Draft Update: 07/12/23 (Patreon)

(In a bit of a weird spot here. I didn't quit make it to the point I talked about in the last update, since I felt like I needed more words to capture the feeling I wanted to in this chapter - though I might have ended up just spreading it too thin instead. Now there's a short scene that still needs to happen to round off the 'book', but I didn't intend for it to be quite chapter-length. Maybe I'll expand it? Maybe I'll try to do a mini update?

We'll see I guess.)

My next destination was the most complicated insofar as it was the only one I'd never actually visited before, and entailed going to a part of town I wasn't even particularly familiar with: The center of government, wedged awkwardly amidst the more profit-oriented sections of the town's core. Without knowing what you were looking at, you could mistake it for nothing more than a square of homes and office buildings - the Viceroy's estate was barely fancier than my grandmother's house, and even the colonial office itself looked more like a large, somewhat-regal post office than the kind of structure one tended to associate with an administrative center. The Kutuyan and Itanese flags (depicting a stylized green spiral and a golden fish respectively) were hanging beside the entrance, but that entrance was just a regular set of double-doors that fed right into the street, and there were no unique architectural fixtures like a protruding dome or fancy roof. It was just a boring wooden building.

About the only thing that distinguished the area was a bronze statue of the Kutuyan king Amaoshikoto who'd ordered the colony's foundation, accompanied with a commemorative plaque explaining the circumstances behind the event and how the island had been rechristened 'Itan' after a son of said king, who had later been killed in a palace intrigue at age 12. Neither looked like they'd been polished recently.

I remembered hearing a story once about how, during the foundation, the settlers had come upon a serene songbird nesting inland with a unique mutation that gave it striking red and green feathers. Thinking of this as a good omen, they'd decided to capture the bird and present it to the prince as a ceremonial gift. But upon arrival in the royal palace, the creature had become so distressed from the journey that it had been in a state of illness and panic, resulting in it pecking madly at the prince as soon as it was released while defecating and urinating wildly. I chose to believe this recounting even though it was probably apocryphal.

In any case, the building I was actually here for - located in the corner of the square, at the terminus of the street which hosted most of the island's financial services - was even less spectacular than that: The Itan Registry and Archival Office, a two-story structure that looked like someone had taken a giant grey brick and painted windows and a door on it. This was where most of the government record-keeping in the city took place, which would hopefully point me towards my ultimate destination.

Honestly, it was ridiculous that I even needed to do this. Most places had converted their archives into echo format decades or even centuries ago. But like me, Itan was what it was, and would not be anything else.

I locked my bike up against the gate outside, then entered, finding the interior no less grim. Old, stained wallpaper enclosed an environment that seemed almost deliberately engineered to be claustrophobic; various wooden service desks were fed into by a dozen sets of wooden railings for queues, yet most of said desks were vacant, rendering the space useless. The only chairs were metal and uncomfortable looking, all three right by the entrance, and there were too many clocks; a big one on the wooden framing that shadowed the desks, but also smaller ones on each of them individually, plus another household one on the left, beside a stairwell. This was a place where I was sure it was possible to be very, very miserable.

Fortunately - presumably on account of some circumstantial or seasonal factor, or maybe just because there was much less demand than whenever the place had been built - when I came there was almost no queue at all. Just two desks, one of which was currently occupied by a visibly elderly woman talking jovially to a younger man who seemed to be on friendly terms with her, and another staffed by a bored looking girl with a black ponytail and chiton who was leafing through some documents. After finding the correct path, I approached the latter.

I stood at the counter. She didn't look up.

"Hi," I said.

The woman didn't look up from her papers, addressing me with obvious disinterest. "Hello. What can I do for you?"

"I'm, uh, looking to find a particular grave," I said uncomfortably.

Oh yeah. That's what I was doing.

She furrowed her brow in mild irritation, reaching her hand over to a logic bridge behind her, up against the wall. "Can you give me the name of the deceased?"

I bit my lip, then told her.

"And their DOD?" she added.

I frowned. "Deeohdee?"

She peered at me properly for the first time, making a skeptical face that seemed to suggest she thought I was an idiot. "Date of death," she clarified, slowly.

