My Night: The Night the Shadow Started Walking

To you, for whom the night never ends.
If only someone's story could quietly stay by your side on nights when you cannot sleep.
"My Night" was born from that very wish.

In my days of facing mysteries, I have listened to people's voices night after night.
An unspeakable silence quietly travels from the other end of the receiver.
What I encounter there are the silences that could not be told to anyone.

One evening, I received a very profound consultation.
An unspeakable pain quietly traveled from the other end of the receiver, and it remained in my heart even after the call ended.
Holding onto that lingering resonance, I played a piece of music.

—

What Scriabin's Prelude Illuminated

A moon floating in the blue-gray night—the atmosphere from which "My Night" was born)

Alexander Scriabin
"24 Preludes, Op. 11, No. 21."

This composer possessed synesthesia.
A person who saw color in sound and felt light in chords.
His music is closer to something you "bathe in" rather than just listen to.

Starting from a serene entrance,
a vibration that warms the center of your chest suddenly spreads in the middle.

In that moment, like a lotus rising from a lotus pond, an image emerged.

A boy.
And the shadow of a dog walking beside him.

The shadow sometimes betrays its own shape—
the moment I thought that, the story had already begun to walk.

—

Memories Brought by the Boy and the Dog

Why was it a "boy"?

When I was a child, I was often mistaken for a boy.
Perhaps a "boyishness" lived somewhere inside me.
A sense of adventure and loneliness lived in the same room.

That is why the pairing of a boy and a dog felt very natural to me.
Just walking through the night without even knowing where they were headed.
That silhouette was unbearably dear to me.

—

The Core of "Gentle Nihility"

At the center of this story is a gentle nihility.

Do not force sadness to be bright.
Do not force the night to end.
Just gaze at it "as it is."

Only within that stillness
is a tiny bit of warmth born.

I wanted to deliver this to those for whom the night never ends.
I wanted to deliver it to those who love wonders.
And, like my former self,
I wanted to deliver it to those who carry a "self that might be a boy" somewhere inside.

—

Another Story Sleeping Deep in the Heart

While writing this work,
I encountered a major theme within myself.

A certain kind of sadness that exists somewhere in the world.
Perhaps the day will come when I can put it into words.

For now, I can only speak of it in the form of a shadow.
But shadows sometimes start walking before the body itself.

May "My Night"
quietly stay by your side during your night.

—

▶︎ Read the Tales version of "My Night"