Every time I saw the girl to the door of her house I always said, “See you tomorrow.” A meaningless thing to say, if you think about it, since in that town tomorrow in the precise sense didn’t exist. Even knowing that, though, every night I couldn’t help but say that to her.
See you tomorrow.
Whenever she heard this, she smiled faintly. But didn’t say anything. Sometimes her lips would open a fraction, but no words ever emerged. She’d spin around, and, the hem of her skirt fluttering, she’d be absorbed by the entrance to her pitiful communal residence and vanish.
And I’d revisit the silence between us (silence being the one thing we held intimately in common as we walked, side by side, down the riverside path). As I secretly tasted this sustenance deep in my throat, I walked home. And thus ended the day for me in the town.
“See you tomorrow,” I often said aloud to myself as I walked the path along the river. Knowing all the while that tomorrow didn’t exist.
But on that final night, I couldn’t say those words. Since tomorrow did not exist there. Not in any way, shape, or form.
What I said instead was “Farewell.” An odd expression arose on her face, as if this was the first time in her life she’d heard the word, and she gazed steadily at me. This sort of good-bye wasn’t what she was used to, and it seemed to puzzle her.
And I, too, gazed directly at her.
And I noticed something. How her overall features had changed slightly. I couldn’t say for sure how, though I did notice changes in several details. The outline and depth of her features, like small waves, had begun to transform into something ever so different from before. Like a vibration makes a traced picture subtly off from the original. Very subtle changes, ones most people wouldn’t notice.
Perhaps my “Farewell” to her that evening—different from my usual parting words—had brought on these changes in her looks. No—that wasn’t it. What was transforming there, and undergoing subtle changes, wasn’t the girl’s looks but me. My own heart, as a human being, might be what was transforming.
“Farewell,” I said to her again.
“Farewell,” she said. Slowly, carefully, cautiously, as if putting in her mouth some food she’d never laid eyes on before. Always a tiny smile rose to her lips then, but this smile, too, was not the same. At least it felt that way to me.
How would she feel tomorrow when she realized I was no longer in this town? No, I thought—after I was no longer here the girl herself might very well have vanished. Maybe she was a being prepared by the town for my sake alone. So if I disappeared from here, so might she. This was entirely possible. And then someone else would help Yellow Submarine Boy in his dream reading. That thought hurt me, something awful. It felt like my body had turned half transparent. Precious things were steadily going far away from me. I was losing them forever.
Even so, my determination was firm. I knew I had to leave and move on to the next stage. This was a predetermined flow. I understood that now. I didn’t belong here anymore. The space that contained me was no more. In many senses of the term.
She finally stopped gazing at my face. And as always she spun around, the hem of her skirt fluttering, and disappeared into the entrance to the communal residence. Quickly, precisely, like a night bird slipping into the darkness. With not a single wasted motion.
Left alone, I stared for a long time at the traces of her she’d left behind. That graceful image faded, disappeared completely, filled in by a blank space left by nothingness.
On my way back home along the river, night birds called out their lonely night song, the spindly branches of the river willows on the sandbanks trembling in time to this. The sound of the water was louder than usual. Spring had arrived.
Late that night, Yellow Submarine Boy and I met in that small dark room deep in my unconscious. We sat there, the small desk between us, a thin candle burning as always. For a time we silently gazed at the candle. The flame flickered slightly in time to our silent breathing.
“So, have you given it enough thought?”
I nodded.
“You aren’t feeling any doubts?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. I don’t think so.
The boy said, “Then at this time I’ll say good-bye to you.”
“So I won’t be seeing you again?”
“Probably not. We probably will never meet again. But I don’t know. Who can say for sure?”
I took another close look at the boy in his Yellow Submarine parka. He took off his glasses, lightly pressed down on his eyelids, then put the glasses on again. Every time he put his glasses back on, it seemed to me that he became a slightly different person. In other words, he might be growing, moment by moment.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m unable to feel sadness,” he confessed. “I was born like this. But if I weren’t like this, and were a normal person, I’m sure I would feel sad at saying farewell to you. This is merely my imagination, of course, and I have no way of knowing what sadness is.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m just happy you’d say that.”
Yellow Submarine Boy kept silent for a while. And then spoke.
“I guess we won’t be seeing each other again.”
“Perhaps not,” I said.
“Believe in the existence of your other self,” Yellow Submarine Boy said.
“That’s my lifeline.”
“That’s right. He’ll catch you. Believe in that. Believing in your other self is believing in you, yourself.”
“Time for me to go,” I said. “Before the candle burns out.”
The boy nodded.
I breathed in deeply and paused. In those few seconds all kinds of scenes flashed before me. All the scenes I treasured. Among them a scene of a downpour on a broad sea. But I didn’t hesitate. I had no hesitation. Perhaps.
I closed my eyes, focused all the power within me, and, in a single breath, blew out the candle.
Darkness descended. A darkness deeper than anything, a darkness ever so soft.