Story Reader / Event Story / Summer Memoir / Story
Her hand pauses on a discordant note, interrupting the music.
She gazes long and hard at the piano keys, the morning mist in her mind firmly entrenched between the black and white.
She knows she must traverse this misty fog.
She knows this is a song guided by love.
She knows that she has to be "completed," even if it means that she can no longer be her past self... and that her future self will no longer be her current self.
She is passing through the mist, heading toward another starry sky.
The stars twinkle, forcing us apart...
—Tell me, Iris.
Another twenty-four hours earlier.
The noon sun shines lazily upon the beaches of Constellia, signaling that all you have left of your vacation is one more afternoon.
Compared to your previous busy schedule, this one afternoon feels as vast as a whole galaxy... perhaps because the work before was too exhausting.
Take right now, for example. You get to lie on the beach, unmoving, mind empty, tracing the sun's path across the sky with each passing minute.
Suddenly, a shadow blocks your view...
Is this [player name]?
You instinctively shift to remove your sunglasses to see who's standing before you, but before you can even finish your sentence, a rectangular, shriveled item falls upon you alongside a scoop of fine sand.
Your parcel has been delivered. Please sign here.
It turns out to be a courier robot from Constellia. It scans you with its camera before trudging off on its tiny, self-automated tracks.
By the time you think to question the robot, it's already far away, seemingly in a hurry to deliver other parcels.
What landed on you was a palm-sized, yellowed kraft paper envelope without a single word written on it.
The sunlight quickly warms the grains of sand on the paper bag, as if even the sun itself is urging you to open it.
Without a letter opener at hand, you can only tear open this unknown letter along its width.
What falls into your palm is a crushed lilac-colored flower, practically in powder form by this point.
Like how a sword can wear through its sheath, a heart tightly gripped by a single name can also chafe uncomfortably against one's chest.
That name has once reverberated through the night, echoing between lines of text.
That name has once described the tempest, the fairies wandering by the flowers, and its very self using the stars in the sky and three bottles of dried ink.
Memories wash up on the beach like the tide, only to become helplessly stranded there.
Soon, you have left a trail of footprints along Constellia's lengthy coastline, every step asking the same question.
But those friendly mechanoids cannot provide an answer.
You keep walking, keep asking, until you've almost lost track of time. The originally delicate sand on the beach is beginning to sting your feet, forcing you to sit down and rest for a while.
You finally find yourself in front of an expanse of pure white stone walls, its sleek form standing out on this stretch of the beach.
This intricate expanse of stone walls twists and turns, with one side lower than the other, as if a Bolero dance set by the seaside, as if a never-ending maze.
Outside these sleek, white stone walls is a black piano standing on the beach. A wooden sign is nailed on the side of the walls facing the ocean.
It reads: Seaside Art Garden.
Ayla once mentioned that the city's former manager was a connoisseur of art, so it doesn't seem so strange at all that they'd set up such a place in the city.
The piano, too, was probably placed here to set the mood.
However, due to the erosion of the sand and sea breeze, the paint on the piano has started to peel off, revealing the metal and wooden structure inside.
The sunlight lands on the deep black lacquer, reflecting a brightness that rivals the white stone walls beside it. The piano, on the other hand, is like a bottomless black hole, and the sunlight orbiting it resembles a mere accretion disk.
A profound impulse drives you forward, and you rise and approach the piano, your fingers brushing across the keys—
"Alles Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichnis." [All that is transient is but a parable.]
"Das Unzulangliche, hier wird's Ereignis." [The inadequate, here finds fulfillment...]
"Das Unbeschreibliche, hier ist's getan..." [The ineffable, here is accomplished...]
What should have been a grand chorus performed by thousands, in the end, fuses into a fervor that encompasses the entire universe.
Slowly, the notes are gently played with your/her fingers.
You suddenly find it hard to remember the hand-copied sheet music, sealed within a thick stack of letters. Your fingers hesitate, as if bound by the lines of musical notation, unable to move on to the next note.
Exactly what kind of feeling is this?
You hesitate for a moment, and still can't bring yourself to play the next note in the end.
Why not play on, esteemed guest?
A gentle mechanoid voice arises from behind the low, pristine wall.
The mechanoid, carrying a small bucket with a shovel inside, seems to be the gardener here.
You haven't disturbed me. Your brilliant playing complemented the sound of the waves perfectly.
So, why did you stop?
Too bad. It was the same last night...
It's all right. What were you saying?
The mechanoid in front of you twists its head counterclockwise, as if in the process of recalling something.
Last night, while I was on duty here, I heard someone playing a similar song.
Unfortunately, my presence must have disturbed the performer. Right as I was approaching, the music ceased.
Yes.
The mechanoid's head spins around once more before it speaks.
