Being at night. What time is it? I can't see. Literally, I cannot see anything now. All that is reflected in my view is darkness. Just this morning, or maybe yesterday morning (I don't know how much time has passed), I woke up as usual and left for work in the bicycle shop. I worked for eight hours there, which is what I always do, and got back home at 7 p.m. or so, as I do every day. I think I started making supper…yes, I remember it…and I ate it, as usual, and I felt tired so I closed my eyes and thought about what had happened today for a while, and I decided to open my eyes again…then, I noticed that the view I was seeing was the same as what I saw when I had closed my eyes. I have somehow lost my eyesight.
     It is still. Still. One of my favorite words. But now, the word terrifies me. Without talking continuously in my mind by creating other words, I have to confront this darkness, it's too terrible, too awful to face the reality, the center of everything.
     Anyway, what should I do now? Scream? No, it won't help. I want to, but I should not do that. Probably I should call an ambulance but how? I can't see the numbers. But anyhow, I should try…yes, this is my phone, I can recognize it by touching…or, I can ask one of my neighbors to call instead of me! Yes, yes, yes, that's it……

     
     But, what is it?

     The soft sound of a thing, which rolled over and hit Ms. Mizuno's toes, stopped her spinning and feeling with heavy anxiety as if someone turned a faucet off quickly, although Ms. Mizuno still sat in the darkness. For a little while, the effect of surprise surpassed her fear and she leaned over to pick up the thing that was still touching her toes. She pinched and tried to recognize the small thing by touch. It was so smooth and tender that would be easily smashed if Ms. Mizuno grabbed it with just a little bit more strength. The texture was like a little fruit, such as a grape or a cherry.

     But, why is there a grape here?

     The spinning of her thoughts seemed to start again and Ms. Mizuno stared toward the direction of her right hand, imagining the round shape and plum color of the little fruit clearly standing out in the deep blackness. Then, she decided to go toward the door and get out of her own room by groping. An edging corner of the desk, a pair of gloves that she usually wore in the kitchen space and a pair of sneakers that were left on the entrance door. She touched each thing with her hands and feet, sometimes knocked herself against something while timidly walking to the door. Finally, she got out of the room.

     "And, another strange thing happened," Ms. Mizuno said to me in her usual, fluent way of talking. Though she was not a talkative kind of person, she sometimes liked to tell me what she had experienced in her youth, especially ones she was not able to understand nor explain even now. I, too, liked to listen to and think about such stories. On days when I had nothing to do and no one to play with after school, I often visited her house and asked her to tell me a story. Sometimes, I strangely felt that Ms. Mizuno's experiences were, or someday would be, related to myself.

     When the younger Ms. Mizuno opened the entrance door, as if she were in a magical story (that was what Ms. Mizuno thought at that time), her eyesight was immediately full of colors and lights, though of course, the outside was still at night. What she actually saw was a street crowded with hundreds of people. The scenery was too unfamiliar for her compared with the peaceful residential street which she always saw and walked through to her room every day. Laughter burst from those who were passing by in front of Ms. Mizuno, plenty of cheerful music flew out from lots of stores, and electric lights were glittering sharply. Startled, Ms. Mizuno looked back at her room. Inside of the room was completely dark and quiet. Even the windows of the room did not reflect any lights and shadows at all, as if it were clearly separated from the outside of the world. 

     It cannot be.

     Miss. Mizuno quivered. She ran as fast as possible toward the glittery, brilliant streets to go as far away from her own room as possible. For Ms. Mizuno, the noisy hustle and bustle of the town was somewhat a symbol of coziness and comfort even though the town was not familiar to her at all. Meaningless chats and loud songs seemed to let her come in and melt into them. As she ran into the areas, the town seemed to become much brighter and she felt she was able to reach the center of the town. Some waved to Ms. Mizuno, some beckoned to let her participate in their chattering. Ms. Mizuno waved back to them or just said “Hi” to them but continued to run toward the center.

     “The center of what?” I asked Ms. Mizuno.
     “I don’t know clearly what the word meant for me yet. I remember that, for me, ‘the center’ meant something truly important about myself. In those days, I was totally happy about my job, life, and friendship. I had a boyfriend, too. Everything was brilliant. But I felt, sometimes, that something of my life was slippery,” Ms. Mizuno answered fluently.

     No one talked to Ms. Mizuno nor stopped her running at full speed in the crowded streets. However, after she ran about 30 or 40 minutes and slipped into the square which was surrounded by a big music hall, a theater, a hotel and a shopping mall, she noticed that someone was watching her from behind the fashionable buildings. Ms. Mizuno looked up at a round object which was shining softly at the center of the square. She stared at the object just a little while, and felt that the spinning of her thoughts started again. It reminded her of a grape that she had touched and imagined in her own room. Then, Ms. Mizuno turned again and recognized that the man was still there.

