Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

A Bridge

The more I thought of her – her as a fifteen year-old and the older version I was familiar with - I couldn't draw any conclusions, or draw any closer to her. No matter how hard I tried, the box borders of the photo and the white negative space of the page blocked out all possibility. She existed only within a two-dimensional print, like a portrait at a funeral. Looking at the photo only seemed to push her further away, as if I am confirming a death – the death of her in me.

For a while I had stood there in the library, hand on the shelf, trying to regain my bearings. It was like standing on quicksand where I was sinking slowly. The more I moved the more I would sink. I could feel warmth escaping my body, and a frigid chill set in through my bones, travelling through me like liquid in tubes. Soon I was shivering. Shizuka who had excavated me from my unknown pursuers and self-induced confinement, might have known something, perhaps much more than she had ever told me, all along. What was the truth and what were the lies? Yet, hadn't I already expected this at the same time? The world that she had explained, was a world that was entirely her perception, and I had consciously believed in her perception. I adapted it into my own perception. It had ultimately been my choice, hadn't it?

"Mr. Maeda, are you alright?" The librarian came up to me in what seemed like genuine concern.

"Yes, I'm fine."

She nodded and glanced at what I was holding. For a moment there was silence. Then she said: "Mr. Maeda, what are you truly here for?"

I was surprised and I looked up at her. Her eyes were unsympathetic. I averted my eyes. She knew. She knew I wasn't here for my thesis. My head started to ache. She frowned. Shirayuki stood beside me and said: "You're here to find something you had lost."

"I'm here to find something I lost," I replied.

"I see. Something that you can find in this yearbook?"

"I don't know, maybe."

The librarian asked me to stay put for a while, that she had something for me, that maybe it would help, before she turned and stepped out of the room. I was prepared to wait but Shirayuki quickly grabbed me by the arm. Tightly. "You've got what you wanted right? It's time to leave."

"Why?"

"We must leave." Her eyes were wide with fear. She was serious.

By the time the librarian returned with a few black suits and a mysterious, tall and lanky man, I had long departed from the back stairs with Shizuka's message in my pocket, dodged through the basketball court, passing by a swimming pool where a class sat on the side, and cut through an empty track field. Though none of them paid us any attention, I had felt those same eyes watching my every move.

*

It's the next day when I receive a message on my phone, as soon as I wake up. A morning herald bearing tidings of ill omen. It's as if someone is still monitoring me. Sleep or not, regardless, I am under surveillance. By whom, I couldn't be sure. There are too many forces at work, pushing and pulling this way and that. None of them work confrontationally and prefer to play games and riddles. I'm only one small driftwood against the tidal waves of a tropical storm. Regardless, my momentum wouldn't change. There's something I must do, a trail I should continue to follow, until the very end. Until I hit a dead end or an allegorical new world. Until I can see Shizuka again. At least once more. At the moment, I don't know what I would say to her, what I might ask, what I would do, but when the time comes, I am certain I would know then.

From another number that I don't recognize, my cell phone tells me to be at the cafe today at 3:35 sharp, not a minute more or less. It would be in the middle of classes that I had resumed, but I'm not taking any chances. It is definitely not from Shirayuki this time. The bridge has appeared. Perhaps I would be able to meet the Fox.