"Oh." I bit my lip, feeling accordingly stupid. "Sorry, I don't know. Sometime in early 1396."

"Not super recent, then." She sighed to herself. "Well, it sounds like an uncommon name, so maybe we won't need the exact date anyway." She leaned her head against her hand. "This'll take a minute."

"Sure," I replied, nodding.

After that, she was silent for about 90 seconds, presumably reviewing the information through their system. I held my hands together anxiously, listening to fragments of the conversation the other pair were having, which sounded like celebrity gossip.

This was the idea that had been the genesis for this entire venture. If I saw my own gravestone - my gravestone - and managed to process it as such, surely that, at least, would other my past self and brute force my self-perception into resetting; to see the 'category error', so to speak, that it was making. It probably wouldn't be that simple, but it would be a start, a way to harrow myself into the right mindset.

'That person is dead.' 'I am alive.' Those were the principles I needed to internalize.

But like I told you, this plan also went wrong essentially instantly.

"We don't have a record for a burial under that name within the last 50 years," she stated bluntly. "Are you sure their funeral was conducted here?"

I blinked sharply. "W-What? Oh. Uh, it should have been..."

She asked me whether I'd had next of kin on the mainland who might have received the remains and performed the ceremony instead. (I was so thrown off I didn't think to correct her that there were, in fact, no remains.)

"I... I don't think so," I said awkwardly.

Was it possible that the city had managed to contact my-- My old self's dad, and he'd decided to perform the ceremony wherever he was living instead? It didn't seem out of the question. As a kid I'd eventually convinced myself he was just a selfish asshole who'd never even cared about me and just used his breakdown over my mother's death as an excuse to cut ties with a liability, but it's not like I'd known the guy in any meaningful sense. Thinking about the situation again as an adult, his feelings were probably more complicated. Maybe he'd felt guilty for leaving me behind, but had just been too grief-stricken and afraid to handle being a single parent, with the shame compounding over the years. Maybe right up until the end he'd planned to reconnect. Maybe when he'd heard I'd gone missing, he'd been overwhelmed with guilt and held a proper funeral as the only way he could imagine coping.

I mean, yeah, he had joined a radical iconist group, and had spent our last conversation emphasizing how he was glad that I - an at-the-time seven year old - was being raised by a heterosexual Rhunbardic couple. But becoming a bloodthirsty identitarian didn't mean you were incapable of love. I mean. It probably didn't.

"Hold on," the woman mumbled at me, sounding a little annoyed. "I'm going to check something."

"Oh, go ahead," I told her.

But in those uncertain few moments, I allowed myself to consider even more fantastical scenarios. What if, for example, my old self hadn't actually died? Samium had told me the process was lethal and described it as an 'extraction' of my pneuma, but it wasn't as though I had any definitive proof of it having happened that way. In many ways, the whole scenario of him needing to sedate and transport me to a still undisclosed location was quite suspicious. Maybe the stuff about needing to physically crack open my brain had been a lie, and he'd just copied my pneuma, dumping my old self back where he'd found them unceremoniously. I had absolutely no reason to believe this was the case, let alone evidence to suggest why, or that it was even possible... Yet still, I couldn't say definitively it was impossible.

I tried to imagine it-- The idea of my old self just out there, living a separate life. It felt simultaneously liberating and horrifying on a visceral level. What would it be like to talk to them? What life would they have made for themselves after all these years, and how would they respond to the news of my existence? Would I murder them on the spot for what they'd done?

I bet she'd still see us as Shiko, no matter what we told her, a part of me mused. We were never able to look at her rationally or really listen to a fucking thing she said.

I snorted to myself. That was a darkly amusing thought. If nothing else, it would make an even cleaner break than reminding myself of my own death.

But another idea flashed through my mind, too. What if, instead, my old self had never existed in the first place? That I'd been Utsushikome and only Utsushikome all along, and had just been brainwashed by Samium in service of his plan? Given false memories of a life that had never even happened?

Or maybe Samium had never even been involved, the whole thing having just been a delusion I'd had; an imaginary friend taken too far. Nothing but 'thoughts'...

