Yeah. I’m at the studio now. Got measured. — Yeah, not bad. The things she said were strange. — No, not in a bad way. — From tomorrow, I’ll come home a little earlier. While the kids are still up. I don’t know if I’ll be able to pick up the little one yet. But — bit by bit. — Yeah. …Yeah. Sorry. — Yeah.”

When he hung up, Kenta’s back was slightly rounder. The back that had been pulled taut and arched. Slightly, it had loosened.

Kenta turned round. His eyes were a little red.

“Himuro-san. Thank you.”

“I only read.”

“That was enough. — Tomorrow, at the site, I’ll do the hips thing. Bridges, was it.”

“Yes. I’ll teach you. Slowly.”

Kenta put on his work top and stepped into his safety boots. The motion of standing was a little faster than before. Still in pain, surely. But the three stages had become two.

The automatic door opened. The Aoyama afternoon light came in. Kenta walked out without looking back. But his stride was, a shade, straighter than when he’d come.

VII

Alone, below.

I looked at the air over the circle. Where the luminous outline had been. But it still felt as if Kenta’s body were there. The arched low back. The forward head. The locked extensors. The right-biased hip.

Pain.

I had not, until now, thought much about pain. As a trainer I had treated pain as a bad thing. A thing to be removed. Noise that could not be captured in numbers.

But the pain in Kenta’s back was not noise. It was the body’s voice. The voice crying I’m at the limit. The body’s last resort for defending itself. Pain, too, is part of the body’s story.

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice.

”…What.”

“A Reader reads pain too. Not as a mere unpleasant sensation. As what the body is crying for. That is the Reader’s work.”

“Mm.”

“However.” Coh lowered his voice. “The Reader is not a doctor. Fractures, slipped discs — those are the doctor’s region. The Reader stands on this side of that line. She translates the body’s words. She does no more. — That is a promise.”

“I know.”

“I know, huh.” Coh seemed to laugh. “The next client will be harder, Seri.”

“Next?”

“A client whose body is at odds with the story. Read wrong, and she’ll be hurt. — Be careful.”

I looked at the Contura screen. Dark. But in its depth something seemed to move. As if the next story were already near.

On the circle below, a faint resonance of light still drifted. The trace of Kenta’s pain.

Pain, too, is a story. I learned that today.

Climbing the stairs, I put a hand on my own low back, without thinking. From standing so long, it was a little heavy. My low back, too, was telling a story, I thought.

When I returned to the studio, the afternoon light had begun to slant. Tomorrow was Friday. Someone would come again.

In my pocket Contura grew faintly warm.

—