Chapter 7.7

Tanaka drug his tired body along, leaving the town hall behind him. It was already past ten o'clock. It was an hour that would be called late night by the village's standards. 

(There's something strange...)

Tanaka had murmured that in his mind countless times at this precise time. At some point it'd become a habit. 

Yes, strange. Tanaka turned to look behind him. The small branch office was brightly lit up. For the town hall to have lights on this late at night in itself was strange he thought.

Of course the teller window closed at five o'clock. It wasn't as if the office hours had changed. It was just that the number of employees at the town hall had decreased. Ishida from the Health Department had absconded, location unknown. There were others who had retired, those who had stopped and transferred too. For the open positions to be filled there were two new employees who had joined but both of them were temporary employees, and what's more they only came in at night.

To begin with, Tanaka thought. That had started just after Ishida had disappeared. The chief had resigned. His health suddenly failed him, he retired, and a successor to the chief had come. That new chief, Izumi he was called, had failing health and became bedridden just after they'd taken up the new position. Still ever absent from work, he had yet to appear again at his post. It'd already been ten days. 

Without the chief's approval the town hall couldn't move. The assistant chief Kogawa had visited the new chief's home daily, at least getting his stamp of approval on things but, perhaps he was sleeping during the daytime for it was tightly locked up and there was no answer. Since it seemed that at dinner time he would get up and come out, Kogawa went through the trouble of heading to the chief's house after all of the day's business was attended to. There just weren't enough people. The replacements that came came in once it was night. Since by the time they got the Chief's approval it was past evening, the amount of overtime was vigorously piling on. Besides Interacting with citizens who would come to the service window, everything else was killing time, in fact all of the real work was after the front window was closed---and this had been going on for five days now.

(And then there's the death certificates...)

Tanaka as usual made copies of and amassed death certificates without knowing what to do with them. Ishida was gone. So he had no idea what he was supposed to do with them. It seemed like there was no need to make the copies anymore but somehow or another Tanaka couldn't stop. Sometimes he even thought of delivering them to Ozaki directly himself. But the Ozaki's Toshio had never asked for them or given such instructions, and whatever Ishida and Ozaki had been doing seemed to have been completely shelved once Ishida had absconded. 

That in itself made him unease. This wasn't something that should have been just put on a shelf. Or did something change? Possibly the situation had gone beyond the branch office's hands, maybe it was seized by the Mizobe office. He could take the copies to the neighboring town and confirm it himself but he wasn't sure about that either. Even if on the surface they were merged with Mizobe, the feel that the village was the village was ever present within the villagers. Internal affairs were handled internally, without help from the outside. Of course he also thought that doing so would be an undue burden and nothing good would come of it, but Tanaka himself had that thought pattern within himself as well.

While thinking, shaking his head countless times, each time repeating once again that something was strange, Tanaka walked down the night road. On the small roads of the village with few street lights, there wasn't much sign of life. On top of it just being that hour of the night, Tanaka had the feeling that the night had changed. The houses about had their lights off, still as death. It somehow gave an impression more like they were turning out the lights and holding their breath than like they were locked up for the night sleeping. The reason there was nobody passing by was neither because the people were sleeping nor because they were all gathered up together inside, it was simply that they were holed up in their houses afraid of the night, he thought. Something made him feel that way, something floating within the chilled night air. 

It was a strange helplessness--something sinister. The night was scary, for what one remembered in the darkness was that one's own existance was fragile and weak. And the deaths that would inspire such feelings were continuing in this very village. 

Tanaka quickly paced the road home. His own footsteps echoed his pace. It almost felt like he was being pursued. He couldn't wipe away that stagnant unease in his chest. 

There was a break in the row of houses. Rice fields spread out basking in the moonlight. Several of them were abandoned, growing wild. Amongst those was one growing with rice plants left unharvested. Maybe the one who would have harvested it had transferred. But not a single notice had come in to the local office.

(Something is strange.)

He was certain of that but what it was that was strange he couldn't clearly display. This was an unusual situation, and Tanaka didn't have the words to express it. Like the abnormality of the streets---a similar feeling.

(Strange...)

Murmuring that for the upteenth time, Tanaka's stopped feet then hurried on again. It was then that he saw a human figure on the narrow roadway ahead.

Someone's out walking at this time? he thought. Nonchallantly continuing, they grew closer. When they were close enough to make out the other person, Tanaka's feet came to a halt. His mouth popped open thoughtlessly.

"...Good evening." 

The other's voice was easy going, coming closer at a page as if nothing were unusual at all. It was someone he knew, acting normally, without anything at all to be uneasy about, but on the other hand Tanaka was bewildered. 

"...Megumi-chan?"

Megumi smiled. She smiled in greeting to him as always. Not a single thing had changed from how she was before. But something was strange---overwhelmingly so. The bewildered Tanaka could not grasp what it was that was strange. It felt like he'd met somebody he shouldn't have, but Megumi was his daughter's best friend. Born in the village, raised in the village. Her house was also nearby, so why shouldn't be run into her? No, maybe then there was a reason he shouldn't have met with her? In an instant of confusion, Tanaka tied it to Megumi's disappearance. Remembering that that had happened combined with the implacable thought that they shouldn't have met, and for that brief instant, he'd tied them together in an unfortunate mistake.

Tanaka came to a stop just the same, still shocked, raising his hand in a wave to megumi. "Everything okay now? Kaori was worried, you know."

Really, Megumi murmured. She came closer still. She came to a stop as if planning to stand and talk with him. She was close enough to see Tanaka breathing. Megumi abruptly looked downward. Tanaka, still bewildered, followed her gaze. Her arm went around his neck bent to look down. At the feel of that cold body temperature, Tanaka at last realized it.

--Megumi, she was dead.

When he tried to let out a scream and push her away, in that instant there was a pain in his neck. All the more he tried to push Megumi away but the arm twined around his neck wouldn't let loose. It's Megumi, a part of him thought with terror; it's Megumi, a part of him thought with hesitation. Unable to hit her or kick her , a tender, drunken sensation came over him. Reality grew further away. The temperature, the smell, the sounds all grew further away, the feel of Megumi's arm, the lips pressing against his neck became everything. Real and unreal were reversed, the latter swallowing him up. With Tanaka stood on the pavement, mouth still gaping open. Awash in the moonlight, the abandoned fields rice heads rustled in the wind.

Megumi pulled away.

"...This is a dream."

Tanaka nodded. That's right, it was a dream. After all Megumi was dead.

"Revise the registers."

Tanaka frowned, still facing the wrong direction. 

"You'll revise it. Nobody's died. All of them are mistakes. In this village there's no misfortune or anything at all happening."

Tanaka blinked, then nodded. Megumi unwrapped her arm from him.

"I'll come to see you again. This time at your house, Uncle. When I give the sign tapping at the window, let me in, okay?"

Saying that as she left, she was gone from his side, running off into the rice fields. Tanaka sat down on the spot. For a time he sat like that gazing up at the moon and then came to himself. 

He was terribly dizzy. For a moment he lost his sense of self and felt something vague, then his back gave out and he sat down. That was all he was aware of. 

--During that single moment of ambiguity, he thought he'd saw a dream.

Tanaka thought that, but it might have been his imagination. Standing up somehow or another, he hurried on the path home. He was beat, he wanted to sleep. There was work to do tomorrow.

"...That's right," Tanaka murmured. "I have to correct those mistakes..."