Just entertaining that concept, it felt so wonderful I can barely even describe it. Because if that were the case, there would be no sin to cleanse myself of in the first place. I wouldn't need to feel guilt or change myself because I wouldn't be an imposter. I would just be Utsushikome; fully, unambiguously, completely. Not an irredeemable life-stealing monster. Just a person with funny ideas in their head-- Or a victim, even, whose condition was the result of a great wrong done to them, or a mental illness that had been inflicted by fate.

And then... I would be permitted to feel any way I wanted. I could be angry about the fact I'd never be normal, self-righteously bitter about the way my mind had been twisted and warped by unnatural forces. I could be honest - in sentiment if not strict fact - with my friends and family, and make myself truly vulnerable before them, accepting their love without having to beg for their forgiveness. And I could define for myself what being 'me' meant, choosing which parts of my false self to internalize not from a perspective of needing to save particular parts, but with my own comfort in mind.

It was strange. Just imagining it gave my body a feeling of palpable lightness, like setting down a brick I'd been carrying for as long as I could remember. I felt a twinge of euphoria that almost made me tear up on the spot.

It was a beautiful fantasy. A world where I could be myself. A world where I'd never existed in the first place.

Why not just have it? A voice asked.

You don't need the answer. Just tell her to stop, and leave the building. Then for all you know, it'll be the truth.

I smirked. The fourth demon never really went away, no matter how much one knew its advice didn't actually work.

"Oh, I see what happened," the woman eventually said, her eyes narrowed slightly. "They did what's called an FOAC."

"Effohaysee...?" I asked, a little concerned that this was becoming a running bit.

"Funeral of administrative concern," she once again explained, her tone becoming mechanical. "Basically, if there's a situation where there are no remains to dispose of and no relatives of the deceased who declare an intent to buy a ceremonial plot, the state holds a purely 'administrative' funeral where the death registrar notes and respectfully eulogizes their passing in the archives in addition to their usual death record, while also reaching out to a priest for a written blessing if they have a declared religion. This is done in lieu of a physical funeral."

I processed this. "You mean... You have a record of the death, but there's no gravestone."

She nodded. "That's correct."

My expression became vacant. I stared into space.

I'm not sure, really, why I was surprised.  What did I expect to be the policy? For the government to pay for a plot, headstone and empty casket, when there wasn't even anything to dispose of, to anchor the situation in humanitarian concern? Again, this was Itan we were talking about here. And it's not like I could think of anyone who would pay for it, setting aside the aforementioned dad-fantasy. The Isiyahlas certainly didn't care.

I suppose I'd just made a mindless assumption. Dead people got gravestones. That was how the world was supposed to work.

I guess all your pessimism back then was right, huh, my cynical side said. There really was nobody who cared about you, after all.

I didn't know what to think at this point. It'd been one thing for the house to be gone, but where the hell would I even go from here?

"If you're a friend or relative, it's been well over the five-year statute for belated claims, so I'm afraid it's too late to do a recorded burial through the formal system," the woman went on. "If you want to commission a grave site, you'll have to go to find a cemetery that takes private clients and talk to them directly-- Although, since there's no body, there's obviously nothing stopping you from erecting the memorial on your own private property." She leaned back in her chair. "Was there anything else?"

Was there?

"I..." I trailed off, feeling at a loss. I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my head. "Could I-- Could I see it? The record you talked about?"

The woman flattened her lips into an expression of impatience. "You mean the registrar's note?"

"Yes." I nodded.

She clicked her tongue. "Under normal circumstances, I could offer to make you a certified copy for 2 luxury debt, but unfortunately our printer is currently out of order. Could you come back another time?"

"Actually, I'm only here for a few days," I replied, in a tone that somehow managed to come out stubborn and uncertain at the same time. "Could I just see the original record...? I don't need to take it with me or anything."

Her expression made it clear I was on the verge of becoming her enemy. "I don't know what your reasons are, but you're not going to get anything satisfying from it. It's just their basic details and a paragraph of template text."

"S-Still, I'd like to see it," I reaffirmed. "If that's allowed."

