Chapter 9: Storyteller
New Alzheir's disease could be said to have birthed the profession of "Mimory engineer." Comparing New Alzheir's to the pre-existing form of Alzheir's, the most remarkable difference is the way you lose mories.
If the mory impairnt caused by old Alzheir's was far-sighted, the new version was near-sighted. With Alzheir's, damage to recent mories is noticeable from early on, but distant mories only start to be affected after the disease has progressed sowhat. anwhile, New Alzheir's was the exact opposite, with long-term mory loss being the early symptoms, and short-term mory loss appearing in the last stages. Alzheir's made you unable to see things up close, but New Alzheir's made you unable to see things far away - of course, this is all an extre simplification. But it's a commonly-used way to quickly explain the nature of New Alzheir's.
The sa way near-sightedness isn't uncommon among the young, New Alzheir's can be contracted at an even earlier age than early-onset Alzheir's. There have been a number of cases reported even in teens (as a matter of fact, I was one of them). Alzheir's remains a highly mysterious disease, but an even thicker fog hangs over New Alzheir's. Like regular Alzheir's, it was surmised to be a multifactorial hereditary disease with various genetic and environntal causes, but so whispered that nanobots gone rogue were the true culprits. So researchers also theorized a new kind of infectious disease was directly causing it. Many varying opinions, but no definite theories. Simply put, we hardly knew anything. Needless to say, there was no cure.
Compared to old Alzheir's, mory loss from the new form is much more systematic. Like a log file that can't hold everything, so it automatically deletes data starting from the oldest, your mories are eaten up in order starting from the oldest. You forget your infancy, you forget your childhood, you forget your adolescence, you forget your adulthood, you forget your middle-age. Eventually, you can only rember the events of the past few days.
Of course, the finish line of the new form was the sa as the old. When the corruption of mory catches up to the present, the patient acquires Apallic syndro and dies soon after. The mory loss part gets all the attention, but they're diseases directly linked with death, and once soone contracts it, there's no hope of saving them. The current fatality rate is 100%. The estimated remaining lifespan after you contract Alzheir's is 7 or 8 years, but with New Alzheir's, it's not even half that.
Patients with Alzheir's lose the ability to self-recognize by the end of it and enter a trance-like state, but New Alzheir's patients don't show any obvious damage other than episodic mory loss up until death. No damage to high-level brain function or impaired orientation, normal thought processes, and no notable effects on personality. (There are findings that claim short-term mory is actually improved, but this is probably just because the loss of long-term mories reduces the number of mories competing with one another.) It won't get in the way of everyday life, and it's not an impedint in most jobs. And no hallucinations or delusions - those around you will be most grateful for it.
But to those suffering from it themselves, it can't be called anything but hell. While your senses remain perfectly clear, you're forced to watch as the person you are disappears. If Alzheir's is a disease that eats at you from the inside with a dull pain, you could call New Alzheir's a disease that slowly slices away your limbs without anesthetic. Different qualities of fear, but I think most people would agree the latter is more agonizing.
Because of this, there are a fair number of New Alzheir's patients who take their own lives before the symptoms fully progress. I want to end it all while I can still be myself, they say.
dicine can slow the progression of the symptoms to an extent, but New Alzheir's is discovered late by its nature. You can tell right away when there are problems with your imdiate mory or short-term mory, but no one imdiately makes the connection that their inability to rember infancy or childhood is because of a disease. Unless you have soone to periodically talk about the distant past with, it's difficult to be aware of early-stage New Alzheir's. Most frantically run to the hospital by the ti they start losing mories of their late teens.
Thus, the majority of patients have no mories of childhood. This might be considered an even greater tragedy than repeatedly forgetting the ones you love most. One patient described their ntal state as "constantly being lost in a town I don't know." As it turns out, our most truly important mories are focused in our early life, and among them, perhaps a true sense of security can only be enjoyed in infancy. True security - a perfect, faultless peace of mind, which Charlie Brown called "sleeping in the backseat of a car while your parents drive." Not that I was given such a thing from the start, anyway.
In my case, the discovery of the disease was a complete coincidence. My dominant hand was feeling numb, so I went to the hospital and got a brain CT scan, where they found symptoms of New Alzheir's. (Incidentally, the cause of the numbness was simply fatigue.)
On the way ho after being told about my disease, my mind was the picture of peace. I knew what kind of disease New Alzheir's was. I also knew, of course, that many people who get it commit suicide. And that this disease would result in death. Regardless, I didn't sink into despair, and I didn't lant my fate. I didn't shed a single tear, and couldn't even afford to feel a hole in my stomach.
That said, I did suspect it would eventually start to sink in and I'd be beside myself with anxiety, so I decided to take a month off work. Because I had worked so feverishly up to then, they readily accepted my request.
