Three days later, Uncle Kurehiko was found dead in front of a train station near his home. A random passerby called an ambulance after finding him collapsed on the ground, but his heart had already stopped by that point. When I saw him at his wake, his face looked far older and more haggard than it had the last time I’d seen him. The deep wrinkles carved into his furrowed brow seemed to bear an even greater indignance toward the world in death than they ever had when he was alive.
“A world preserved in amber, huh…?” I whispered to myself.
Something about this conspicuous phrase—along with the words “plucked out of time”—made me feel like it had to be some sort of hint. Could it really be just a coincidence, or was there some correlation between my uncle’s drunken ravings and the strange phenomenon I was currently experiencing? He’d said he was close to unraveling the laws that governed it, but what had he meant by that? If I’d known something like this was going to happen, I would have paid closer attention to what he was saying.
Uncle Kurehiko had lived in an apartment building down in Tokyo. Perhaps if I went there and searched through his things, I might find some sort of clue as to the meaning behind these mysterious words. But given that the local streetcars had stopped, I assumed all other forms of public transit were a no go as well. In which case, actually making it back to Tokyo would be no mean feat—and there wasn’t any guarantee I’d find some handy, clearly written solution among my uncle’s effects even if I did make it there.
“Hrmmm…”
So then, what was I to do?
As I sat there ruminating with my arms folded, I suddenly recalled the existence of my waiting cup ramen. Shoot—I totally forgot. The noodles were probably soggier than I would have liked them by now, but oh well. I pulled back the adhesive lid and poked my wooden chopsticks down into the container.
…Wait, huh?
The noodles were still hard. But it had definitely been more than three minutes by now, so why weren’t they cooked? Had the water been too lukewarm? Surely not, given that I’d nearly burned myself with the steam alone. I picked up the container with one hand, and it was definitely hot to the touch. So then why…?
Oh! Hang on!
Could it be that the noodles themselves were frozen in time, in some way? And no matter how long I waited, they wouldn’t absorb any of the liquid until the clock started moving again? Now that was a terrifying thought: a world in which I couldn’t even cook myself a simple cup ramen. Not that I was a big fan of instant noodles or anything—but if I couldn’t even make things that only required adding water in this world, that meant my food choices here were going to be even more limited than I already thought. Chances were, I’d only be able to eat meals that were already fully prepared, or whole foods like fruits and vegetables that were safe to eat raw.
And something told me it wasn’t just my diet that would be getting new restrictions now that the usual laws of physics didn’t apply. I’d no doubt find plenty of other things I’d always taken for granted that were no longer possible here. It seemed like a good idea to do a little investigating, first and foremost, to see what I could gather about the laws of this world. I’d still have plenty of time to try to figure out what caused the timefreeze after that—all the time in the world, even.
My next course of action was settled.
Five hours after I left the mini-mart, my phone died.
It happened while I was wandering through a little souvenir shop by the bay, and as soon as it did, I stopped what I was doing and made a beeline for the hotel we’d made reservations to stay at that night. I specifically recalled the head chaperone for the trip mentioning that all of our luggage had already been delivered from the airport, so I knew that was where I was likely to find my suitcase and backpack containing all my daily necessities—my phone charger chief among them.
The October sky overhead should by rights have been dyed a deep scarlet by now, but it was maintaining its placid blue. I didn’t even have a way of checking what the actual time was anymore—my world was stopped forever at 11:14. It was a little unsettling to think that no matter how much time passed, it would still be light outside. I needed to get myself access to a working clock again soon, or this was bound to throw off my body’s internal sense of time.
This reminded me of a film I’d rented on DVD once, set in a rural town situated far to the north beneath the midnight sun. The protagonist, having moved there for work, quickly developed a bad case of insomnia due to the stress of his new job and this unfamiliar environment in which night never came, and his life only continued falling apart from there. I definitely didn’t want the same thing happening to me. While I obviously had no idea how long the timefreeze would last, I wanted to at least retain my normal circadian rhythm if at all possible. And in order to do that, I needed to charge my phone.
I arrived at the hotel and walked into the lobby. If I remembered right, our luggage was being stored at the coat check…which I could only assume was located somewhere behind the front desk.
“Pardon me…” I said politely to the perpetually smiling receptionist as I let myself behind the counter and into the employee area. After walking through the back rooms for a while, I found my mark: a huge collection of luggage all stowed away in one place. It took almost no time to pick my backpack out from the pile. Relieved, I headed back out into the lobby and unzipped the front pocket to retrieve my charging cable and wall adapter.
“Okay, now I just need to find an outlet…”