The woman grunted. She glanced around the room and, after seemingly confirming there was no excuse she could give about other pressing matters, slumped her shoulders in resignation. She smacked the paperwork down on the desk, then rose to her feet. "Come with me, please."

She opened a little wooden doorway in the counter and beckoned me to follow, which I did. We walked to the corner of the room and passed through a heavy metal door, whereupon I was greeted by the sight of a much larger yet similarly depressing chamber. This one was filled with what looked like hundreds of brassy filing cabinets, ordered in neat rows all the way along to the windows at the far side. They were labelled, but with a system of initials and numbers that were incomprehensible to me.

The woman led me down the second row of the things to one marked "MRE-2", right at the far end. She opened the top drawer, then leafed through the content for almost a minute, before finally producing a sheath of parchment.

"Here you go," she said. "Make it quick."

I took it from her, examining the text.

She hadn't been kidding. There barely was anything to see. All the document contained was my name, date of birth, the names of my parents, and literally four lines of the most generic summary of my life possible. All it said was that I was born in Itan and attended school here, that I'd sadly 'gone missing and been presumed to have passed away' at a young age, and that I'd 'honored Kutuy with a life lived honestly and diligently' and would be 'well-remembered by my community'. Oh, and the formal day my death was declared as February 23rd, 1404. I guess it took longer than I expected when you went missing.

Well-remembered. Using that as part of the template felt like a punchline, because obviously someone getting one of these wasn't well-remembered. The whole point was that no one had given a shit at all.

Looking down at those words, I felt none of the finality I'd hoped for, only a sense of empty resentment. I hadn't mattered. My life had no definitive ending, because things no one was invested in didn't need endings. They could just be dropped unceremoniously and left in a state of eternal ambiguity, like a bad book.

Looking at that sheet, for the first time in a long time, I felt viscerally like Kuroka. I thought to myself that the world despised me and was my enemy, and thus any action was permissible reciprocation, that I owed nothing to anyone. For just a fleeting moment, what I'd done felt just again.

But quickly, that feeling passed, leaving only a cold sadness.

"Are you done?" the woman asked.

𒊹

Maybe I was done. I'd still only just got here - it was only like, 2PM - but I felt like the entire narrative I'd had planned for coming here had already gone terminally amiss. Far from letting my old self go, I felt more like them than ever. Old thoughts swirled vividly through my head, clashing with the ones I'd built up over the past decade. I felt strangely afraid, like I was going to end up trapped on this island again, reverting back to who I'd been like some fairy tale monster.

I had one more stop planned - the little beach not far from the docks where the two of us had first met - but that ended up being almost a bust too. It was still there and the correct shape, but apparently at some point the city had finally got around to beautifying the beaches along the rest of the coast that saw a lot of traffic. The rough stones that had once covered it completely had been ground down into soft, fine sand. If I squinted, I could still recognize it as the place I'd lost my logic engine all those years ago, but it just wasn't the same. It felt like I was trying to reach for a feeling that just wasn't there.

After that, I wandered around with the bicycle on foot, not knowing what to do. I tried going to some places that were familiar to Shiko and not to my old self - trying the opposite strategy altogether - like her primary school and the coffee shop she'd always meet the other members of the echo scripting club in. But though I had fond, vivid memories of those experiences, the flashes of association passed quickly, after which I just felt like a voyeur. Someone who had seen something they shouldn't have.

This really was a terrible idea, I said to myself. I should have just stayed in Oreskios.

I told you so, the logical part of my brain said unhelpfully.

Ultimately, I ended up wandering into and hanging around some park I'd barely ever even visited, centered around a large cedar tree that was obviously not local. Fatigue started to catch up with me again, and my thoughts became strange and desperate.

Okay, Kuroka.

I guess there's not enough footing to get rid of you like that after all.

How about this. Before everything went off the deep end, you wished more than anything just to spend more time with me on this island. Right? Just to have my undivided attention.

Well, I'm back here with you now. Let's fulfill your dreams. What things did you want to do with me, huh?

What were your regrets? Your final wishes?

