Midnight Sun

From the dark clouds high above, rain fell over Shibuya Crossing, thousands all walking, their umbrellas overhead, everyone scrambling; the streets and buildings all drenched and muddled like nightmares and dark memories, setting the world in a scene like a dark landscape. Everything sounded, busy and loud, yet everything was muffled and wet; everything to the senses all scrambled lost like wandering voices like a world submerged to the depths of the sea…

High buildings arose left and right, erected in wild patterns; the canyons in between filled with the lights of the cars packing the streets as the stoplights sounded and blared— but of course, all these sounds were muffled as well… everything was…

The colors of the countless billboards around all seemed dimmed, flushed and washed away of all color, everything as if turned colorless and dull, as if everything were turned a hollow grey, everything turned dark; all empty…

And here, right in the center of it all, in the heart of Shibuya, I am among them all; lost in the crowd as if I'm no one…

No one, at all…

Every sound escaped me, and everything felt numb— all to the point that every sound seemed lost and stripped of all their color and force, stripped of all music and life— it all simply felt numb to me. Everything’s wet, the asphalt below my feet, the air itself all cold and wet as well, and even the hem of my dress, and even sound itself— it was all lost, everything; all of it drenched and washed away like watercolors with the falling rain as if they were the tears of some god wishing to forget it all…

Just like me…

Forget it all… Forget it all…

If only…

And here, I walk along with everyone else, among the massive crowd scrambling through the darkness like black ants— every person was faceless to me, and everything colorless, all watery like some illusion painted in the rain, like a mirage of some sort. And here I feel my tears burning somewhere within me, hidden and pent up, as if tucked away deep within my chest— and it all burned, and it hurt, as if it were tearing at my heart from within itself: it’s suffocating…

Then, here, right here in the middle of the crossing, as everyone passed me left and right, I let down my umbrella and look up to the sky…

Thnnk…

With a sound, the umbrella touched the ground…

The rain fell and washed over me, touching and washing over my hair— coloring it like silk, dark and gleaming as if fell down to my waist. The wind picked up, cold, with the rain hitting me like hail, like bullets, hard— flapping at my dress, threatening to take my umbrella away as well… just like everything else…

Just like everything else in my life… I don't know why, but that's just the way things turned out…

Leaving me alone, leaving me alone to walk out in the streets, in the middle of Shibuya, alone in the rain…

As I stand here at the heart of it all…

A person forgotten in a sea of people… all in hundreds, thousands even… all faceless…

Myself but a lone wrinkle in a colorless world…

Without anyone that cares… besides, what else would people do…?

I'm just another person, a stranger in a world that wouldn't care…

Because I'm no one to them…

Yet here, my eyes glowed wide, glowing its color blue— glowing like an arcade sighing its color blue into the night…

"Haa…"

Looking to the sky… I let myself release a sigh into the darkness…

"Haa…"

Here, even as I’m surrounded by people… by thousands…

I am all alone…

No one cares… nor will anyone… I repeat to myself… even as the rain beat on down against us all…

No one will hear me— but then again, why couldn’t I speak…?

Thrrnn…

Facing the rain, I can’t put my feelings to words…

— The nights are too long for me alone…

Too long for me to sleep and see the same dream again and again…

No matter what… you’re not there…

In fact, nothing's there…

Nothing at all…

There, facing the rain, my memories return, like little flashes against the dark sky— memories as we watched the sunrise together, in a world lucid and carefree, like clouds of pink and white aloft; and there, I see us as kids again, the two of us swinging on our favorite swings— yet, each and every night in my dreams, each time my mind returns to that scene, to that one moment, to that one memory, I see only myself, sitting there alone, without you by my side; all that’s left, even in my dreams and sleepless nights, is your shadow… as if reflected on the dreamy floor of my mind and memory…

And there in the rain… facing the darkness in the middle of the streets… I thought to myself, in the muffled silence…

— I don’t mind if I lose these feelings… if I lose the ability to feel at all…

Why am I looking so sad…? Watching the rain fall over me…?

Why am I shedding tears…?

But… most importantly…

Why can’t I ever forget you…?

Thrrnn…

The rain grew stronger… the sky lit up for a moment, as thunder came about and shook the world for an instant…

But of course, no one cares…

— You know, if this voice can’t reach you…

I don’t mind of losing it in the rain, like everything else…

Just then— before I could realize so, it was nighttime, and without my notice, the streets had gone empty and dead in silence, only roaming of lost spirits and ghosts…

All of them moving left and right, crossing the streets, their umbrellas overhead…

As the rain beat on… as they disappeared, as if walking through walls, into the emptiness…

And there, right above me, set against the dark clouds and the stars in the rain— was the sun: cold, staring right at me from straight above…

The midnight sun…