I read books. To gain knowledge and somehow bring peace to my heart.
I want to run from this pain.
“You continue to wander about the unconscious, the mind, the dream, collecting those vitally significant symbols of the heart. Once you finish collecting them, no matter where you look, there will be no more of what you call ‘Effects.’”
That’s right.
The exploration of every corner of the mind has ended.
I know where everything is.
I’ve sorted out my mind, grasped it, and done all that I needed to do.
With nothing left to do, I find myself at a loss.
“However, if you had truly achieved your goal — had finished gathering the pieces of your mind, had brought everything together — you should feel relieved. An individuated and complete mind experiences no anxiety, fear, or suffering. However, even now, you’re still afraid of something.”
Those words are enough for me me.
That’s right. When you finish a jigsaw puzzle, finish finding all the pieces and making it into one whole image, that’s all. One should feel at ease, and feel satisfied.
Even so, I am still uneasy.
It still seems like there are things left to do.
“Is this diary truly complete? Is there not more to it?”
The doctor indicates the remaining pages in the diary where I’ve recorded the contents of my dreams.
“What about the doors you haven’t opened, the areas you haven’t passed through?”
I hate being questioned like this, so I look away.
I faintly gaze at the miniature garden sitting on my lap.
The Effects make an egg-shape to conceal the doll that looks like you. They look like the ones that you tossed out. After you went to all the trouble to gather them. As if to say they’re not yours, that you don’t need them.
Gather all of the pieces and complete the heart, unifying it.
Is that not the heart’s final goal?
Why am I rejecting it then?
Don’t I want to get better? Don’t I want to feel at ease?
Was it intentional that I kept missing you the whole time? Was I walking around and around so that I would get tired out?
I’m misremembering something basic.
I am still hiding something.
“Your story is very interesting. There aren’t that many people that could share their dreams in such detail. However, it clearly isn’t enough. There’s something obviously being left out. It’s precisely because certain parts aren’t detailed or clear that they’re painted black,” the doctor says, obviously saddened.
Trying to grasp someone else’s mind must be a difficult job. Their unseeable mind and yours collide, damaging one another and bleeding out. You can’t just insert a scalpel from that safe space or give them medicine. The doctor and patient become one, they sympathize, melt together — they warp, hurt each other, and become exhausted.
That’s why the doctor hopes their patient will rise up again on their own.
That’s the best, clearest way of doing it without anyone being hurt.
“It doesn’t seem like you’re making it up, though it does seem like you’re glossing over the important parts. That’s why it’s a distorted story, like a book where half the pages have been covered in paint. You don’t realize that you’re avoiding the most important truth.”
And then, it’s like I’m being stabbed with a knife.
He asks a pointed question, and it’s like he’s digging a scalpel into me.
“Why do you think □□□ isn’t in your dream?”
I can’t understand that one word.
The mind and heart recognize that word, but avoid it.
If I did accept it, my heart would be crushed. I’d bleed excessively and die of shock.
That’s why the mind shields us: out of self-defense. That word is connected to something that is taken in, then rejected.
However, the fact that I was hiding this meant it was in my heart.
I couldn’t just throw it away.
For me, it is so very important. A vital organ necessary for survival. Something that hurts so much. And that pain bursts out all at once.
I gasp and wheeze.
“Ah, ahh.”
I get the feeling that I’ve remembered everything.
Like it’s all clicked together.
The images repeat over and over...... The girl with the hat and scarf. The words of those things resembling the monochromatic girls. Swaying braids. So many Effects. The results they are supposed to have. In all of the dreams I reached while chasing you, I just averted my eyes and accepted them.
Even though I pretended not to see.
I covered the wound with my hand and pretended not to see it. I kept saying there was no wound, so I was fine, over and over to reassure myself.
Blood flows out from my heart, and my heart can no longer hide it.
I hold the miniature garden in my lap with both hands.
I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see in my mind. I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to comprehend it.
I let out such a loud scream that I can’t even believe it.
From the miniature garden, I yank up the doll that looks like you.
Then it hits the floor with a fierce impact.
The old doll breaks into pieces, spilling its cotton everywhere.
Her guts spew out everywhere.
She apparently died from a fall.
“This is the end, the continuation and end of the diary, the conclusion. She fell, she fell and she died. She went, fell, and DIEEED!”
I unleash my raw emotions in a scream.
I let out all of my unconscious thoughts in that shrill scream.
The doctor rises and begins shaking my shoulders. Calling out to me. Oddly alert, like they were on standby, a group of nurses come charging in and hold me down. I hit the back of my head hard, and my mind begins to wander.
I feel like I’m about to lose consciousness.
No. I don’t want to dream anymore. There is no salvation there.
There is nothing but despair.
Because you are not there.
You aren’t anywhere.
No matter how much I walk and wander about, you are not in my dream.