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Monday. 11/07/05. 03:42:56 AM
Before he got on the bus, a kid cried in the night. Curious, Ryo
asked why he cried. The kid replied that he wanted a lollipop,
the green one that was right besides the newspaper stands, the
one inside a glass orb candy machine.
Fishing out a quarter, Ryo gave the kid the money, and watched
him smile as he placed the quarter in and cranked the dial, the
candy sliding down and falling out onto his hand as he opened
the loose door at the bottom of it.
Looking at the kid, Ryo wished he could be so innocent again, so
ignorant of everything else the world has to offer.
Once you know everything, excitement is hard to be found.
"When I died, voices called down to me." Eiji had said a few
days ago, as the waitress brought over another cup of tea, the
steam swirling and dancing up into the air. "Like I said before,
I thought I was just imagining these, that they were all just
part of a dream or something.
"Yet that wasn't the case." Eiji smiled as he said this. "When I
opened my eyes, and looked closer at the source of these voices,
I found out that these were the voices and thoughts of those who
were calling me back, crying and wishing for me to be alive
again."
"Who were they?" Ryo couldn't help but ask.
"The people you would most expect to miss you," Eiji replied.
"Family, parents, brother, friends, co-workers, people who you
met online, fans who appreciate your work, girls you've had
relationships with before." He paused as he drank down some more
tea. "It's as if the world suddenly started caring about you
once you died, it's as if everything you've done has more of a
meaning just because you were now gone, the things that you did
used to be taken for granted, but now that they realize that you
won't be around to do that anymore, they all mourn and miss you,
even those who have vowed to never want to think of you again,
never want to even hear your name mentioned.
"It's in this state, as I peered into everyone's consciousness,
that I realized that what I did was childish, and that the link
that I had once held were now broken due to the fact that I
left." Eiji looked up, looking at Ryo. "I realized that my death
did not bring the world any better, but actually worse, because
I could now see the links that will turn the rails of life
towards a better future, and me just not being there was turning
it towards some other rail." Another pause. "All due to my
selfish decision, all due to my just thinking of satisfying
myself.
"It's always after you've done something stupid that you want to
reverse it, to go back in time and change the choices you've
done." Eiji chuckled as he thought about his own choices before.
"As soon as I was dead, I wanted to be alive again, to make
those who miss me happy again, to fill up that space up and make
everything normal again." A sigh, another sip of tea, as Ryo's
tea still remains untouched, cold and getting colder. "I think
that's when I woke up, as I wanted to be alive more and more, as
I regretted what I've done again."
Ryo looked at him with surprise. "And that's it?" He said in
shock. "You just wished it and you came back to life again?"
Eiji chuckled at this reaction. "I wish I had a better and more
revealing explanation than that," His chuckles turned into
laughter, the ones reflecting happiness. "I know it's weak, and
it really doesn't explain anything, but that's pretty much all
that it was, man, nothing more, nothing less." Sighing, he
looked up at Ryo. "I guess it may be that the spell still had
its effect, since it wasn't a week yet, and when I reversed my
thoughts, the effects of it followed it as well." Eiji shrugged
at this. "This is the only explanation that I've been able to
come up with, and it's pretty much the only logical one I can
come up with so far."
Ryo let out a huge breath of air, drinking his cold tea for the
first time since Eiji started speaking. "And just like," Ryo
asked as he finished the first cup in large gulps. "You got up,
went home, dressed and got into a car to see your friends?"
"Right." Eiji smiled again in that same old smile. "I needed to
tell them a proper good-bye before I left."
"Good-bye?"
"Yes," Eiji nodded. "There was no way that I could have fit back
into that life anymore, since the links broke off once I died."
A pause. "The only thing I could do was to end that space and
link them to someone else, so that at least that space was
replaced by something else, and the emptiness that it occupied
before won't be there."
"Then..."
Sighing, Eiji drank some more of his tea. "It is time to start
over again, time to move away and start new links."
Ryo felt his throat dry, and wished that he had another cup of
tea in front of him. |