If there's nothing else I can help you with, I'll get back to my work. I hope you enjoy yourself here.
If you wish to admire the flowers in the garden, please feel free to do so.
By the way, the paths in the garden can be complicated... but if you always turn left at every crossroad, you will eventually find your way.
With that, the gardener turns away, bucket and trowel in hand, and leaves.
One hand pressed against the envelope in your pocket, you retract your other hand from the piano.
It must have been her who played the piano here last night.
But no one remembers... nor even knows that she was here.
Sunlight strikes the stone walls of the garden, their pure white, pebble-smooth surfaces echoing like a thousand voices in chorus.
This symphony was meant to be performed by a choir and orchestra of thousands.
Angels, with love and joy as their flame, repelled Mephistopheles, thwarting his pact with Faust.
Faust's ideals and passion have remained unchanged from the beginning to the end.
No matter how the devil tempted him, no matter how heavy reality weighed upon him, Faust never abandoned his quest.
She sits quietly on the velvet-cushioned piano stool, her fingertips gliding over the closed lid.
Perhaps he never truly possessed the truth, but his relentless pursuit of it was more than enough.
"Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan." [The eternal feminine draws us onward.]
The music doesn't stop when you enter the garden.
Though built on sand, the garden harbors many plots especially cultivated with lush greenery and flowers, likely the gardener's handiwork.
Juxtaposed against the backdrop of the white stone walls, the varied colors of the lilies, tulips, and countless other unnamed flowers appear even more vibrant.
Initially, the stone walls are low, concealed by greenery and partitioning a shaded path. But as you venture deeper, the walls grow taller, obscuring the view of all the plants, like looming waves of white increasing in height.
The paths formed by the stone walls are all uneven, with one side always taller than the other.
You progress deeper into the garden, noting small flowers occasionally appearing by the walls on either side.
By now, the sun has begun its descent toward the horizon.
Are you here to seek something?
You clench the letter in your pocket tight once again.
But now that you're thinking about it, what you found in the envelope might not have even been a flower, despite the texture of the fragments resembling one.
You can't even be certain that it was an iris, once vibrant but now dried and crumbled.
But it "probably" used to be a flower.
The garden paths carry over a hint of sea breeze, dampening even the pure white stone walls with traces of dew, as if dried remnants of the morning mist.
Perhaps due to the humidity, you can almost feel the sense of anxiety radiating from within the envelope, marking your hands with similar dew-like traces.
By the way, the paths in the garden can be complicated... but if you always turn left at every crossroad, you will eventually find your way.
That's what the gardener had said.
At every left turn of the sand-lined crossroad, there is a track of shallow footprints.
These are not the footprints of the mechanical gardener, but rather resemble those of a human.
Left... left... left... and left again.
Those footprints are present at every left turn.
Judging from the increasing height of the towering stone walls on either side, you're getting closer to the heart of the garden.
The flowers planted at the base of the stone walls seem to flourish even more as you go, as if part of this orderly crescendo.
You follow these footprints, turn left, and left again.
At every crossroad, the footprints make a decisive left turn, as if without a moment's hesitation.
Led on by the footprints, you leave new ones in your wake, until finally stopping in front of a narrow flowerbed.
In the flowerbed, an iris blooms in silence, swaying gently, so fragile it's as if it could crumble into dust at any moment.
Yet it sways on, resilient.
As if it had always been there, unnoticed, uncared for.
A flute lies quietly next to the flowerbed.
It makes nary a sound.
...From the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
The sun is about to set, and dawn is still far away. The entire city is enveloped by the twilight waves.
Exiting the garden, you find yourself back on the sandy beach of Constellia.
In a few hours, the transport craft to Babylonia will arrive in the city, and you'll return to your previous life.
Between sand and foam, a photograph lies.
No one remembers her... no one heard her voice... no one saw her words.
Even her name is seldom recalled, abandoned by time like an unspeakable riddle.
Not even she herself can freely drink from the well of memory.
After all, humans rarely wish to be forgotten.
Some have their ways of remaining relevant, yet some cannot even make a feeble squeak in complaint.
Some dictate the times, deciding what the memories shall reveal, instead of showing what truly deserves remembrance.
Despite knowing that, she strives to speak, to write on, to affirm her own existence.
Despite knowing that...
The final note reluctantly fades into the night sky. The night of Constellia is plunged back into gentle silence.
The lid of the piano is closed, the same way it had been opened.
As she stands up, she doesn't notice a small photo slipping down from atop the piano.
It's the only gift the garden has left behind to the world. The gift known as remembrance.
She is still savoring the lingering touch of the keys on her fingertips, yet the force has already led her on a new journey.
I... heard it too.
I will find you, just like I've always believed you would find me.
—"Thou gazest at the stars, my star;"
—"Would I were Heaven, that I might gaze at thee with many eyes."
