Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Solitude

Once I've fixed myself tea, I sit down at the table again by the light of the weak lamp and listen. All around is, at first, silence. So quiet I can hear my own pulse and my breathing. I can hear the loud slurps from my lips when I sip my tea. I can hear when my cup lightly thumps onto the table. Then my scope of perception expands outward like a searching sonar and I hear the buzz of the electric lamp. I hear a fly slapping against the window. The creak of a floorboard that had been loose. The groan of a shingle on the roof when wind passes by. I listen to the cry of a crow perched on a branch somewhere. It is ominous and dry. Absolutely emotionless. The military call of duty. Further, I hear the rustle of the leaves like whispers discussing secrets - likely about me. They watch and huddle close, wondering what my next move is. Whether they should come and stamp out the shack and prevent me doing from anything else. These sounds rush in, towering over me and overwhelm my senses.

My head rings with possibilities. Of fear. Of imagining. The shadows seem to be alive, shifting and moving and watching. I see hands and arms and heads creep out towards me and then retreat when I turn to look at them. Everything starts to breathe and vibrate. I could die here and now, suddenly, without ever realizing it, in some inexplicable manner like by the hand of a murderer hiding out in the woods or by something so mundane and natural in the forest, no one would bat an eye. Naoki Maeda (22) dies in a tornado. Naoki Maeda (22) dies in a forest fire. Naoki Maeda (22) is attacked and killed by a mountain lion. Naoki Maeda (22) is found dead from starvation.

I shudder. The air is getting cold. Time wears on, slowly oozing by like a predator circling its prey. It is especially slow and stealthy now that I have nothing to do, nothing to hear and nothing to see. In this nothingness, things wind down to a halt. And the nothingness matches the nothingness inside me. Such that I begin to feel a sense of calm and complacency and equilibrium. There's nothing to strive for here. I can die or live and it wouldn't make a difference. It had never really made a difference. I can sit in between the state of existence and non-existence. In a sea of nothing, I am nothing, therefore, we are one and the same. If I could maintain this mindset, I might just transcend and become an abstract concept, an eternal timeless being, without any attachment to the world I had come from and become the forest and the wind.

But immediately, a violent rebuttal comes into my mind as if an axe splitting wood. I hear the deafening snapping sound resound through my head. I see Shizuka's face. And there's a pain so powerful I nearly double over. It rips through my body in a shaking convulsion, from my chest to my fingertips and toes and then back again. It goes into my head and then down to the base of my spine. I feel the waves of some supernatural agony ricocheting through me like my skin are the walls and boundaries. It sends me writhing in my chair, a divine punishment for even wanting to become nothing, to cast her aside. Here, in complete solitude, with nothing but a flickering lamp and the smell of wood, I long for her more than ever before. I miss her. I miss her a lot.

If not for my own, I am a vessel for her existence - and for Shirayuki's too.

I decide I would need to make good use of what's available here, sparingly and carefully. I'm not sure how long I would have to remain here. If no one comes to me and I couldn't find the way out, I might be stuck here. Yet surely an hour away from Tokyo can't be that bad. There's electricity, and forests out here can't be so immense that there is no end to it. Tomorrow when there's enough light, I would check the vehicle and the surrounding forest to study my environment. I would need to plot my approximate longitude and latitude location if possible, and find firewood.

By now, the sun is setting and I rush to fix myself a simple meal. There's some frozen dumplings and one last pack of instant ramen from a shelf I throw into a pot and boil. I eat it directly from the pot afterwards without bothering to sit down. After I've finished, I wash everything and turn them over to dry on a towel. I drink my tea, take a cup of water, rinse my teeth and wash my face with my hands. My skin suddenly feels refreshed like having a minty breeze breathe against me. Once all is done, the sunlight has entirely disappeared and the colours of the world around change from greens and browns into black and cool navy. Except for my sphere of light from the little electric lamp, everything becomes essentially the same colour. The black sea strains to swallow us. I stay in the light.