Originally Written by Hayato Katagiri (2015)
English Translated by Christopher Browne

Bad Dreams

The boy went to bed a little earlier than usual. It was preparation for school the next day. The boy turned off the lights and closed his eyes.

In his dreams, the boy slept. By closing his eyes, he could hear footprints. It is normal that everyone should be asleep in the middle of the night. The boy had strange thoughts.

Shutting his eyelids tightly, he could just perceive the light which he had already turned off. Something large passed just in front of the boy’s futon. Under the covers, the boy trembled with intense fear.

“Mommy, I’m scared!” The boy found himself standing in his mother’s room. “It’s alright now” said his mother gently stroking his head.

He woke from the dream. Coming to his senses he found his mother gone, and he realized he was not a boy, but an adult.

The Train that Didn’t Come

One day, the boy got on a train. Facing in the receding direction he watched the scenery speeding away. The boy thought about the girl he had just left at the station. He was steadily moving further and further from the town.

Some time before, the boy had been riding on a train. Of course he sat reversed to watch the scenery speeding away, and thought about the girl he had just left at the station. Thinking back further, even then there had been a similar time when he left the girl at the station.

Suddenly everything in front of the boy disappeared. All that remained were winter skies, and the fading light of a town he didn’t know. The boy held onto the sadness in his heart and waited endlessly for a train that would never come.

Spirit on the Mountain

The boy ventured onto a unknown mountain, climbing farther and farther up. Given the season, the yellow and crimson leafed trees were constant.

Others became fewer and fewer the further he climbed. Noisy people, people taking pictures, all slowly disappeared. Soon there was nobody but the boy himself. Even as he thought “I’ve got to get back before it grows dark” he still felt something lay ahead, and he couldn’t stop from continuing onwards.

Indeed, he had forgotten from whence he had come. The boy asked the spirit of the mountain “Where did I come from?” The spirit of the mountain answered. It was a place the boy had never heard of before.

Loneliness at 4PM

The boy came back home after playing. Looking at the clock, it had moved to 4PM. A ray of slanted afternoon sunlight intruded through the window. It was the gentle face of afternoon loneliness.

A Crack in Existence

First of all, there was a boy. The boy had been having a dream. There was a girl. The girl had also been having a dream. In that way, all people had been having dreams.

Suddenly the boy woke from his dream. The girl next to him was still dreaming. The boy was hesitant to wake her, so he left the house.

Walking in the town, the taxi driver, the bank worker, the old lady from the sweet shop, everyone was having a dream. In fact only the contrarian philosopher, the scheming manager, the fashionable designer, and the one-armed man had woken from the dream into a nightmare as they walked down the street.

Late Night Philosophy

That night the boy couldn’t sleep. He could hear the girl sleeping next to him. He didn’t know the girl’s name. Quietly, the boy climbed over the girl to get something to drink from the refrigerator.

Inside the refrigerator there was only empty space. From that interior the boy took out some light. After drinking it all up, the boy retraced his steps back to bed.

The light started leaking from the boy’s body, and a pale brightness began to fill the room. The girl’s faint blood vessels rose up visibly. Even then the girl did not wake. Not knowing what to do, the boy spent the whole night thinking about the origins of the world.

Without arriving at any answers, the boy’s questions dissolved into the breaking daylight.

God

Quietly the dawn broke. The boy left the house and made his way towards a temple in the just waking town. On the ceiling of the temple a large painting of a god had been sketched.

With all his might the boy craned his neck upwards and inspected the depiction of the god. He inhaled the strange soundless air. The god didn’t say a thing.

The god was an old friend to the boy. Since the moment he was born, the boy could hear the god’s voice. Sometimes in the quiet color of a seascape, or in the loud bustle of the city, the boy would hear the voice of the god. Still, and certainly never to the girl, he couldn’t confide this to anyone. “Ahh, so this is the secret of existence” the boy thought.

The Bridge

Since time immemorial, a special significance had been buried in the bridge. In just a short while it would become impossible for the boy to cross due to flooding.

Crossing the bridge back into the town, the girl had come by car to get him. In a state of total concern, she peered into the wet face of the boy.

“Promise to never go far away again”
With a wet hand, the boy softly stroked the face of the girl who had said the words.