I spent the new ten days or so idly, yet I felt not an atom of fear or regret. The only thing I did have was concern. Why am I being so calm about this? Am I fundantally misunderstanding sothing? Or maybe I'm just not ready to accept it as reality yet.
I stayed locked up in my room and aimlessly watched TV shows I didn't even care to watch. Being a workaholic who thought about her job 24/7 - even in my dreams - I had no idea how you were supposed to spend free ti. In these few years, I'd spent all my days off giving myself input so as to add more variety to my Mimories. Books, movies, music, and vacations were all no more than Mimory-making research to . Removing those from the equation instantly had at a loss for what to do. I really never thought about anything but work, I thought to myself.
Three more days passed, and my concern turned into a nagging feeling. I laid down in bed and thought about things to try and put this feeling into words. And eventually, I realized.
Co to think of it, I was having much fewer flashbacks lately. While taking a bath or waiting to fall asleep in bed, I would often suddenly rember sothing from the past and beco miserable, but that was hardly happening anymore. The reason for this required no thought. It was because my traumatic childhood mories were being erased by the disease. That was the reality of that feeling I kept having. As I lost my mories, I wouldn't feel fear - it would in fact make life easier to live.
A careful look back through my life revealed there wasn't a single thing I didn't want to forget. No people I didn't want to forget, no monts I didn't want to forget, no places I didn't want to forget, nothing.
I was dumbfounded by that fact. After all, if a normal person heard they were going to lose their mories, then before anything else, they would write down everything they didn't want to forget. Then they'd read it over and over to try and carve it into their brains. But I didn't do that. I had no need to. If you removed all those harsh mories I'd want to forget if I could, only mories as worthless as garbage would remain.
Should I be glad I won't have to fear loss for the remainder of my life? Or should I lant that I hadn't been able to acquire anything to lose? I couldn't decide. What I could say was that as the mory loss healed the wounds in my heart, a longing for others was slowly starting to bud. I had been watching TV without caring about the programs themselves simply because I wanted to hear people's voices.
I'm lonely. Right now, I could honestly acknowledge that feeling. Or to flip it around: before knowing about my disease, I had no ti to even recognize my loneliness. The removal of my emotional suffering opened up space in my heart, and for the first ti I could accept the truth: I hadn't chosen loneliness, loneliness had chosen . You could say there was no longer a reason to consider the accumulation of my feelings into the future, so there was also no reason to keep acting emotionally frigid.
It felt futile to go against that desire. As recomnded by my doctor, I signed up for a etup organized by a New Alzheir's care facility in the city. The idea was for fellow patients to share their concerns and anxieties, so you could get to know lots of other people with the disease there.
Suffering is a personal thing no matter how far you try to stretch it, so even people with the sa disease won't be able to understand; I had learned this from having asthma. So as far as the disease, I had no expectations that it would make more positive, take away my worries, or any other change. But I didn't care. I simply wanted to try filling this loneliness I was able to feel for the first ti in my life in a healthy way. Not an unhealthy way, like lying in bed and fantasizing.
*
Mimory engineers don't use similes. Unlike novel-readers or movie-watchers, those with Mimories only perceive what's there as what's there. They don't do any puzzle-like interpretations of them, like "is the scenery depicted here so kind of taphor?" or "is the event that happens here so kind of allegory?" They don't look too hard for additional aning in the story they're given, accepting Mimories the way they accept life. So we don't have an artistic mindset either, simply stacking up pleasing episodes and nothing more. Because of this, Mimory engineers are considered akin to fast food among those who create stories.
That's fine, I think. I like standing-up soba and conveyor belt sushi myself. I'd be sad if they went away.
That said, I'm obviously not making light of similes themselves. Sotis, they can dig up the heart of things in a way that goes beyond the storyteller's intent. The words we use are much more clever than we are.
For instance, when I entered that classroom-sized room and saw ten chairs arranged in a circle with nine anxious patients sitting in them, I thought "it feels like we're able to start telling ghost stories." It's not much of a simile, yet it correctly got to the truth without intending to. The stories they were about to tell would chill my spine and make nauseous with fear. And when the tenth person's story approached, it would summon forth sothing that should not be in this world.
The mbers were of various ages and genders, and as expected, I was the youngest. I was a little timid, but I took a deep breath and sat down, quickly greeting those around . And then I took a better look at everyone, one at a ti. They all had lancholy expressions. I had no doubt their eyes were the unhappiest in the world. I've seen sothing like this in a movie, it suddenly occurred to . I thought for about 20 seconds, then rembered that it was called Fight Club. I was 17 when I saw that movie. Which ant I at least had my mories going back to 17.
Bottled tea was distributed to everyone, but not a single person drank it. The others, frequently exchanging looks with one another, were probably not attending for the first ti. Maybe I was the only one without any acquaintances.
