The days were hot, and the nights no longer had the power to cool down the dusty air.
[みんな同じ、みんな違う。] そんな兵理屈を古いポッドで聞くながら彼女は夜をわたりました。
She walked past the stalls of the night market, not even giving it a single second of a glance.
She had a goal. One which was of much greater importance than some rusty objects of bygone days. She had come to visit an old friend. Though that word had become somewhat inappropriate to describe their relationship at some point. Still, there she was, in a faraway country, far from home, to see an old friend.
While walking through the countryside, the night had begun to turn into day. She hadn't counted the hours of her march, having always loved these kinds of things, moving, walking, running, speeding away from all unpleasant things and thoughts.
When she reached town, the stale, heated air awaiting her almost felt like a punch to the guts. She had difficulty breathing and felt quite reluctant to traverse this wall of fire. But in she had to go if she wanted to accomplish her goal, and she had come way too far to turn back now.
While the stale air had not become any lighter, she unwittingly realised that humans can even get used to things like this and, naturally, to many others.
The town became brighter with the rising of the sun, and life began to bustle.
[おい、姉ちゃん！これを買ってみ？まだ焼きたてばかり！]
A vendor called to her, shoving something resembling food in her way.
Hiding her disgust but less her annoyance, she readjusted her earphones and hit the play button. An old song, one she had loved deeply, began to play. Her feet began to move to the beat, and her steps began to synchronise with the rhythm.
♫
Being on foreign ground, her natural first stop was to visit the local guides. Having had regular exchange with that old friend over the last few years, she could more or less pinpoint her whereabouts. But that had only gone as far as locating the postal service her friend had been using. Naturally, she could have asked that friend of hers to give her a more detailed description of her abode. However, the building complexes' absence of addresses wasn't the only issue.
♫
They all looked the same, grey, worn-out, dusty high-rise building complexes connected with each other. They had begun to form a giant city of their own, a massive colourless wall rising high against the sky as if challenging the heavens. And they refused outsiders.
Or at least, that was how it seemed to her. She had long grown past the age to worry about trivial matters such as open discrimination or hidden refusal of otherness.
They were all the same; they all were different.
They had all become the same.
And with the passing of the years, an air of indifference had begun to form around her. It had made life much easier. She had become much more indifferent to life.
♫
She soon found what she was looking for. The purpose of guides was to be found by outsiders, after all, so they usually erected fancy, eye-catching hide-outs to hide from the sun, of course, in easily accessible locations. All it had taken was to ask a fellow indifferent passer-by, and as soon as she had approached the walled complex, a ridiculously colourful construct of tents and carpets had met her eye.
[よ！ お蝶ちゃん、ご命はなんとなり！]
A friendly-looking middle-aged man called out to her from a precipice, the former roof of a single-family home in front of the monstrosity of modern housing, now the ground on which the merry local guides had erected their abode.
YOU ARE READING
A dream
General FictionWe were alone in the dark, just the two of us, as the moonlight filtered in. It was just the two of us facing each other in the night, as it had always been. She looked at me reproachingly: "What are you waiting for?" "I'm not ready yet. It's dange...
