Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion Chapter 6

Chapter 6: ‘Memories Traced by a Corpse’

The novel “Memories Traced by a Corpse” is classified as a surreal fantasy.

With no idea why he is there, the main character leaves the station and starts to wander the city at twilight. The everyday scenery around him gradually begins to distort, and discrepancies develop between his memory and what he is experiencing.

In the end, the boundary between life and death itself becomes blurred, and while walking along the beach with a long-dead schoolmate he reveals that he considers himself as “nothing but a corpse”.

One day, in a bookstore I frequented, I came across a man staring intently at something on a display table.

There was an illustration of a large beach seen from above, and in its center was a tiny silhouette of a person.

Feeling a certain attraction to this mysterious book, I picked it up.

It ended up taking me three years to decipher it.

That’s because the book has carefully thought out hints placed all throughout it.

––––”Memories Traced by a Corpse” is a pandora’s box, and its author Mitsunori Sugikata is a monster.

Or so I had thought.

“Go to see Mitsunori Sugikata…You mean in your imagination?”

“It’s your imagination, so you’d only be thinking I was together with you, whereas in reality I wouldn’t be.”

“Hold on a second–I do exist.”

“Will you stop already? Why the heck are you trying to visit Mitsunori Sugikata in the real world?”

Whether I existed or not wasn’t the issue here, and talking about going out with an imaginary me was just Saki’s attempt to annoy me.

“Of course. He lives in this city.”

Of all the many books that are on sale everyday, there’s surely some reason for each book that gets displayed upon a bookstore’s table.

I guess I’d never considered such an obvious connection because to me, Mitsunori Sugikata was like an imaginary person.

If Saki were to rub this in my face I’d probably drop dead on the spot.

“Silly boy. That means you had thought of Mitsunori Sugikata as a character in his own book, right?”

“Did you just loose your mind? Or are you battling with an imaginary person?”

Talking to Saki is just like reading her novel. Long-winded and utterly unproductive.

We boarded a bus departing for the outskirts of town.

From the last seat of the nearly empty bus I watched the scenery outside the window.

Saki began talking from the seat next to me.

“Whenever I let you speak, you’re so long-winded and the conversation is utterly unproductive, so I’ll just explain.”

“When I was young, Mitsunori Sugikata lived next to me.”

“He moved away when I was in middle school, but when he published his book we were still neighbors.”

While I listened to Saki speak, I tried to recall what I knew about “Memories Traced by a Corpse”.

The book had went on sale five years ago, but like many others it apparently didn’t sell very well.

But at the same time, it was also true that there was a passionate cult following by a small group of people.

Of those, only two are still being actively updated, where two passionate fans continue to chronicle their impressions of this mysterious story.

There are so many unanswered questions: the identity of the main character and those of the people he is talking to, the true meaning of the cryptic things throughout…

But there was no contact information provided at the end of the book. So we had no choice but to trace the main character’s memories ourselves and rack our brains thinking about the story.

“Yes. It’s a very confusing story.”

Our bus passed through a quiet residential district.

Who is this lady? She’s got amazing leg strength. If it was me, I could keep up with a bus.

“It’s no surprise that it is so confusing. After all, only a portion of the entire story was published.”

What the hell. So while we were struggling with such little information to figure out which interpretation was correct, there was actually more to the story…

“You should of have told me earlier!”

“Then at least please give me the right to choose.”

“I don’t think I agree with you there.”

When talking with Saki, somehow the conversation always gets derailed.

I decided to try and steer the conversation in a different direction to prevent her from going off on a tangent with this topic any longer.

“So have you been seeing Mitsunori Sugikata lately?”

“That’s a really long time to be out of touch! Are you sure it’s all right to go see him today?”

Unable to hide my confusion, I stepped off the train and into a deserted residential area.

I walked a half step behind Saki through this forgotten city, which lacked any signs of life.

In front of us was a ordinary, yet elegant two-story house. Saki pushed the intercom button on the wall, and a few moments later an old woman poked her head out of the door.

“Oh, It’s you Saki. Come in!”

Saki stepped aside as she spoke, so I hurriedly greeted the old woman.

Standing before the door, the old woman said “I’ll go make some tea” and left us there.

“I don’t meant to be rude, but is Mitsunori Sugikata still…”

“Because it doesn’t seem like you were away from this place for three years.”

And yet she claimed she hadn’t seen Mitsunori Sugikata in three years, which seems to imply he was no longer alive.

Saki smiled at me.

She turned the doorknob and opened the heavy wooden door.

=== End Chapter 6 ===

Chapter end