Everyone there was neatly dressed, and I only then beca aware of my own appearance. I'd bought my clothes and shoes three years ago, and wasn't wearing any sorts of accessories. I had basically no makeup on, my skin was rough from lack of sleep and neglect, and my never-once-dyed black hair was so unkempt, I looked like a ghost. I was not presentable.
I'll go get my hair cut after this is over, I thought.
I heard a throat being cleared.
"Well then, how about we get started." A man in his forties sitting to my left got the ball rolling. "Who wants to begin?"
A few people glanced at each other and vaguely shook their heads.
"All right, then I'll start as usual..."
The man smiled wryly and began to tell his story with a routine tone of voice.
"...I can't rember half of anything about my wife."
My honest impression was that it was a familiar-sounding story. He graduated college and got married right after, took a loan to start up a store, made it through financially unstable tis with his wife, soon hit a stride with business, had a kid, and just as he thought things were getting started, his disease was discovered. He feared his death, but more than that, he feared forgetting his wife and kid. He rembered his aunt who couldn't recognize her family's faces due to a cognitive disorder. Thinking about ending up like that himself made him want to end it all before that happened. Etcetera.
Once the man's story was done, there was sparse applause. I quietly clapped as well, but I was honestly thinking "sounds like you lived a pretty happy life." I felt ashad of myself for feeling envy instead of compassion, so I clapped louder.
After that, everyone went around clockwise talking about their worries. Maybe they thought about and intentionally made sure I would be last, as the newcor. Not everyone spoke as unfalteringly as the first man; so talked shakily, having trouble throughout, and I was quietly relieved.
The story of the fourth speaker, a female librarian, had a few parts that struck . While listening to her story, I noticed myself subconsciously thinking "with a little tweaking, I could use this for Mimories," and I hurried to cast those rude thoughts aside. What was I doing thinking about work at a ti like this? Nothing could be ruder than using the frank admissions of strangers as fuel. I tried to make myself close off the Mimory engineer circuits in my brain, and accept their stories the sa way people accept their Mimories.
After the sixth person's story, there was a short break. The man to my left asked about my impressions of the etup. Wanting to reply with careful word choice, I thought back on the six stories I'd heard so far. And then suddenly, sothing occurred to with a shiver.
All of them are only talking about family, friends, and lovers.
The ghost stories resud. The seventh spoke of family and friends. The eight spoke of a lover and friends. The ninth spoke of family, friends, and a cat. I was convinced. The process alone was what differed, but everyone but was settling on the sa conclusion: "my last line of defense is my bonds with those close to ."
The old woman to my right was finishing up her story. What should I talk about?, I wondered. At first, I'd planned to talk about the emptiness of not even having any fear of losing my mories. But if I, tasked with sending off this eting, said sothing like that, wouldn't it just earn their scorn? Wouldn't it just soil the carefully-assembled atmosphere they'd been building?
Would my despair unintentionally sound like cynicism toward the despair of these nine people?
I reopened the circuits I'd closed. I switched my head over to writing mode, and ca up with a new story.
I'll do a story appropriate for this place, I thought.
I closed my eyes and focused. I broke down their nine stories until they were a muddled ss and extracted their essence. Then I added a few of my own personal facts - or maybe desires that were an extension of my personal facts - to make it appear original, and then injected so noise to cover up its falsehoods, and appeal to its reality.
I assigned "him," who I'd developed in my fantasies since I was young, in the role of a prince riding on a white horse.
I completed this whole process in less than 30 seconds. I had ti to spare, so I even gave the finished story a nice title.
Since contracting New Alzheir's, my abilities as a storyteller hadn't weakened, but in fact matured. I don't know why. Maybe it's the sa logic behind why drinking and smoking can have positive effects on writing despite being bad for you. As you forget unnecessary things, it feels like excess at being stripped from your brain.
The woman's story seed to be over. Once the applause ended, the nine turned their attention to , all but saying "now it's your turn." I put my left hand to my right lung and took a short, deep breath, and began telling a fictional past I had just made up - but in a sense, had been building since I was very young.
"I have a childhood friend."
*
By the ti my story finished, half the people were in tears. So even took out handkerchiefs to dry their eyes in the middle. My lies sounded more real than anyone else's stories, and had shaken the audience's hearts.
Once the applause ca to a stop, one of the mbers - the woman who talked about her cat - spoke.
"I'm glad you ca here today." She took off her reading glasses, rubbed her eyes, then carefully put them back on. "Thank you for telling us your wonderful story. You may be very unhappy, but you're a very happy girl. You're blessed with the perfect partner."
I didn't know how to respond, so I bowed my head. Then all the mbers gave their thoughts about my story one after another. Every ti they sent warm words my way, guilt hid behind my stiff smile.