A few things stood out. I'd always wanted to go to the theater with her, just the two of us, but had never got around to suggesting it while we were still on good terms. I headed up to the one she'd always frequented on Sundays - a round structure situated on what passed for a hill on the island. There was nothing live at this time of day, but they were running holographic reenactments of hits from the mainland. I bought a ticket to see a popular thriller told from the perspective of a serial killer, which was the closest to our wheelhouse, and watched it over the next few hours. There was almost no one else in the theater.

As I watched it, I tried to conjure Shiko and Kuroka's voices in my mind, chatting and speculating happily as the two of them always would in their distinct voices.

This guy is way too sloppy. It's contrived.

I mean, the detective is terrible, too. He left those sheets in her blood sticking right out of the washer, and he didn't even notice.

Maybe it's just supposed to be part of the satire.

Is this satire? I can't really tell.

It's not that great either way. I mean, half of this is just the killer angsting about what he's done. It's boring.

Really? You think so?

It wasn't even close to the same. All the warmth I remembered, the sense of contentment, was gone.

After the play was over, I tried to think of other ideas. After Shiko had taken me to that restaurant for my birthday, I'd always wanted to return the favor, to show her that I could do as much for her as she could for me. I'd even picked out a place I'd thought would be nice, a waterfront buffet I'd been taken to at someone's leaving-the-home party that served really indulgent Rhunbardic food. If I avoided going into luxury debt for a while, I thought I could manage a meal for us and our friends. I imagined the smile she'd make...

When I went to the place, though, it was instantly obvious that my standards back then had been fucked. Like, it looked cheap. The kind of place that only someone used to shitty, small meals would consider appealing. Massive steaks that were barely seasoned, minced beef sandwiches covered in too much cheese, fried onions on everything. Oversized platters that all consisted of meat and fish fried and smothered in grease.

I could tell right away that the whole idea had been stupid, that even if we'd remained friends, Shiko would have found some excuse not to go. She would have hated it. I'd hate it, in the present tense.

After that, I thought maybe it would be nice to go back to that restaurant where she'd taken me instead. Reprise my happiest memory. But after I rode half-way there, I started to feel a sense of dread. I knew that something would be wrong with it. That I'd find some way to spoil the experience in retrospect, debase the one moment in my existence in which I'd be content.

So instead, I gave up completely, heading back in the direction of my grandmother's house. Back through the gate, back down the street.

Wow, Kuroka. Was that really it? Were those all you could think of?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised for someone as empty as you.

I felt tired, hungry, and miserable. But despite this, I didn't feel like I could face my grandmother in the state I'd ended up in. So after dropping off the bike, I just walked aimlessly down the beach. I passed the other houses until I was in undeveloped land, the sands starting to become rocky again.

My last idea was that if there was no grave, I'd make one myself. This beach had been the dearest place to my old self in the entire world; the landscape that had printed itself so deeply on my mind that it felt like a part of me was always here. There was no better place to mark their passing.

...well, that was the plan, anyway. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.

I knew there were some big oblong rocks just lying around the area, so I'd figured I'd just grab one, stick it in the sand, and carve a name or initials into it or something. But because I wasn't a regular resident on the island, I'd never obtained a license to use the Power here, so trying could potentially attract the ire of the censors. Which meant I had to accomplish the task with nothing but my bare hands.

The big rocks I'd originally planned to use - about three feet tall, roughly the size of a proper gravestone - turned out to be much heavier than they'd been in my head, so I had to settle for the medium-sized ones instead. But the problem was, without virtually burying them, I couldn't get them to stick in the sand. I'd dig a hole, which was even harder without a shovel, shove the rock 1/3rd of the way in, and then start looking for a sharp pebble to start the carving process. But then, without fail, the rock would slowly begin to slide backwards, towards the ocean-- Until it was barely upright at all, like the hole had just spat it back out. I tried three or four times, but no matter how deep I buried it, the result never remained unchanged.

It would have been a comical sight, were anyone around to see it. Me cursing to myself, scrambling around in the dirty sand for five minutes fixing it, picking through the sands to know avail, then cursing and starting all over. My skirt had become filthy and covered in seawater. My hands were covered in little cuts, sand stuck under my nails.

Soon the tide started to come in, and I wondered if I'd even picked an appropriate site. Was this high enough? Would it just be washed away? I mean, the fact there was sand meant the tide had to come this far in sometimes, right? Wasn't this whole thing just a fucking stupid idea from the start?

