Vol 1 Chapter 1 (2/2)

“Saw what now?”

“The girl you said you saw floating around the Fujō Tower.”

Ah, yes, the Fujō Tower, former high-rise condominium situated in the

commercial office district of town that used to serve as residence to the

8 • KINOKO NASU

more privileged tax brackets, now abandoned and leaving people with

little else save its husk and its memory. And a haunting, if what Kokutō says

is true. Pa.s.sing by it some days ago, I happened to see a spectral figure in

that looked quite human. If Azaka saw it too, then it must mean it’s real.

My second sight, the ability to see these types of events, has its roots

(as much as one can point out a definitive origin to this weirdness, at least)

in one event, a point in time that feels simutaneously distant and recent.

I was in a traffic accident two years ago, and because of that I spent those

last two years in a coma. After waking from that coma, I began to…see

things that weren’t there before. Tōko would say that what I’m doing isn’t

so much “sight” as it is “perception.” In other words, it seems my senses

have “awakened” to a higher level of perception, but it’s all technical magical

gobbledygook that I couldn’t care less to understand.

“I did see it more than a few times, but I haven’t been there lately so I

wouldn’t know if it’s still there,” I say, as I stretch out my arms.

“I don’t know why,” says Kokutō, perplexed, “but I pa.s.s by there all the

time and I don’t see anything.”

“I’d say it’s because you have one extra pair of eyes too many,” I throw

back at him.

“Erm, I don’t think gla.s.ses have anything to do with it.” Mikiya is always

like this. He’s on a no-nonsense path and he’s going to stick to it come

h.e.l.l or high water. Honestly, I think it’s his naiveté that makes him not see

these…”other” things. Nevertheless, these trifling incidents of people flying

and falling seem to be set to continue. I can’t puzzle out the meaning

behind it all, so I ask Mikiya a question.

“Mikiya, do you know the reason people fly?”

He gives a shrug. “Wouldn’t know. I mean, I’ve never tried flying before

anyway,” he says with a yawn.

/ 3 • 9

/ 3

It is a night approaching the end of August, and I decide to take a stroll.

Despite summer quickly coming to a close, the air usually remained warm,

which makes the chill running through the air tonight a rare and unusual

event. The last train has come and gone, and a deathly silence has blanketed

the city. This dead part of town is largely bereft of people, and looked like

something foreign. Even the few pedestrians present seem fake, unnatural,

like they were from some old daguerreotype. The whole thing reminds me

of he scent of corpses, of grave pallor that stretched its d.a.m.ning influence

across the city, as unstoppable and incurable as a terminal disease.

Everything—from the foreboding houses with no signs of life or light,

to the dimly lit convenience store that offers little respite from the darkness—everything

feels like all it takes is one bad moment to make them all

fall down in violent upheaval.

The moon seems like the last refuge of life, even as my Eyes take in the

richness of death in all things. This place is no exception, and my eyes hurt

because of it. It’s sickening.

I took a black leather jacket with me when I left the house, and now I

wear it atop my light blue kimono. The kimono’s sleeves get bunched up

inside the jacket, and the heat warms my body. Even then, it still isn’t hot.

Well, not exactly. For me, it’s more like it wasn’t cold to begin with.

Even in such a deep night like this one, you can still encounter a few

people making their way on the streets.

A man with the complete suit-tie-briefcase ensemble hurriedly making

his way down the lane, his face cast downwards, features hidden by the

shadows. A loiterer sitting by the light of the vending machine, his head

swimming in the potent c.o.c.ktail of alcohol and narcotics. Vagrants hanging

around the vicinity of the 24-hour convenience store, maybe pondering

how exactly they’re going to bust it, or just trying to find safety in numbers.

Who knows what reason these people may find themselves out here in

the middle of the night, walking dangerous streets? I don’t even know my

own reasons. I’m just doing what I used to do before.

…Two years ago.

In a different time, I was on the cusp of going into my second year of

high school. But in that rain-soaked night, I was involved in an unfortunate

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traffic accident. I was brought to the hospital straightaway. Apparently, I

didn’t receive much in the way of bodily harm; few wounds, nothing serious,

but nothing much beyond that. If it was really an accident, it was a

pretty d.a.m.n clean one, I’d say. On the other hand, peculiarly, I did receive

serious damage to my brain, through which I lapsed into a deep coma.

That’s what they told me at least. That night is the only time I have trouble

even recalling.