     “I don’t know which began to move faster, I or the person in the shadow,” Ms. Mizuno said. “I just knew that it was a man.”
    The man’s face was gradually coming closer and becoming clear for Ms. Mizuno.

 
   
     A long time before Ms. Mizuno had a job in the bicycle shop, she was, of course, a girl. At that time, she had a pet dog and needed to take him for a walk every evening. Ms. Mizuno rarely talked to other people because she followed one of her mother’s instructions about taking a walk. However, there was a man who sometimes chatted with her when they met.
    “The man always walked alone,” Ms. Mizuno explained. “At first, I didn’t talk to him either, but we saw each other really often so my cautiousness about him gradually faded.”
    The contents of their conversation were quite simple. Actually, they often preferred to keep silent and just continued walking together rather than chatting with each other. “I was a really quiet and shy girl,” Ms. Mizuno said.
     Ms. Mizuno did not tell her family about the man at all because she knew that it would make her parents upset. I know he is a good person. Ms. Mizuno was quite confident about the matter. She had seen his friendly way of talking with his neighbors a couple of times from far away and understood it. The walking routes of Ms. Mizuno and the man were almost the same as each other except at the end. After walking in the park, they often left there from the same gate (though the park had a couple of gates, as she added) and separated when they came to the hospital building which was near Ms. Mizuno’s house. She went straight along the hospital building to go home, but the man would turn left at the corner of it.
     One day, Ms. Mizuno and the man walked together in the park as usual, being completely silent and without chatting. It was autumn and the outside was already dark.
     “Anyway, you should go home now,” the man immediately told her.
     That surprised her. He had never said anything to her like a proper adult would tell a child. Secretly, she thought that the man was her friend and they were able to socialize equally. However, she just nodded as if she agreed with him completely----I was a shy girl and was not good at expressing my hope nor my opinion----They came near the gate which they often passed through. The hospital building was not so far away from the gate.
     “Look,” It was the first time Ms. Mizuno opened her mouth and clearly said a word since they had met each other on that day. He looked at the direction she pointed to and found a shiny, small and round object on the road.
    “What is it?” Ms. Mizuno started to run without waiting for his answer. As she ran, she knew that he was following her slowly.
    It was a grape with smooth, shiny skin. Not novel at all because they both knew that there was a vine tree in the park. However, Ms. Mizuno watched it, feeling as if it were one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. The color of deep purple was standing out quietly in the dim light of the evening. For her, the grape seemed to shine solemnly like a tomb of a very important person.
    “Why are you watching such a small thing so seriously?” the man asked, a giggle in his voice. “Can you see a fairy or something?”
    “No!” Ms. Mizuno said in a little bit of an angry voice. She looked away from the grape and changed the subject abruptly. “As you say, I should probably go back now. See you tomorrow…maybe, or whenever we could see each other again.” She did not look at his face and ran toward the hospital building.

     And you never appeared since that day,
     Ms. Mizuno whispered to the man who was watching her silently in the center of the square. He did not say anything, but handed her a small grape.
     What should I do?
Ms. Mizuno asked but she knew what she needed to do.
     Without waiting for his answer, she picked up the little fruit and threw it into her mouth. Its taste was more bitter than she had expected, so she closed her eyes. The image of a dark purple spot persistently remained. When she finished swallowing it and opened her eyes again, she was in her own room. She was able to see the things inside the room. She was able to see her shoes, the pair of gloves she wore in the kitchen space and the corner of the desk. She looked toward the windows. The outside world was exactly what she knew well----and the windows clearly reflected the lights and shadows of it.

     “Well, who was the man after all? What do you think about it?” I asked Ms. Mizuno, not completely satisfied.
    “I don’t know. When I noticed that the man never came to the park again, I wondered if I did something that made him angry or dislike me. But as years went by, I gradually stopped thinking about him. You may think that our friendship was a long one, but actually, after we had begun walking together it was a story of two weeks or less. A couple of days after that, a friend of my mother, who was working at the hospital, visited our house. She said that a patient who she had been responsible with, had died recently. That was very impressive for me but I didn’t know who the patient was, and don’t even know now.”

  
    The bell rang. The clear sound surprised us and we faced each other. It was my mother. She stopped to take me to our house after her work had finished.
    “I thought my daughter would be here,” my mother smiled at Ms. Mizuno, entering the room. “Thank you for your kindness. You often take care of her while I have to be absent.”
    “It’s OK,” Ms. Mizuno smiled back at my mother with her usual smooth voice. “I like her very much. She is a good listener to my talking. Besides, I especially want to share the story I told today with her.”
    “Good bye, Ms. Mizuno,” I waved to her after I realized that my mother wanted me to hurry up.
    “Good bye,” Ms. Mizuno replied. “And see you tomorrow, or whenever we can see each other again.”
    As I got into my mother’s car, I looked back and saw Ms. Mizuno standing just beside the window of her room. She looked as if she were staring----at something in her right hand, with the expression of intense thinking.