It seed I may have gone a bit too far. Co to think of it, this was the first ti I'd ever directly seen the response to a story I created. I didn't think it would get this big of a reaction. To think I would be reminded of the magic stories possess here.
"It's such a pity for soone so young." "How about you bring him here soti? We'll all welco him." "It's reassuring that you have soone who understands near at hand. If I didn't have my wife, I think I'd be desperate." "Hearing your story made miss my boyfriend, too."
I nodded to their words with a dry smile on my lips. And the more I nodded, the more miserable I felt. I even wondered: if these people were to find out my story was fake, wouldn't they think I was making fun of them? And then I got fed up with myself for having a persecution complex after deceiving these good-hearted people.
I ca up with reasons to decline trading contact information with anyone, then put the place behind . I was totally absentminded on the subway ride ho. My reflection in the window glass looked ugly, like sothing's cast-off shell. It looked like it had been weathered down through the end of sumr, crumbling to pieces.
I'm never going to one of those etups again, I thought.
*
From the beginning of sumr to the end of it, I was alone.
I didn't even turn on the TV or radio anymore. I stopped looking at the bankbook that once gave ntal support. I couldn't find any consolation there now. I was satisfied with just enough money for living expenses and a coin to ferry to the afterlife, so it was all just excess.
The numbers in my bankbook demonstrated how I could do anything and yet could do nothing. If a normal person had this much ti and money to spare, they'd probably hang out with friends, or spend ti with family, or go on dates. To make the most of their few remaining years, they'd have extravagant vacations, throw flashy parties, or hold a fantastic wedding.
I had absolutely no outlets for using my money. I thought about moving sowhere that allowed pets and raising a cat, but quickly rethought it as I was browsing catalogs. A person who might not even live three more years shouldn't get a pet. Soone who couldn't even look after themselves couldn't take such an important role.
Besides, it was such a crude motivation to seek healing from a cat because I couldn't get along with humans. I'd feel bad for the cat that had to get along with . Cats are free creatures that give the sense they should be raised by people who could live without a cat. Having an owner like who couldn't live without a cat would make the cat unhappy.
When I got lonely, I'd go to my apartnt's veranda and watch people pass by. Like going back in ti to the days when was stuck in my room and looked out the bay window. As it turns out, I hadn't changed at all since those days.
I spent that sumr mainly just thinking about how to fulfill my most basic desires.
I leaned on the wall in the corner of my room listening to old records all day, frequently flipping the records over or swapping them out to kill ti. After starting to beco aware of my ti left alive, I ca to like the music I liked before even more. In particular, I saw more charm in old songs I had found tedious before. The simpler the accompanint and lody, the more firmly I could sense each note, and they soaked deep into my dried-up heart. When I tired of music, I gazed at the record grooves and the jackets, and rested my ears.
In the evenings, I walked to the supermarket near the station, did several loops around the store to carefully pick out ingredients, and went straight ho to the apartnt. Back in my room, I opened up a recipe book I bought on a whim from a local old bookstore, and took on each of the recipes starting from page one. I was blindly faithful to the asurents and tis, making no improvisations or compromises, just cooking exactly according to the recipe. When I completed a dish, I presented it neatly even though I wasn't showing it to anyone, and inspected it from various angles. Then I sat at the table and ate it, savoring the flavor to satisfy my appetite.
After eating, I took a long bath to wash myself thoroughly. Not necessarily to feel clean, but to fall asleep more comfortably. After exiting the bath, I got in bed before night fell; including so sleeping-in in the morning, I got a good ten hours of sleep to satisfy my need for sleep.
There was one more desire I chose to not think about too much. Luckily, living a quiet life by myself, I was able to forget such a desire even existed.
I took my dicine only occasionally when it occurred to , so the symptoms my New Alzheir's steadily progressed. Soon, I had totally forgotten the childhood days of asthma that made suffer so much. I didn't feel any strong feelings about that.
My final day was steadily approaching. Despite this, I was willingly pushing the hands forward. You might call it a passive, sluggish suicide.
When listening to records, when cooking, when taking a bath, when lying in bed. The more I tried to think about nothing, the more active my brain beca.
The story about "him" I'd manufactured at the patient etup was still going around in my head.
Because of a few details I'd added to the story to give it so reality, "his" existence started to feel more real. I think a large part of it was having spoken about "him" to soone else for the first ti. I listened to the story that was coming out of my mouth as if it were soone else's story. Maybe a better way to put it was, I heard the story through the ears of those present. This feedback earned "him" a kind of objective and social presence, maturing him into a more tactile entity. He ca closer to a living being.
As my loneliness and despair deepened, the story of "him" glittered brighter. I would repeatedly trace the story from beginning to end, making minute changes to the details, revising and revising again, then read it over from the beginning, looking at empty space and smiling.
It was emotional self-harm. Fantasies are a deadly dicine; in exchange for ager joy, a transparent poison accumulated in my body.
