Mayoi Snail (Part 1)

I encountered Hachikuji Mayoi on May fourteenth, a Sunday. This day was Mother's Day across Japan. Whether you love your mother or not, whether you get along with your mother or not, the day is Mother's Day for every Japanese person alike. I want to say that Mother's Day originated in America. In that sense, it may be best to consider it a kind of event, like Japan does Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, and the like. But in any case, of all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, this day, May fourteenth, was the one where more carnations were sold than any other, and when coupons promising the delivery of back rubs, chores, and so on were trading hands in homes across the country. Well, I don't really know if those kinds of customs are still being observed, but I am sure that May fourteenth was indeed Mother's Day this year.

And it was on that day.

That day, at nine in the morning.

I was sitting on a bench in an unfamiliar park. I was staring up into the sky like an idiot at an idiotically blue sky, nothing to do as I sat on a bench in an unfamiliar park. I was more than unfamiliar with it, I'd never even heard of it. But it was a park.

Namishiro Park, a sign at its entrance stated.

Well, maybe it did. The way it's written I barely have any idea how it's supposed to be read, whether those characters say "Namishiro Park," "Rohaku Park," or something else entirely different. Maybe there's some reason behind its name, but of course, I don't know it. It's not as if that's any kind of issue, of course. Not knowing the park's name doesn't affect me at all. I didn't go to the park with any sort of firm goal in mind but was riding my mountain bike in whatever direction my feelings and legs took me until I found myself arriving at the park. That's all, and nothing more.

I didn't go to visit the park, I arrived there.

Though of course, the difference was meaningless to anyone other than me.

I'd put my bike in the parking area near the entrance.

There were two objects in the lot that had been so abandoned and so exposed to the elements that you couldn't tell whether they were supposed to be bicycles or clumps of rust, and then there was my mountain bike. Other than that, it was completely empty. It was one of those moments when I really felt the futility of riding around the asphalt streets on a mountain bike, but it was also futility I felt at all times, whether I was doing something like that or not.

It was a fairly big park.

While I say that, it might have only felt that way because of how few objects there were to play with inside. It only looked wide open. Swings on one edge of the park, and a tiny little sandbox, but that was it. No seesaw, no jungle gym, not even a slide. Perhaps parks should have inspired in my high-school-senior self a greater sense of nostalgia, but I can't deny I was feeling quite the opposite of that.

Or maybe that's how things were. This was what you got when you gave thought to how dangerous playground structures were and how to keep children safe, and it came to look this way after all the old playthings had been removed. My opinion of the place wouldn't have changed even if that were the case, and I'd personally think the swings were the most dangerous of all, but putting that aside, part of me keenly felt what a miracle it was that I was still of a sound body.

I'd done a lot of reckless things as a child, after all.

It wasn't nostalgia I felt as I thought these things.

Then again.

You could say that my body was no longer of sound health as of about a month and a half before May fourteenth ─ but I guess whatever wounded sentiment lay in my heart had yet to fully process the fact. Honestly, it wasn't the kind of thing you could sort out in a couple of months. An entire life might not be enough.

But, I thought.

Even without the missing play structures, the park was such a lonely place. I mean, I was completely alone there. Even though it was a Sunday, that greatest of days. The lack of things to play on meant the place felt larger, so grab a ball and a bat and play some baseball, I thought. Or maybe, I wondered, elementary schoolers these days no longer defaulted to baseball, then soccer, when they wanted to go have fun. They probably played video games all day at home ─ or they were busy going to cram school? Either that or all the kids in the area were faithful little sons and daughters who spent the entire day celebrating Mother's Day.

But even then, being all alone in a park on Sunday almost made it feel like I was the only person left on Earth─well, that would be an exaggeration, but it did feel that the park belonged to me. Like I never had to go home again. Because it was all me, I was all alone…or not? There was one other person after all. I wasn't all alone. A large open space separated my bench from someone at a metal sign at the edge of the park ─ a lone, grade-schooler who was looking at a residential map of the area. The child's back was facing me, so I had no idea what he or she was like, but the large backpack the kid carried was notable. My heart warmed for a moment like I'd found a new buddy, but the grade-schooler spent a while looking at the map, then ran off, as if remembering something. And then I was alone.

By myself. Again.

I thought.

─You know, Koyomi.

That's when I randomly thought ─ of my little sister's words to me.

The casual words she tossed at my back as I left home on my mountain bike.

─You know, Koyomi, that's why─

Ah.

Dammit, I thought, as I switched from my earlier position of staring at the sky to gazing straight at the ground, head in my hands.

I felt a wave of depression rolling over me.

I'd been quite calm as I looked up into the sky, but now, of all times, I found myself hating how petty I was. I suppose the feeling was what you'd call self-loathing ─ while I was not normally the type to be bothered by that sort of thing, in fact, it was rare I had any thoughts at all I'd describe as bothering me, I would on rare occasions, on event days like this one, the fourteenth of May, fall into such a state. Special circumstances, unique setups. I was horribly susceptible to them. They made me lose my composure. They made me restless.

Oh, there's nothing better than a weekday.

Can't it be tomorrow already?

And it was in this odd state ─ that my episode involving a snail began. Or if you look at it the other way around, the episode probably wouldn't have so much as started if I hadn't been in such a state.