[Novel] FM Kotonoha "8th Surely Your 1400 Characters" Submission: 'With the Heart of Watching the Sunset'
This work is a novel submitted to the "8th Surely Your 1400 Characters" project, held in September 2023 on the VRChat radio station "FM Kotonoha."
The theme was "Words." The cover image was taken at "Yayoi Riverbed."
Paragraph indentations were added for the publication on note.
'With the Heart of Watching the Sunset' - Sosatsu Chieka
She stands facing the sunset. I am watching her back. With only the monitor of the camera placed behind me floating before my eyes. In a world where the sunset never sets.
There is no mirror.
It was a red, red sunset, looked up at from a wide riverbed. The light, as if from an eruption, was frozen across the entire opposite shore, and with the silver river in between, there was nothing but a fragile night on this side of the sky. But the night, and the fragility of the night, were not the issue for me. I was simply facing the sunset, standing still before it. I was watching the sunset with the heart of watching the sunset.
I have forgotten when it was that I first saw a sunset. But when I think of a sunset, this is what always occupies my heart. I have no memory of anything happening during a sunset, nor do I have a memory of seeing a beautiful sunset in any picture book. Even if I did, I cannot believe that this which occupies my heart is made of the memories of this world in my experience. Something that comes from within me, yet something I do not know, always brings me to the same heart when I watch the sunset.
Now, between me and the sunset, there is the liquid crystal of the goggles. No, there is the liquid crystal and the camera monitor. No, there is the liquid crystal, the monitor, and the camera. No, there is the liquid crystal, the monitor, the camera, and her back. There is nothing between her and the sunset. I am behind her, at the position of her viewpoint, inside her. I am inside her, watching her back.
There is her between me and the sunset. If you call it my avatar, she is my avatar. However, I did not call her that. I believe she was with me even before technology caught up to her. And I believe she was watching the sunset in the same place. There is something inside me that I do not know, yet it is still not not me. Or perhaps the moment I called it her, I gave up on knowing myself completely forever. Between me and her, there is an abyss of nothingness and infinite absurdity. Just as there is between me and this sunset.
There is no mirror. But even if I brought out a mirror, her face would not be reflected.
She might know where this that occupies my heart with the sunset came from. Perhaps everything I lose drifts to her. But she will not tell me. The moment I question her, the moment I take that first breath, the moment I prepare the words to ask, she will leap into me, a river will form between her and the sunset, and only I, questioning myself, will remain. And the sunset I see with my eyes will not be the same as the sunset currently beyond her. It would be nothing more than a scene shown by the movement of celestial bodies, the scattering of photons, and the experience of life, as it is, visible to the eye. I have no interest in such things.
That is why her face is not reflected in the mirror. The face she must be wearing as she stands facing the sunset, the face illuminated by the sunset, is not reflected. The face I want to see. The face that becomes invisible the more I wish to see it. The face that is there only when it is invisible, and is receiving the sunset beyond the liquid crystal, the monitor, the camera, her back, the monitor, the camera, the back, the monitor, the camera, the back, the monitor, the camera, the back, the monitor, the camera, the back, and the monitor, the camera, and the back. As long as I hold back my body and my words, she is between me and the sunset. Since long before I knew her, I have been watching the sunset where her back is.
I do not move.
I do not make a sound.
I do not turn around.
Please do not turn around.
Now, this, which is wrapping me, her, and the sunset—
The heart of watching the sunset.