One day, a number of things coincided, and I succeeded in cooking a very difficult al. It turned out so well, it made want to take a photo, and it tasted fantastic too. I subconsciously thought that "he" would probably be happy to eat this. In that mont, I completely forgot that "he" was a fictional person.
Imdiately after, I rembered the truth that "he" didn't exist, and my head went blank.
A few seconds after, sothing inside broke.
The spoon slipped out of my fingers, hit the floor, and made an unpleasant sound. I leaned down to pick it up, but suddenly my body went limp, and I collapsed to the ground.
I'd reached the critical point of emptiness, and couldn't bear it anymore.
Before I knew it, I was sobbing loudly.
I don't want to die like this, I thought. It's just too cruel for things to end this way. I still haven't obtained anything real.
Before I died, I wanted soone to complint just once. I wanted to be thanked. I wanted to be pitied. Like soone dealing with a little kid, I wanted to be unconditionally accepted and gently embraced. I wanted the 100% perfect boy who 100% understood my loneliness to shower with 100% love. And after I died, I wanted him to grieve my death and have a wound that would never heal etched into his heart. I wanted him to loathe the disease that killed , loathe the people who weren't kind to , and curse the world that was without .
Of course I couldn't be satisfied by fantasies. The 's within are still crying like always. The newborn , the 1-year-old , the 2-year-old , the 3-year-old , the 4-year-old , the 5-year-old , the 6-year-old , the 7-year-old , the 8-year-old , the 9-year-old , the 10-year-old , the 11-year-old , the 12-year-old , the 13-year-old , the 14-year-old , the 15-year-old , the 16-year-old , the 17-year-old , the 18-year-old , all of them were holding their knees and bawling like I was now. Even if my mories of them vanished, their cries still echoed. I needed a realistic salvation for them, but I couldn't find one wherever I looked.
"I'm not scared, I have nothing to lose" had been such a bluff. I was scared of dying with nothing. So much so that I couldn't stop shaking.
But what could I do about it now? I had never made a friend since the day of my birth, so what could I possibly do? Never mind the 100% perfect boy, could I even get a 50% middling friend?
Could I talk with my coworkers? Should I contact soone in my profession and tell them the truth? Even if I did, all I could get out of it was standard sympathy. In fact, if I wasn't lucky, it might just please the person I spoke to. I knew my coworkers and others in my profession were envious of . I'd heard about their insults here and there. Even if I was lucky enough to pick soone who didn't antagonize , just worrying "they might view as an enemy" made it impossible to establish a true trusting relationship. To be honest, I was terrified of them.
Then should I just talk to so stranger in town? Look for friends on social dia? Not a chance. As if I could find people who really understood that way. It would be like looking for a single needle in the desert. And talk about risky; it could easily be a very unpleasant experience.
If 30% sympathy, 40% understanding, and 50% love were enough, I might be able to find that if I try like hell. But that wouldn't do. To save , to save us, it would absolutely take the 100% perfect boy.
People might call that an unreasonable expectation. They'd scold , saying a person who's neglected socialization all her life suddenly getting the ultimate love would be too good to be true. They might say "even 50% sympathy would be too good for you." But my intuition as a Mimory engineer was telling sothing. Only being held tight by the ultimate boy can save you. There was surely no way other than that to unravel the tightly-woven loneliness in , ford over such a long ti.
I spent the next few days crying, but even so, I didn't try to stop thinking about "him." If I'd co this far, I thought, I might as well keep stripping off the skin until I can see bone.
I completely forgot about taking my dicine, so my symptoms advanced rapidly. I lost my mories up to 15, and forgot the oppressiveness of my ti in compulsory education. Three-fourths of my life was shadowed by nothingness, and it truly approached empty.
I continued to think about "him."
I stopped listening to records, and I stopped cooking. It was too much trouble to even cry standing up, so I held my pillow and crawled around the room like a caterpillar, lying in bed, lying on the floor, lying in the kitchen, lying in the entryway, lying in the bathroom, lying on the veranda. Even then, the sluggishness surrounding my body wouldn't leave.
I continued to think about "him."
I felt distaste even toward the Mimory creation I enjoyed so much, and felt a little nauseous even looking at soone's personal record. Whatever I looked at, I could only feel jealousy, and I despised people who lived lives without want, yet still wanted happy Mimories.
I continued to think about "him."
And then one day, an innocent madness ca over .
While ruminating over my mories of "him" like usual, it occurred to .
Can people imagine soone they've never even t this vividly?
Can people love soone they've never even t this wholeheartedly?
Was there anything wrong with putting this much into a fictional entity?
Am I making a fundantal mistake here?
I wonder.
Perhaps.
Is it possible?
Is "he" not a fictional person, but soone who really exists?
