Kamisama no Memochou:Volume 9 Chapter 1

"I can probably die now," said Ender. "All my life's work is done."

"Mine too," said Novinha. "But I think that means that it's time to start to live."

Orson Scott Card -- Speaker of the Dead.

Chapter 1

Till this day, I still vividly remember the day mom died.

Every word my sister said on the phone, dad's drool in his half-opened mouth, the instruction posters pasted on the white hospital walls--I still remember them all. These were all too bright that I wondered if I mistook them for being in a movie or some other places. But looking back at my memories, I realized it could be associated with the last time I saw off mom at the door in the morning. I There is no doubt this is my memory. I wondered why I could still remember that so vividly.

I supposed it was because I did not see the corpse for myself, and the make up for the surrealism, my mind frantically pieced together everything I saw and heard in my mind. I was still in elementary school when mom's body was knocked down by a trailer, and deformed as she was crushed between it and the building wall, so obviously, dad didn't allow me into the morgue.

Dad himself could not move as he stood in front of the stairs leading to the basement, so my sister was the one who identified the corpse. Back then, she was still in high school, but she did everything, from speaking to the police and doctors, and calling for the funerary parlor.

Dad became weird after that, as though his fractured bones were put back in the wrong places. I did not remember exactly what happened at the funeral, but I knew that he did not say anything. Perhaps that was when he snapped. The next day, he started calling my sister by my mom's name. I could not understand what happened at all. It seemed sister knew, but did not know how to respond.

"Maybe I'm too capable."

While we were alone together, sister shrugged as she said this.

"Dad's someone who can't live on without mom. He probably escaped to the past, pretending that Alice didn't die."

I didn't know how she could calmly rationalize this.

However, sister's deduction was amazingly accurate. After observing dad, who had lost it, for a little while, I had to come to agree with that assessment. Dad's mind was back to when he first got married with mom, and because of that, he saw the only female in the house--his own daughter--as his wife. Also, he would say such passionate things like "Sorry for always having world." or "I might be deployed to Kansai next time. Sorry to bother you." For a while, I couldn't believe that my stoic dad actually became like that, and to be honest, it felt really disgusting. Also, he could not recognize me anymore. His mind 'went back' to when he got married with mom, back when she had yet to bear a kid. For dad, I'm someone who shouldn't exist. I didn't know how to deal with dad when he was like this, and to be honest, it was easier for me not to interact with him. There was not much change to this daily life. Dad continued to work, earning money for the family. While things would get awkward whenever the school called (whenever the teacher called, he would say something like 'that's strange. I don't have a son'), but sister could normally handle that well. Since it was not a hassle to any of us, we did not care no matter how mentally disturbed he was.

After a long while, I asked sister,

"Sister...are you really alright?"

"Eh, well...about mom's death."

My sister chuckled. Her past experiences gave birth to such a smile.

"Of course I'm not. But neither you nor dad are able to help, Narumi. I got no choice but to shoulder the load."

No choice.

Just as dad remained mentally disturbed, I too could only stand by the side, watching. Sister did all she could to protect our lives in a realistic sense.

"It's stupid."

She sighed.

"Humans can't revive. Can't he just cry it all out and forget?"

Those words appear to be directed at me as well. To be honest, I really had the same thoughts as dad--as long as I did not admit that mom died, maybe I could have waived off the past? Maybe sister saw through me, and that I didn't have the guts to be 'broken mentally', unwilling to say it out.

The dead can't revive.

I held my breath, enduring this youth filled with simple yet cruel truth.

When I was in my 10th grade, dad bought a house in Tokyo. He was dispatched to the main office in Tokyo, and did not have to wander everywhere. Because of that, I too came to this city, encountering many lives and deaths, sometimes causing commotion, sometimes getting hurt, sometimes dirtying myself, soiling my face with dirt as I remembered it all, welcoming this second Spring. In the process of recording every memo in a story, I learned something--no matter who the narrator was, what they said formed their story. I might not be the one bleeding, but if the truth was as I heard and witnessed, turned into words with my own hands, what I write would be my story. On the other hand, I could only recount the stories I heard and saw, what were related to me. All I could describe were the stories of those who were similarly suffering, anguished, and contorted like me.

Finally, I could say it.

The final case of the detective who shut herself in the frigid room.

The cruel battle of the girl who like me, wanted to revive her dead mother.

Why did she not choose that one smart move? What kind of grass would the land grow after absorbing so much blood, such that one would laugh for, shed tears for, break themselves for, be forgotten? What kind of flowers would bloom--

The me now probably had a right to say this story.

For I lost Alice.

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