“Kohei?”

  A beautiful girl stands before me. She waves.

  Afternoon sun beams through the plain glass windows, producing a halo of light around her silhouette.

  A banner at the doorway:

  2014年度 北海道大学 卒業生の皆さん、おめでとうございます

  (Congratulations to the 2014 Hokkaido University Graduates)

  “Watcha reading?” she asks, skipping over.

  “The Trial,” I reply.

  “Sounds boring.”

  “Well, in a way, that’s kinda the point.”

  “Why not join us at the ceremony?”

  “I think I’m okay,” I say. “I find it all anticlimactic anyway…”

  I shut the book partway and rested it in my lap.

  “…Four years of anxiety attacks… and all you get is a lousy, sweaty pat on the back and a piece of paper.”

  “So you’re just gonna sit here with your face in books all day?”

  “Probably.”

  A moment of silence. Then she takes my hand.

  “C’mon, let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Same as always.”

  I follow.

  Outside, the golden beams hang lower over the mound-swept landscape. Wildflowers bob in patches, dotting the field with white and yellow polka-dots atop an infinite backdrop of green.

  We lay beside each other, gazing up at an endless blue. Strands of her blond hair kissed my face with every early-spring breeze that came. Her hands were tucked behind her head. I mimic her.

  “I kept thinking about that scene,” she says, eyes not leaving blue. “When Stevens sits at the pier and has a conversation with the stranger, it’s like all of his mistakes come to a realization at that moment… but, by then, all he can do is quietly try to convince himself it wasn’t all for nothing.”

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I didn’t reply, I just listened.

  “He doesn’t cry or fall apart, he just… accepts it,” she continues. “But what he didn’t say, what he should’ve said… it’ll forever haunt him. That, he'll never truly let go.”

  “Perhaps, he should let go,” I reply.

  “I don’t know,” she says, after a pause. “Maybe remembering is better, even if it’s painful.”

  A quiet follows. A breeze sweeps.

  “You ever feel like you’ve reached the top and it just wasn’t all that satisfying?” she finally says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, glancing over at her.

  “This,” she says. “Like you said… It feels so, I don’t know, anticlimactic?”

  “Many things often are,” I reply.

  “Time’s just moving so fast,” she whispers, more to herself than anything.

  The orange in the sky stirs into a blood red. The endless blue transforms into a bruised purple. We lay silently, watching fading stars. Just me and the art major.

  “Mr. Kuramoto?”

  My own name sliced through my throbbing mind.

  “Hm?” I muttered, turning back to the man.

  “There are other patients waiting.”

  “Right, sorry…” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve been having these painful migraines and—”

  “Kuramoto, Kohei… born 8 May, 1992?” he cut me off.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mm, my parents lost the house that spring. Financial crisis.”

  After a pause too long, I blurted: “Oh… I’m so sorry.”

  The man didn’t blink or react. Pale hands moved mechanically, shuffling through a filing cabinet under his desk, and sliding a pamphlet my way.

  My Liaison.

  He looked malnourished. The bones of his cheeks protruded against his skin like incorrectly assembled tent poles. Eye bags, heavier than my own, sagged beneath his lifeless, jet-black eyes. A five o’clock shadow was etched into his jaw as if it were an immovable accessory.

  On the beige cubicle wall behind him, a poster featuring a happy couple and a single slogan in the margins: ‘Managing the past for the sake of the future!’

  “Did you read the patient pamphlet?” he asked. “You may experience migraines, nausea, paranoia, insomnia, or panic attacks in the recovery period. These are normal reactions.”

  “But, it’s been a year since then,” I replied. “And I didn’t get to mention earlier, but I noticed a strange—”

  “Excuse me, I need to staple this,” the man interrupted without looking up.

  ‘Ka-Thonk!’   ‘Ka-Thonk!’

  I shifted uncomfortably in my plastic chair as he struggled to staple the final stack of documents. One bent staple flew out and lodged itself between ‘J’ and ‘K’ on his keyboard.

  “It’s perfectly normal for migraines to occur even after the recovery period,” he spoke again with a sigh escaping the back of his throat. “Have you had enough sleep?”

  “Well… with my schedule and work, I—”

  “You need more sleep. People have died that way.”

  “Hemorrhages aren’t fun?” I joked.

  He didn’t laugh. Instead, he plucked a familiar white pill from a jar next to his desktop, and handed it to me.

  I reached out to take it, but it slipped through my fingers, dropping onto the linoleum floor between my shoes. The man didn’t notice.

  An orange-tinted form slid forward. “If you have time, please rate your experience with us today.”

  The printer ink was smudged. A boney finger tapped on the stars.

  ???????????

  丸の内データソリューションズ

  Did you find our services satisfactory?

  ☆☆☆☆☆