Had the disease rely taken away the important parts of the mories, and I really did have a childhood friend who I beca convinced was a fantasy?
It was a truly shaful idea. If soone had told this before my disease, I would respond with a laugh.
But in that mont, I saw it as a divine revelation. I'd long since lost my sanity. I clung to that theory. Now, my final hope resided in the blanked mories brought about by my disease.
*
I was ho again after a year and a half.
Taken hold by the idea that "he" really existed, I was unable to stay put, and got on the early morning train bound for my hotown.
To reunite with "him," of course.
I had my yearbook from middle school in my bag, and I kept re-reading it on the way. The sight of a 19-year-old girl reading through a yearbook by herself on the train was a bizarre one, but the early morning down-train was sparse, and no one stopped to look.
I drilled all the faces and nas in the yearbook into my brain. None of my classmates' faces felt familiar, as if I had grabbed a yearbook for an entirely unknown school by mistake.
I looked for boys who most closely matched my impression of "him," but that proved difficult to find among photos where everyone had similar smiling expressions. "He" had no definite shape in my mories, only an impression and an atmosphere. To discern that, I would need continuous information like behavior or changes in expression.
Among the photos of the classrooms and school events, I couldn't find myself. I always hung my head with a fretful look, so I must have had no appeal as a subject for photographs. The middle-schoolers in the yearbook were lively, and I saw sothing in them which I had already lost. In less than a year, I would turn twenty - provided I even lived that long.
The train arrived at my hotown before noon. It was a dull rural town in the corner of Chiba. When I left at age 18, I was terribly uncertain about going so far away to the city, but returning here now, I realized it wasn't even that big of a distance. I went through the ticket gate and exited the cramped building.
My hotown felt like I was visiting it for the first ti. The sky, the greenery, the sea, all of it was unknown to . So naturally, I felt no nostalgia either. While I did feel so faint déjà vu when I looked at rundown cafés and shuttered stores, the feeling was closer to seeing sothing in real life which I was acquainted with from TV and books, as I was unable to make any connection to my own past.
After checking my location with a map on my phone and devising a general route to take, I put my left hand on my lung, took a deep breath, and started to walk. I was beside myself with worry wondering what I'd do if I bumped into my parents, but I also felt a sense of elation to have an objective in mind for the first ti in a while.
The elentary school, the middle school, the shopping district, the park, the community center, the library, the walking trail, the hospital, the supermarket. I followed the map to walk here and there. Though it was Sunday, I hardly passed by anyone. It was probably that the population was low, rather than people not being out and about. I was used to city life now, so it felt like walking around a town with a curfew. It also struck as like an artificial town soon to be populated with artificial people.
The sky was a clear blue, and I could see massive cumulonimbus clouds far in the distance. Walking through this nostalgic scene blurred by sumr sunlight, I found myself fantasizing about a story set in this town.
If only I didn't have to part from "him," and could've kept living in this town.
I surely wouldn't beco a Mimory engineer, and would be enjoying life as a normal college student by now. I'd get a scholarship and do part-ti jobs and live close to "him," in a way halfway to us living together, and I'd make him als and help with chores and play the part of a young wife.
Soon, I started to see shadows of myself from potential worlds all around the town. In those worlds, I was happy. My grade-schooler self was riding on the luggage carrier of "his" bike, clinging to his back and laughing. My middle-school self was wearing a yukata and holding hands with "him," watching the fireworks. My high-school self, on the way ho from school, snuck in a quick kiss with "him" in the shadow of the bus stop. My college self was going to the supermarket with "him," carrying half his groceries and walking alongside him like we were a married couple.
Maybe they weren't fantasies, but flashbacks. Like judging the outco of an experint, I could imagine that they were plausible. A rather deranged state of mind. It would seem I'd been possessed by a monster of imagination that dwelled in this land.
The town was small, so I could go around to all the notable buildings and facilities in half a day. Needless to say, I made zero findings. I was only spoken to by a single old person. They asked for directions to the police box, and I replied that I wasn't from here, so I didn't know. That was all I could answer.
The sunset had a color that made think of wilting sunflowers. Sitting on an embanknt still warm from the heat of the day, I gazed at the sea. I took off my shoes and put them aside, airing out my feet that were chafed from walking. I drank half a bottle of mineral water I got from a vending machine, then poured the rest on my feet. The cold water seeped into the wound. Once it dried, I applied a bandage from the drug store.
There were hardly any young people in town to start with. I saw a couple of kids in elentary or middle school, but I didn't see a single person around my age. The town was half-dead, and had no real hope of recovering. All that was left was for it to rot. Of course, I probably had even less ti left than this town.
My whole body ached, and my head was fogged. But I couldn't sit around here forever. I put on my shoes, put my hands on my knees, and staggered to my feet. I grabbed my bag with the yearbook and hung it over my shoulder.
