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February 9 - February 18, 2017
Her eyes were like a deep spring in the shade of cliffs, which no breeze could ever reach. Nothing moved there, everything was still. Look closely, and you could just begin to make out the scene reflected in the water’s surface.
For the first time in a long while, I looked deep within my own eyes in the mirror. Those eyes told me nothing of who I was.
Someday, somewhere, I will see this scene, I felt. The opposite of déjà vu—not the feeling that I’d already seen what was around me, but the premonition that I would some-day. This premonition reached out its long hand and grabbed my mind tight. I could feel myself in its grip. There at its fingertips was me. Me in the future, grown old.
will the child’s ashes flow to the sea, mix with the seawater, evaporate, form into clouds, and fall as rain?”
Her eyes were listless
as I looked deep into them. I could see nothing; they were as cold and dark as death.
Bit by bit, I placed the snow in my mouth and melted it. It took a while to melt enough, and the tip of my tongue turned numb. I opened her mouth and let the water flow from mine into hers.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she was returning to the land of the living.
There are limits to my kindness; even to how kind I can be to you. I wish there weren’t; then I could do so much more for you. But I can’t.”
“I’ll be waiting,”
If I never see her again, I will go insane. Once she was out of the car and gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.
a new seven-story building in Yotsuya.
favorite grilled-eel restaurant, in Akasaka.
Little by little, I would get snared by the world out there.
Man learns from experience alone,”
Once she met you, though, she began to cheer up. She did a complete turnaround.
Yatsugatake.”
I closed my eyes and pulled her hard against my body, as though, if I didn’t, I would fly off into the void.
They were real—warm and soft. Beneath my palm I could feel her life. No one could say how long that life would last.
Whatever has form can disappear in an instant.
Aoyama Cemetery.
The red coat and the sunglasses made me think of Shimamoto. The Shimamoto I followed from Shibuya to Aoyama. “Hi,” I said. “Hi,” she said. The woman was stunning.
When I opened my eyes tomorrow, the world would be new, and every problem would be solved. But I couldn’t swallow that scenario.
I didn’t feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing. What would become of me tomorrow I did not know.
a coffee shop on Omote Sando.
As we walked side by side, I wondered what feelings she held in her heart. And where those feelings would lead her. Sometimes I looked deep into her eyes, but all I could detect was a gentle silence.
Shimamoto had her own little world within her. A world that was for her alone, one I could not enter. Once, the door to that world had begun to open a crack. But now it was closed.
I was completely in the dark regarding Shimamoto’s life.
you can’t tell anything from photographs. They’re just a shadow. The real me is far away.
“I’m trying to fill in time,”
“You want to fill in that blank space of time, but I want to keep it all blank.”
“the sad truth is that certain types of things can’t go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can’t go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that’s how it will stay forever.”
conceit hall at Ueno Park.
It was as if a tree were growing inside my body, laying down roots, spreading its branches, pushing down on my organs, my muscles, bones, and skin, forcing its way outward.
Loving her, and being loved, was the only way I could hold myself together.
“My oh my, I wonder what’s going on inside that head of yours,”
Being stuck in the same environment, you grow dull and lethargic.
And here I was, my head still full of Shimamoto.
Just as I could never tell what Shimamoto was thinking, no one had a clue to what was in my mind.
If she was gone forever, no one remained to whom I could reveal my true feelings.
She knows nothing.
Her heart was open to me. Yet I held myself back, back on the surface of the moon, stuck in this lifeless world. And in the end she left me, and my life was lost all over again.
The moments of time linking night and dawn were long and dark.
If I could cry, it might make things easier. But what would I cry over? Who would I cry for? I was too self-centered to cry for other people, too old to cry for myself.
I’ve found myself sucked into that mind-set and it makes me feel empty.”
I just can’t understand who I am anymore. I can’t tell right from wrong.
Now, though, the city was depressing and empty. Buildings were falling apart, all the trees had lost their color, and every passerby was devoid of feelings, and of dreams.
Mmp
Shimamoto showed up. Strangely enough, she always appeared on quiet rainy evenings.
Those were the only words I could have used.”
“Nothing’s written in your eyes,” I replied. “It’s written in my eyes. I just see the reflection in yours.”
