Phenomeno: Volume 5 Prologue

I had no motivation whatsoever to do anything at all.

I believe that happens to everyone. On a cloudy day, or at the beginning of the week, you just don't have the energy to do anything, and you feel as if you just want to lie down and melt away, is what you might call it. A feeling that the entire scenery in your vision is devoid of reality, and the sound of cars, the chirping of birds, and the sounds of people talking leak out from a world that has nothing to do with you.

That was exactly what I felt right now. My consciousness was vague as if a thin membrane had been stretched over me. As if there were two of me, two outlines overlapping with each other. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought, “It would be quite dangerous if I stayed like this”, but when I thought that, my body didn’t move, and I couldn’t think of any other option except to just stay still. In the first place, if I did anything other than stay still, then something unthinkable would definitely happen. To begin with, the place I stood was abnormal.

That’s right – right now, I was…

I stood alone on the roof of a building somewhere, on top of the safety handrail.

A rusty handrail a few centimeters in width. At the end of the railing, just above the 90-degree bend, I stood stock still with my legs slightly wide apart.

--And.

Just what… was I doing in a place like this?

I’d been thinking about it for a while, but I had no idea. When I thought of it, I had no motivation to do anything whatsoever, so it was hard to get deep into my thoughts, but even so, I found it strange why was I here again, which was driving me crazy. At any rate, it had been almost an hour since I found myself standing on top of a rooftop handrail and thinking on it. About why was I in such a place.

The wind was blowing.

I could feel it.

I could also feel the rays of the sun. They gently shone down on me.

And underneath my feet – humans the size of miniatures walked on the footpath far below the building.

But did any of that matter? Each of them was probably out on some kind of errand, and even if that errand was insignificant and trivial to others, it was important to him or her—

…No. No, it was strange. That wasn’t the problem at all. What should be more troubling than the problems of the humans far down below was my situation looking down on them from a place like this. I understood that. So, back to the main topic, why was I here in such a place? When and why did I come to a place like this? …And then I finally realized.

When? Why? No, more importantly—

Who was I?

How old was I? Was I a he? A she?

…I couldn’t remember anything. I had no memories. I couldn’t recall anything, as if a transparent membrane went down and became cloudy. No matter how far I scraped, they weren’t there, as if I were in a milky-white world. Nothingness. Everything that I should have accumulated, however small, was, right now, completely erased from within me. A sense of nothingness. Right now, I didn’t even have a sense of existence. I had understood that the wind had been blowing for a while now, and yet, it barely even ruffled my hair.

I vacantly gazed at the palm of my hand.

It was someone’s hand, slightly transparent. The fingers themselves were slender, but the hand was large. It seemed familiar. I must have washed my face with it, handled things with it, and tugged at someone’s hand with it – but those memories were not there.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry, so I covered my face with hands, yet the tears never came. My feelings themselves were weak. My emotions didn’t arouse spontaneously to the point where everything was inconsequential. I found no trace of my emotions beginning to swell, as if this was how it felt for feelings to fade.

As I covered my face—

Ah, that answer suddenly came to me.

…I see.

I was already dead.

For some reason, I ended up dead.

That’s why everything was weak. Everything was in the middle of disappearing. It takes a little while for the dead to realize that they are dead, is what I read somewhere – no, did someone tell me that? I’m sure I knew that story from before. I still couldn’t tell where I gained that information from, but it was probably correct. That’s right, I was already dead.

Hahahaha, a dry laugh escaped me.

Anyway, I made some progress. It was such a relief just to know who I was, or rather, my condition. After that, I looked at the spectacle spread beneath my feet once more.

It was some place close to a station building. On my left hand was a familiar (or so I thought) colored train running, and on my right was a large sign that seemed to be that of a department shopping mall. Countless buildings both big and small were lined up, and between them were cars, bicycles, and pedestrians going back and forth. Today, too, the world was normal. And it was no longer a world I was a part of. Even though I could see it right next to me, it looked to be a foreign country far, far away.

And… there was only one thing for a dead person to do.

Be it paradise, hell, the other world, or nirvana – whatever it was, it was to move on to the right place. They go somewhere that wasn't here. However, where that was, and how to reach there, I hadn’t a clue. I suddenly understood that it was the thing I had to think of next – but, would that be the thing my thoughts would be stuck on from now on?

No… that was it.

Was that the reason I came to the rooftop of the building?

The reason I was looking down while standing on top of a guardrail?

In the cold recesses of my brain, I heard someone’s voice.

--Die properly. You are still stuck halfway to this world.

After muttering these words…

I, or me, someone who didn’t know who they were – spread both arms, closed my eyes, kicked the handrail, and flew into the sky.

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