Makes sense. You’ve gotta eat. You’ve gotta live. Now that he’s mentioned it, it does seem logical. No one’s going to pay you for shutting doors. Still…
“…But it’s important work.”
“It’s better if the important things are taken care of in secret.”
Goose bumps run down my back. That thought has never crossed my mind before. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. I’ve always assumed that the more important your work is, the more attention people pay and the more money you make. Souta looks me in the eye and says soothingly, “Don’t worry. I’ll get back to my original form and go on closing doors while I work as a teacher.”
The calm of his voice relaxes me, and soon I’m asleep. But in the brief moments before I doze off, my mind goes back to the Ferris wheel. The very top, where the two of us stood, is a place no one else could have gone. Way up there in the air, we left a sort of secret mark no one else could see. I was so proud of it, my whole body shivered silently. Retracing that feeling, I drift off to sleep.
My sleep is dreamless, but Souta’s is not. His dream is lonely, unconnected—a dream no one else could share and one that even he doesn’t remember when he wakes up.
He is sitting on a three-legged kiddie chair, remembering things he’s said. Things he’s said about being back in his original form soon, both closing doors and working as a teacher. But…, he thinks. But what if I already…?
The moment the thought crosses his mind, his body grows as heavy as lead, as if gravity has abruptly grown stronger. He sinks into the seat, and once his weight exceeds a certain point, the seat vanishes like a bubble bursting.
“…!”
He falls down and down. When he looks up in surprise, he sees himself still sitting in the chair, unmoving. His back is bowed with exhaustion, and his eyes are closed. His form, like a cast-off shell, recedes into the distance until it finally melts into darkness. Oh, it’s disappearing, he thinks, giving up hope. He has already accepted it. It isn’t what he’d wanted, but he accepts it as the way things are.
After a while, a burning town appears on the distant horizon. He knows it is far, far away, but when he squints, he can see it in great detail. Against the roaring flames, he can see bent electrical poles, piles of cars, broken windows with flapping curtains, and laundry dancing on its line, all like elaborate miniatures. He can see it all, but it is merely passing through his field of vision. I can’t even go there? he thinks. Then where can I go? That place must be so far away, like some kind of limbo. As he descends through the opaque water, without color or sensation, he is gradually cut loose from the world. The critical threads tying him to it snap one by one.
Light vanishes.
Sound vanishes.
His body vanishes.
Then memories.
Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold—
The last thread snaps.
“……”
But his soul remains. So this place must be…
He opens his eyes.
He is sitting on the kiddie chair after all. When he raises his head, he sees an old wooden door in front of him. He looks around and finds himself on a beach, at the water’s edge. The only things on the limitless shore are the door and him, sitting in the chair. At the boundary where the sea meets the sand is an endless line of washed-up bones. He doesn’t know if they used to belong to fish or people, but they are perfectly white, as if the artist who drew the world forgot to paint them. The line of pure-white bones looks to him like a boundary dividing the world in two. He is on this side, and the door is on the other.
He looks up at the door again. Plant motifs are carved into the wood. The paint is peeling off. It feels familiar, but that familiarity is a dead end. He can’t remember anything. The thread connecting his emotions and his memories is broken.
“I…,” he mumbles, unsure what to say next. His breath comes in white puffs. Beyond the door, his heart whispers. He tries to stand up, but his legs won’t move. He looks down at his feet and flinches in surprise. His bare feet resting on the sand are coated in ice. The thick covering spreads as he watches, making a small, scratchy sound like an insect’s call. It reaches his knees, freezes his thighs, and spreads across his torso, as if it has a will of its own, as if to fasten him to this faraway place. Ah, he thinks and lets out a long breath. Even his breath comes out as sparkling fragments of ice.
“So this is as far as I’ll go…”
He hangs his head, a smile curling his lips. His ice-covered body grows heavier, but the freezing cold numbs even his sensation of weight. The complete absence of sensation is bizarrely sweet.
“……”
In the distance, he hears a voice. Disregarding it, he sinks into the pleasant expanding nothingness.
“……”
Who is that? He is suddenly irritated. Why won’t they leave me alone? I chose sleep! This time, everything was finally going to disappear.
“…Souta!”
As the voice reaches him, the door opens, and he squints into the brilliance on the other side.
“…Suzume?” Souta says sleepily.
It worked! He really woke up. Chika, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Souta looks up at me with the eyes on his backrest.
“Morning.”
“…You’re finally up.”
I sigh theatrically, set him on the booth, and show him my phone.
“Look, it’s Daijin! Someone posted more pictures of him!”
Souta slowly cranes his backrest to see my social media feed.
“…Suzume,” he mumbles, still looking at the screen.
“Hmm?”
“Did you do something to me just now?”
“If you kiss them, they’ll wake up.” I remember Chika’s knowing voice. She was right.
“…Nothing in particular.”
We know our next destination, and we have to get going. I slip on the jean jacket and stuff the kiddie chair into my bag. Outside the window, the sky is a crisp blue.