????

A month or so ago I got a horrifically bloodshot left eye, which meant I had to wear sunglasses day and night for about three weeks to avoid frightening people.

I have never been prone to bloodshot eyes, and can only surmise that it was caused by a recent addition to my daily exercise regime. Hands placed on buttocks, I would bend over backwards as far as I could then rhythmically bounce my torso against this limit about 20 times in order to increase dorsal flexibility, and the acuteness of the angle I could lean back at, day by day. I noticed, though, that throwing my head that far back constricted blood flow through my neck somewhat, increasing the pressure on the blood vessels in my head, and palplably in my eyes.

On looking in the mirror one day after a few days of this, I was very taken aback to see what looked like Dracula staring back at me. A capiliary or two in my left eye had popped, turning the nose-side half of my eye solid crimson.
Bending over backwards is not something I commonly talk about, so I had to look up what to say to the doctor. I found that the word described both my original action undertaken on the balcony every morning overlooking the Tokyo Skytree and the Kokugikan over the Sumida River, and my reaction when I saw myself in the mirror.

Tokyo Skytree at dawn, from across the Sumida River

nokezoru: the noke here is a special pronunciation of the first kanji, ?, which is usually pronounced ao(gu) ??. The left radical is for ...