Chapter 22: Memory Isn’t Time

This was simply loss of faith in time.

His time piece had reached 07:35:00.

It had been melted there long enough, however, some hours, maybe minutes, more likely not at all. What could not be retained was time.

The university dome was not a flat dome anymore.

This strange shininess, as though above asphalt

Theater curled in upon itself along its edges like the entire world bending back.

The construction was about to fly, levelled with the ground, without being fixed.

Streetlights were showing in and out of being.

He was walking with Hina, who did not speak.

She was no longer flickering a bit- glitches no longer but she was out of control evidently.

Her delineation was sharp along the irregular lines, soft at irregular angles.

Her shadow followed her several steps.

She did not say anything in ages.

Haruto wanted to reply whether she was still there but something stopped him. Unless she was, the response will shatter him. so he again saw what the watch said.

Still: 07:35:00.

Under what it had been a train bridge they passed.

One beam carried a sign:

[DATA RETRIEVE ERROR].

Haruto stared at it.

On one occasion Yamazaki wrote that phrase down in his notebook. Now it was on all things.

He looked up. The sky shook. Something was gonging inside it--not like thunder, but like broken water.

“I was asking you, Hina, where we were, do you remember?” he said, before all this.

Hina hesitated. Incidentally, she replied, Bridge. “Anomalies. Bell Tower. Then… then it got soft.”

“Soft?”

“Like we were falling. But not down. Like falling through something.”

Haruto took a deep breath. He also wished to know about Ayaka, but he was afraid she would answer who. So he stayed silent.

They kept walking. The world was losing color with its going.

At one time they came past a vending machine which was half way into a tree. It whirred aside and because of its display, childhood photographs of Haruto appeared, which he did not remember taking.

Each image flickered.

In one, he had the eyes of Ayaka on his face.

In some others he carried the smile of Hina.

It was not nostalgia, it was corruption.

They then reached by and by a plaza, big and deserted. The perfect spiral was the breaking of the ground. In the center stood a mirror.

Haruto drew closer to it and halted. He couldn’t see his own face. No-- only half-real of him, without features. No scar on his brow. No pin on his collar. It looked like a prototype.

He extended his hand; his hand seemed to feel through the glass. “I believe I am beginning to unravel,” he said.

Hina stood behind him. “You had a brother, did you, up till just now?” she said suddenly.

Haruto turned sharply. “What?”

“I keep thinking you did. But I don’t know his name.”

Haruto stared at her. “I’ve never had a brother.”

She flinched. “Oh.” Then, rather: “Perhaps it was some other person who remembered.”

Again he managed to look at the watch. 07:35:00.

Not counting seconds, he said.

“What?”

He turned to her. “This watch. It’s not a timer. It’s a… pressure gauge. A memory counter.”

“You’re saying—?”

“It’s tracking me. How much of me is still intact.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He just began walking again.

Every step felt lighter.

But it wasn't a relief.

It was a loss.

They came to a hall-way--that was attempting to be a different thing.

The walls were uneven. One side was like a hospital passage. The other had subway tiles. The doors were suspended half in the air. Bar names were cut into paint, but in languages with which he was unfamiliar.

At the end was a desk. On it lay a journal. No dust. No decay. Fresh.

He opened it. The first page was blank.

On the second page, there was a name: Nozomi Fushimi.

The name by itself was something he could do without.

This he read but he got the sense that he had heard it before, in his heart; how one girl laughed and they traced stars in textbooks; a silent stroll in a sunflower field; a pledge that was carved in the bench of a park.

The journal was dropped by him just like an overdue homework.

I know her, half-a-gasping, at the whole affair. And yet she is imaginary, like he was arguing at a school.

Hina crossed her legs and tried not to move.

“I believe I remember her, too”, she thought.

Haruto looked down and flicked his eyes through all the hand written notes in the journal.

“I believe I can recall those who were obliterated. Or… like he was unloading the pieces left behind, I suppose”, said he to himself.

She began to cry and she simply could not say anything pleasant to him.

So we sat in this chilly place with a great smell of snow and it felt like a library on a snow day.

There were desks here. School desks. Too many. Some were upside down. Some stacked. Some floating.

Each one had a nameplate.

None matched anyone Haruto had ever met.

But every single name hurt to look at.

Like he had once been close to them.

Then forgotten.

He whispered to himself, “I’m not myself anymore.”

Hina put her hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Still another wave went round the world. This one was stronger.

The floor had broken, not visibly, but as you touched it.

You questioned whether the room which you were in was an actual one.

then a voice spoke in the walls: “What shall become of him that forgets himself?”

Turning, Haruto got no one to see. It was a little piece of paper that fell to the ground.

He picked it up.

In a very small, spidery hand there was written upon it: “TO EXIST, is to be remembered.”

Before he could cover it up with a fold it was swept away by the wind.

Hina halted when they reached the fringe of the district, particularly what remained of it.

“I cannot go further.”

Haruto turned to her.

“What, what do you mean?”

“I mean, I mean, I grabbed him by the wrist.”

“Something is pulling at me. As there is a version of me who is ready to substitute this one.”

Haruto shook his head. “No. You can read me out a second time.”

“So You can’t read me out, you can read my mind out.”

“That’s why I’m fading.” He held her tighter.

But all she said was: “Do not select me. Or thou shalt forfeit all the rest.’

Then she vanished. Not dramatically. Not with light or particles. She had only ceased being where she was, like a turned-over page.

Haruto stood in silence.

The air grew heavy.

His watch ticked. 07:35:00 – 07:34:59.

One second disappeared.

With it, a memory.

It was none of the aforementioned, but he knew it counted.

A name lodged in his tongue, a thing he never made a joke about, someone with whom he almost loved.

He looked at the sky. Above him, a shape formed. Not a body, but an opening - a creeping, widening spiral. Black in the middle, white on the sides. It was a living breathing creature.

So in its breath Haruto lastly realized: Countdown ends with him.

When Haruto is no more to remember.

Then the world shifted again.

A door appeared.

Before he arrived there it opened.

Inside was a memory. Not his, but his destined one, nevertheless.