Because I had little serious physical injury, it wasn’t a big stretch for the

hospital to keep me alive, and my unconscious self grasped and groped for

that last sliver of life. Statistically speaking, after 6 months, the chances of a

coma patient coming back are pretty slim, but there are the aberrant cases,

like myself. The doctors were so surprised at my recovery two months ago;

it’s as if they saw a corpse rising from the grave. Guess they never expected

me to pull a Lazarus on them, which I guess clues me in to their close to

zilch hopes on my case. Though perhaps not equaling their exaggerated

reactions, I too had a surprise waiting for me.

My memories became…alien, foreign, like they were coming from the

head of a different person. Put simply, I’m dissociated from the memories,

unable to put stock in their validity. It was different than mere amnesia, or

a lapse in memory.

As Tōko would say, there are apparently four systems or steps the brain

uses with regards to handling memory: encoding, storage, retrieval, and

recognition.

“Encoding” is writing your impressions of an experience as information

in your brain.

“Storage” is actually keeping that impression or memory.

“Retrieval” is calling back that stored information, or in other words,

remembering.

“Recognition” is confirming whether or not that information was the

same as what actually happened.

If, in any one of these steps, there is some sort of failure, then you get

memory disorder. Depending on which of these steps fail, you get very

different cases of memory disorder. In my case, however, there isn’t a problem

with any of these steps. Though I can’t place my memories as my own,

“recognition” is working because I can identify my memories as my previous

experiences.

Even then, I still couldn’t trust these memories. I had no real feeling that

I am the s.h.i.+ki Ryōgi that was. Perhaps it was some other s.h.i.+ki Ryōgi, some

other high school student, some other person who had an accident. But

I’ve seen the doc.u.ments; I am s.h.i.+ki Ryōgi. At least that’s what my brain

/ 3 • 11

tells me

Two years of oblivion have reduced me, if not to emptiness, than to

something that sits closely beside it. It laid waste all that I was inside, and

severed what connection existed between my memory and personality

through two years of “living” like a sh.e.l.l, on the boundary of emptiness.

And though there was precious little drama here compared to actual societal

rejection, it drives me to worry all the same. All my memories are just

reflections on the water, and I don’t know whether I’m the reflection or

the real thing. With these memories, I know how to act like the s.h.i.+ki Ryōgi

that my parents and friends knew, but I know it best; it’s all just an act, just

mimesis. It’s like being a newborn baby: not knowing anything and lacking

any sort of world experience. Or possibly it’s more like not living at all.

Still, the memories do help. I mean, they make me into a functional

human being, after all. I already have the emotions people have from experiencing

something. It’s not real, hands-on experience or anything, but at

least it’s there. It results in this weird feeling where if I do something, I feel

like it’s my first time doing it and also feel like I’ve done it a hundred times

before. There’s no amazement, like a magic trick where you can see the

strings in the sleeve.

And so I continue to play out this strange role. The reason is quite simple.

Because by doing so, maybe I can return to some semblance of the past.

Because by doing so, maybe I can figure out why I like walking so late at

night.

I guess, in a way, you could say I’ve fallen in love with my previous self.

I try to get my bearings in the neighborhood, and I realize I’ve walked

pretty far, enough to reach the office district of the city. Buildings that

stood at heights almost similar to each other lined the street, looking like

soldiers arranged in neat little firing ranks. The surface of these buildings

are riddled with little gla.s.s windows, themselves in their own arrangement.

The reflection of moonlight as well as of the other buildings borne

atop their s.h.i.+ning surfaces creates a sort of shadow world, where monsters

and their kind lurked.

One shadow stands taller than the rest, however. Like a perverse monument,

it stands long and narrow, with a height that looked like it could

reach the moon.

The Fujō Tower.

No lights or signs of life are present in that building. Seeing as how it’s

two o’ clock in the morning, I really shouldn’t be surprised. The coldness

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of the still night is irregular at this time of summer. The bone in my nape

creaks from the cold, despite the lack of any tangible feeling of a breeze. I

decide that it’s just my imagination. As I looked up at the towering structure,

a black shape flits past my sight, almost unnoticeable because of the

lack of light. Looking closer, I realize it’s a shadow of a human figure, and

then I realize it’s not a shadow at all. The silhouette of a woman comes

floating into view atop the building. I didn’t mean that as a turn of phrase

though. She literally is floating.

“Hmph, so you’ve shown yourself today as well, I see.” I say.

I don’t like her up there, silhouetted against the moonlight. But I can

hardly do anything about what I can see. And as quickly as I saw her, she

vanishes, flying as if the moon was her cradle.

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