Overlapping. [Short-Short Story]

As I approached that place, my chest tightened instantly. It was a hot summer, the cicadas were buzzing noisily, and I cried silently.
In the park where the blue sky stretched out, the tens of thousands of colorful paper cranes hanging before my eyes seemed to be pleading with me. I couldn't tell if it was sadness or anger, a prayer or a wish, or perhaps gratitude. Regardless, I fell into a sensation of being swallowed by something, as if caught in a vortex or a rising wave.

"Are you alright?"
An elderly man nearby spoke to me. He was wearing work clothes and a hat.
"It's easy to get overwhelmed here, you know."
Saying that, the man scooped up several bundles of the hanging paper cranes with his hands.
"I'm fine. I'm sorry. I just felt something surging within me..."
I picked up a single crane from those placed beneath the hanging ones.
"There are so many of them."
"That's right. About ten million paper cranes arrive every year. Since each one is filled with someone's feelings, it's only natural that you might feel something. You should go rest on that bench for a while."

I sat on a park bench. When I looked up slightly, the blue sky of Hiroshima stretched out above, sunlight filtered through the leaves of trees swaying vibrantly, and there were people going about their daily lives.
Hiroshima today was such a peaceful place that it was hard to believe an atomic bomb had been dropped on this city. The devastation of that day exists in the buildings left in their ruined state, in the records that were taken, and in the memories of the survivors. However, if no one carries it into the future, it will fade away and disappear. I must pass on the many thoughts that have appealed to my heart to someone else.
I took a ticket-sized advertisement out of my pocket and tore it into a square. I folded it into a crane, filled it with my thoughts, and returned to that place once more.

"May I place this here?"
Holding the paper crane in my hand, I asked the man who had spoken to me earlier.
"There's no reason you can't. You went to the trouble of folding it, so go ahead and leave it."
I gently delivered my paper crane.
"What happens to these cranes after they are displayed?"
The man told me in a gentle, calm, yet firm voice.
"After the paper cranes are stored for a time, they are turned into recycled paper. Then, carrying someone else's thoughts, they return here as paper cranes once again."
"So they are passing thoughts into the future while cycling through."
"That's right. They might just be paper, but they are packed with the feelings of all the people who came before. They might just be the heaviest paper of all."
The man laughed lightly, as if making a small joke.
"Since human feelings cannot be measured, they must surely be heavy."
Just like my paper crane, the paper, folded over and over with the overlapping thoughts of many people, exists there as a paper crane.

The past, the future, and the present overlap through the paper cranes. And from here on, time, people, and their thoughts will continue to be connected by paper.
I quietly put my hands together in front of the paper cranes.

[1166 characters]

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