Just then, I heard young people's voices from the trail, and I reflexively turned to them. A boy and a girl around age 14 were walking together. The boy was dressed casually for a stroll, but the girl wore a pretty yukata. It was a deep blue texture with a simple fireworks pattern on it, and she wore little red chrysanthemums in her hair. I watched the girl for a while. I was sowhat jealous; I wanted to wear a yukata like that and walk with my lover.
There was probably a festival going on sowhere in town. I decided to follow after the two of them. They went past the shopping district and turned right, went straight along the narrow path by the rice paddies, crossed the railroad tracks, and finally, a shrine that wasn't too big or too small ca into sight. I heard the sounds of a festival and slled the slls.
If fated reunions exist, I thought.
Wouldn't this be the most fitting stage for one?
I wandered around the area like a sleepwalker, searching for any sign of "him." Of course, I didn't know his face. I didn't know his voice. Still, I was convinced I would know with just a glance. I was convinced he would know with just a glance, too. Maybe he wouldn't imdiately believe in a coincidental reunion at first and keep walking past. But after walking a few steps, I'm sure he would turn back around.
I moved through the crowd and kept walking, seeking my fantasy lover who I had blown up like a soap bubble.
By the ti the stands started to close down, my heart was starting to give in. The festival sounds ceased as if exhausted, the slls were carried off on the wind, and the lights were swallowed by the darkness, leaving a silence that hurt my ears. I sat up from the stone steps and left the shrine behind.
Even though I'd loitered around in front of those stands for so long, I hadn't eaten anything. I walked around looking for a restaurant, and found just one place still open by the station. Lured by the aroma of grilled fish, I entered the restaurant.
Once I sat at my table, the day's fatigue ca down on all at once. I felt like I couldn't walk another step. I didn't really look at the nu and ordered a grilled fish special, then stared in the direction of the baseball ga on TV while guzzling ice water brought by the waiter.
I heard a custor sitting at the counter order sake, so I thought about having so alcohol myself. I'd always sort of avoided it because I had the impression it was sothing you drank with a large group, but if I could forget the bad things for even a mont, maybe it wouldn't be bad to try it. Surely I didn't need to be worried for my health at this point.
I twisted my body toward the counter and called for a waiter. I ordered the sa sake the girl had ordered earlier, then the waiter chanically repeated my order and left. I felt a little relief that they didn't confirm my age, and a little sadness at the sa ti. Did I clearly look the age where there was no problem letting drink?
I left my seat and went to check my face in the bathroom mirror. Possibly because of how many years I'd gone with barely any need to change expression, I sensed no liveliness or vitality in it at all. Like an exhausted single mother in her late twenties. Even though my mind was stopped around 14.
When I got back to my seat, so sake and a sake cup had been haphazardly placed on the table. I timidly sipped it; it had a bad taste I couldn't describe further. I grabbed the glass of ice water and rinsed out the aftertaste. It was so bitter and slly and sweet, it made suspect it was trying to be as hard to drink as possible. I couldn't imagine why people would drink this by choice.
Even so, I forced myself to drink about half, and my body started to warm up. I guess this is what being drunk feels like, I thought as I watched it whirl around in the bottom of the sake cup.
Sothing was caught in the corner of my mind, but I had no idea what was causing it. I turned to the counter once again to order so warm tea. I cupped my left hand by my mouth to call for the waiter, but froze in that position.
The girl sitting at the counter had a familiar face.
I imdiately compared her face with the photos in the yearbook I'd looked back through on the train. Excepting the effects of four years of aging, it neatly matched one of my classmates in third year. Her hairstyle and appearance had changed a fair bit, but there was no doubt. This girl had been the class chairwoman.
Finally, I was able to et soone I knew.
My body moved before I could think. I approached her and spoke.
"Um... Do you rember ?"
The ex-chairwoman blinked, sake cup still in hand. Her face seed to be evaluating which of us was drunk. I was briefly worried I had the wrong person, but I didn't think so. It was just that I had left a very weak impression in middle school.
She laughed awkwardly.
"Err, sorry. Any hints for ?"
"We were in the sa class in middle school, third year."
She briefly entered a thinking pose, then slapped her knee. But the actual na didn't co to her, so she paused after "Er, the asthmatic..."
I smiled wryly and gave my na. "I'm the asthmatic Touka Matsunagi."
"Right, right, Miss Matsunagi," she nodded, seeming to now rember.
"May I sit with you?", I asked. It would be hard to imagine myself doing this normally, but I was desperate then.
"Huh? Right, sure."
I had the waiter change my seat, then sat down next to her. The sake was now starting to kick in. I tried to overexaggerate my joy at reuniting with a classmate I only knew from yearbook photos, and she surely did the sa for her reunion with a classmate who left so little impression she forgot my na. We proved terrible at holding a conversation with each other, but I was happy to et soone who rembered , however vaguely.
