It was an ordinary April evening, except that time had stopped at 1933 hours.
Saki and I weren't getting older, hungrier or more tired. The stone path in the cherry blossom garden would not end.
One week ago…
I'm an ordinary man. Office worker, in a fragile economy where everyone works twice as hard only to get half as far. Mistakes aren't tolerated and being human isn't viewed favorably.
Everything is meaningless and colorless. Or so it seemed.
When I passed by the construction site on my way to the train station, I saw her push past me.
Petite is how most people would describe her. But to me…there was something else about her. Sure enough, she was small, slender, her short hair neatly combed and the peach winter jacket snugly fit her as if holding on to dear life. And she was the only one in full color. Peach jacket, brown hair, brown boots.
I don't know why, but at that moment, even though I only saw her from the back, I instinctively calculated where her head would rest on my chest if I hugged her.
Quickly erasing these thoughts, I marched on. Work was relentless as always. Being late was a luxury I couldn't afford. Entertaining romance was beyond luxury.
I found myself side by side with the strange peach-jacket woman, when I heard an ominous crack.
The scaffolding above us had come undone and a flurry of construction material including some bricks started to fall.
I shielded her and pulled her out of harm's way, though I did feel a sharp pain in my shoulder from the impact of the falling objects.
I learned two things in the aftermath:
- One. I’d correctly calculated the height difference between me and the strange woman
- Two. Her name was Saki and she wanted to buy me dinner to thank me
It all happened so fast. I remember agreeing to what she asked of me. Her voice chimed like temple bells when she thanked me. The color in her manner of being was too overwhelming. Brown eyes like the sunset, cheerful eyebrows tinted black, but also with trepidation and courage. I don't even know if beautiful is the right word. But Saki shone. And I was both comforted and blinded by her glow.
I'd remembered to spit out all the polite echoes I'd memorized over the years to coherently respond to her.
… Present day…
She said we could walk in the cherry blossom park before dinner and I agreed. Today she wore a blue jacket, the arms of which were so big that they extended all the way over her wrists and palm, with only her fingers sticking out.
I resisted the urge to calculate how her hand would fit in mine.
I had no right to think this way. I was lucky enough to have met her at all. And to have been of use. To have the good fortune to meet her a second time possibly meant that I'd used up all my luck for this year.
I don't mind it. This is by far the most fortunate thing that's happened to me anyway. I can't really explain why. It just is.
“Fujii-san”, she sang, her lilting voice felt like water to the desert of my parched ears. “Do you like cherry blossoms?”
I don’t remember what I said anymore. The words aren’t even mine. They’re a script I use to blend into civil society. If I were to say what I’m really thinking, would I be disliked, persecuted, killed? All three?
I must've grunted something non-committal. I don't remember what I said anymore. The words aren't even mine. They're a script I use to blend into civil society. If I were to say what I'm really thinking, would I be disliked, persecuted, killed? All three?
We walked in silence for some time.
Our reservation at the restaurant was in 15 minutes, but something strange was happening. As the evening unfolded, I began to memorize Saki’s features, the sound of her voice, the phrases she often used and the expressions she made when she tried to sound cheerful while talking about things that made her sad.
When I was convinced that I'd memorized everything, and it was time to leave the park, I noticed something strange.
We'd easily been talking for 10 minutes, but the time on my watch hadn't changed.
It was 1933 when we entered the park and it was 1933 now.
Saki checked her watch too and the clock tower in the center of the park confirmed the time. Has that clock tower always been there? I wondered.
But somehow…
It was an ordinary April evening, except that time had stopped at 1933 hours.
Saki and I weren't getting older, hungrier or more tired. The stone path in the cherry blossom garden would not end.
I carefully curated the most believable elements of my life and laid them out. Why inflict the melancholy that’s infected my own soul upon someone else?
Saki looked puzzled but didn't say anything.
We kept talking. About our childhoods, our hopes and dreams. I often wondered what was worth saying and what should never be said out loud.
I carefully curated the most believable elements of my life and laid them out.
Stripping away the darkness, the agony and all other vile things that beautiful souls like Saki should never have to encounter.
There is real darkness in the world. Sharing my darkness with someone else doesn't lessen it after all.
Why inflict the melancholy that's infected my own soul upon someone else?
Saki had the most uplifting stories. I envied her unsullied perfection and the naïvete that only comes with never having your soul torn up and reassembled repeatedly.
I smiled. She smiled.
Then she stopped smiling.
She said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, “Why won't it move?”
I looked confused and asked what she'd said though I heard her clearly.
This time she turned to face me, looked up at me with a pained expression and said loud and clear, “Time has stopped”
So she felt it too.
It was still 1933. No one else seemed to have noticed. And yet, there we were, in that liminal space of having a shared understanding of a problem neither of us was prepared to solve.
“I don't know what's happening. I thought I was the only one who thought something funny about this…” I stammered uncertainly. The words didn't fit my mouth correctly because they were completely off script.
Saki made a new face this time. Frustration, fear and exhaustion marked her features. She stopped using honorifics to address me. My heart warmed at the informality. I was glad time had stopped long enough for us to stop pretending.
“We need to find a way out of this….whatever this is…,” she said frantically.
I agreed. I didn't possess the same urgency that she did. But I didn't let it show. Or so I thought.
“Why aren't you taking this seriously?” She groaned.
I finally stopped trying. I took off my jacket, spread it out on one of the benches nearby and gestured for her to sit down on it.
“Is it really that bad being stuck in time like this?” I said, sitting down next to her. “Weather's perfect, there's nowhere else we need to be and there's no yesterday and no tomorrow. It's just this. Cherry blossoms, moonlight, Saki and Takumi”
I spread my arms out to the sky and pointed to each of us as I said our names.
And then I laughed. I don't even know why. It came over me and I couldn't stop.
It was the most off script thing I'd ever said or done in recent memory.
Saki laughed too. We were like children at that moment. Helpless but hopeful all the same.
We stopped trying to be polite. We took off our shoes and sat on the grass. Spoke way too fast and too loudly. Confided secrets and swore loyalties to each other.
And all the while, the clocks stayed faithful and unmoving at …1933.
I wondered if we'd died somehow and this was the afterlife.
Maybe this was heaven.
I didn't know and there was nothing I could do to make sure. On most days I couldn't even find my way out of my own mind.
My mind was a prison, on one side there was an unscalable mountain , almost like a wall, with all of the scripts I needed to enact in order to be perceived as ‘normal’ to survive in an inconsistent world.
On the other side, there was a sea that was tumultuous and terrifying.
Saki is smiling differently now. I wonder if her scripts are as burdensome as mine and if she was able to let them go in this liminal state of timelessness.
“It feels wonderful to be who I really am and that someone is here to witness it” she says cryptically, but it's the clearest thing she's ever said to me.
I smile. “You're right”, I say to her.
It's still 1933 though an eternity has gone by.
“It feels wonderful to be who I really am and that someone is here to witness it”
…
“Beautiful painting, isn't it? It's called Sakura 1933” the AI voice supplies trying to be helpful.
The visitors to the art museum walk by paying no particular attention. A little boy opens up his sketchbook, and begins to draw a clock tower.