It was all meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless. After it fell down for the fifth time, I practically screamed in frustration. I kicked the thing without thinking, hurt my big toe, hopped around in pain until I tripped on a seashell, falling on my ass like a child.

"Oh, fucking FORGET IT, then!" I shouted at no one in particular, spit flying out of my mouth as my glasses almost fell off my face. "Fucking forget it!"

I turned back the way I came, my feet stomping in the sand. But soon I found myself slowing down again. I stopped, looking towards the Great Lamp, now falling beneath the rim of the world. The rim the two of us had one day promised to visit together.

If this was all a wash, then where was I even going?

Back to my grandma's house. Back to the mainland. Back to school in Old Yru. To graduation. A career. My own house. Hobbies. Romance. A family. An entire stolen life.

I couldn't do it. It was revolting. Unacceptable. I held my head in my hands. My face contorted into strange expressions.

Oh, stop with that.

The truth is, you're still happy you did it, aren't you? Deep down.

That's what you felt, back at the port. You wanted to distance yourself from those feelings, but instead they burned more ferociously than ever. All you could think about was how happy you were you didn't have to feel that pain any more. That we'd leave this place together.

All you've done is affirm that's still the core of who you are.

Happy? Of course I wasn't goddamn happy! I felt miserable!

And even if I did feel that way, it didn't make those feelings my 'core'. They were just a product of being here again. These thoughts of contempt for myself now, and the resolution that had brought me here in the first place-- Those were just as real.

There was no absolute truth. Just varying states of perception.

You disgust me, down to the very foundation of what remains of my being. There is no word to describe the crime, the violation you committed. I could never in a trillion years accept you as part of myself, because in doing so I would validate that act.

Our existence is paradoxical. It is in our self-interest to forgive and love ourselves, but our ability to meaningfully do so has been compromised by the nature of the sin as one which compromises the self with an other. It is a sum without a solution. An identity thrust into irresolvable conflict.

No story can be written.

I looked out at the blank, white sand, and it reflected my inner self. Nothing remained but hollowness. Part of me still wanted to die, but an increasingly large part just didn't care at all. All it wanted to do was go home and find some way to mindlessly entertain itself.

The apathy that laid beyond despair, the absence of feeling that swallowed the world in its still, lukewarm embrace. I'd been afraid of it for so long.

But you know what?

Maybe it was okay. Maybe there were worse things than letting it in, just a little bit.

This was a bad idea, the voice that had led me here said. I'm sorry about that.

But you know, maybe it's alright. Maybe we've just been getting overexcited, trying to tie our life together in some grand narrative. I mean, maybe that sort of thing works for people who are lucky, but if things are complicated-- Well, it's all a little much, don't you think?

Here's what we'll do.

All the things you've felt today... Utsushikome's anger and loathing for Kuroka, Kuroka's own bitter resentment at the world, the vulgar joy at the fact it happened, and the fantasy of it never having happened at all...

All of those feelings are equally meaningful.

So instead of trying to hold on to one story, we'll just change it, whenever we need to.

If we feel like Utsushikome, then we can curse Kuroka and say she's not us, and say we'll forget her.

And if the next moment we feel like Kuroka, we can curse the whole world, and say we only did what we needed to survive.

And if it would make us happy to justify what happened, we say it was always destined, and that it's wonderful we'll have all the adventures together I always dreamed of.

And if it would make us happy to forget what happened, we can say it never did, and the whole was never anything more than an idle fantasy.

There is no truth but what makes us able to live. It can be whatever it needs to be, in any moment.

None of it has ever meant anything at all.

But that's okay, you know?

It's okay.

𒊹

Later, in the late-evening darkness of my bedroom, I sat in bed wrapped up in my sheets, watching a mystery drama over the logic bridge. It was the same room, the same bed, and the same sheets as it had been back then. Everything about the experience was nostalgic.

But I didn't think about any of that stuff. Nor did I try to recreate the conversations we'd had like back in the theater. I just focused on the show, because I liked mystery dramas.

It was fine, I guess.