"Miss Matsunagi, what are you up to now? College student?"
I told her she was right. My second lie since coming to town. She probably wouldn't believe that I was a Mimory engineer, and I didn't want to give too weird an impression to the first classmate I was able to finally et. Saying I was a college student visiting ho on sumr break seed like the safest option.
"A college in Tokyo, huh. I'm jealous," she said, not sounding particularly jealous.
"And what are you doing?"
"? I'm..."
Then she talked for a while about how things were for her lately. (I know it's rude to say, but as stories told by people who pointlessly stay behind in rural towns often are, it was horrifyingly average and boring.) Once I'd heard the details up to her getting her current job, Firefly's Light began to play through the restaurant, signifying closing ti. "Hmm, that ti already," the ex-chairwoman said, looking at her watch.
While waiting behind her as she took care of the bill, I was for no particular reason trying to rember the proper lyrics to Firefly's Light. But absolutely nothing ca to mind other than the title. Maybe I had never learned it, or maybe it was a result of New Alzheir's.
The clearly-mistaken lyrics "So fleeting and so aningless, just like my yearning heart" wouldn't leave my mind, like a catchy song from a comrcial.
As we parted, the ex-chairwoman seed to rember sothing.
"Since about a year ago, we classmates who are still in the area have been eting up for drinks. Sort of like a mini class reunion. Would you like to join us, Miss Matsunagi?"
I felt bad to leave her like this, so I was beyond grateful, having just been thinking about how I could keep her from leaving. It was such an ideal segue, my face briefly reverted to a serious expression. I hurried to recreate my smile and told her I'd be glad to take part.
She told the ti and place, I thanked her, and we parted. (She apparently had business and would be absent from the next class reunion.) I took the last train back to the apartnt, had a shower, and put a fresh bandage on my foot. Then I stood at the bathroom mirror and looked at my face.
I was now painfully aware of how much I'd neglected looking my age.
I had hardly ever concerned myself with my appearance. I hadn't thought of a human's appearance as anything more than the shape of a container. Like the cover of a book or a record jacket, I considered it irrelevant to the actual nature of the thing.
But as my insides approached empty, I beca more concerned about the shape of the container. True, it might not be the essence of a person. But I can't say I've never purchased a book based on the cover. I can't say I've never bought a record because of the jacket. If you want people to know about what's inside, you have to put care into the visual elent too - that's an undeniable fact. My insides weren't sothing I could brag about to others in the first place. And most importantly, appearance was a very important factor for love.
I'll get myself in order, I thought. Just under twenty years late, but I need to make up for it at least a little.
The class reunion was in two weeks. In those two weeks, I focused on revising my looks.
The next day, I had a basic breakfast, then looked up beauty parlors, makeup classes, and makeover salons online, making reservations at every one. Then I went to the bookstore and, yes, bought tons of fashion and beauty magazines too, which I read thoroughly for the next two days like a student cramming before an exam. Once I had a decent sense of how to style my hair and face, I next visited a boutique and spoke with a clerk to buy new clothes and shoes.
All of this totaled up to a pretty outrageous cost, but it just relieved to finally have a reason to spend my money. I couldn't take my money to the next life, anyhow.
I basically tried anything I could think of. I didn't worry about money, tossed sha and reputation aside, and endeavored to beco pretty. So that I could earn the affection of soone who just possibly might rember . So that I wouldn't disappoint "him" who just possibly might exist.
I must have lost it.
I pulled off a dramatic transformation in those two weeks. Part of it was that I looked awful to start with, but at the very least, I would no longer be offended if I suddenly spotted myself in a mirror while walking around town. Perhaps not fully "pretty," but I certainly looked more my age.
I had always been a good studier, and proficient at finding the best solution out of the conditions I was given. So once I got the hang of them, even makeup and outfit-picking posed little trouble. I interpreted makeup to be oil painting with my face as a canvas, and interpreted choosing clothes as an activity akin to evoking the seasons in a haiku. Once I'd done this, it caused the reservations I'd held about them to disappear. And once I'd cleared away those dented feelings, refining my looks beca simply fun. I could finally understand why people would pour most of their inco into beauty.
I stood in front of a mirror and practiced smiling. I'd always hated my smile. I had the baseless worry that my smile made other people feel unpleasant.
That unease had finally vanished. I was able to give myself a carefree smile in the mirror.
Now I can et "him" without fear, I felt.
*
And then, the day arrived.
I'll spare you the details and just skip to the conclusion.
There wasn't a single classmate I rembered there.
From the beginning of the etup to the end, I sat in the corner, sipping on beer I wasn't used to drinking.
On the way ho, I felt sick and threw up on the side of the road.
That brought back so of my sanity.
I'll devote myself to work, I thought.
Because that's the only thing I have left.
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