Short Story: Shoreline Sketches - Memories of a Spiral -

Chapter 1: Red Sky and Purple Memories

The Galaxy Railway Komachi descends quietly through the red sky of Mars. Looking up at the sight, Mitsuya traced memories from the distant past. When he was assigned to move from Venus to Mars, he felt heartbroken to be separated from Marika, a senior from his choir club.

In their new 1K apartment, he spent days confused by the different gas stove standards and crying alone while taking plates out of cardboard boxes. However, space-time traced a spiral, and eventually, Marika came to Mars with large pieces of luggage. The two looked up at the purple sky of Jupiter together and raised their two daughters. Mitsuya realizes: no matter what choices he made, he would have ended up on this shoreline in the end.

Chapter 2: The Gaze of the Mezquita

When the spiral of space-time makes one rotation, it is medieval Hispania, the Mezquita (Cathedral) of Cordoba. Zarial and Rakalna felt the 'gaze' of someone in the mysterious space where red and white arches overlap.

It was the same indescribable presence that Queen Isabel felt when she visited the same cathedral on her way to the port of Seville. Lukonov, who was accompanying them, looked up at the sky and muttered, 'Could that be the Flying Eye? It might be the me that is not me, or perhaps the thoughts of all people.' Behind them, that giant 'observer' was always floating.

Chapter 3: The Boundary of the Cape

On yet another shoreline, the Old Woman of the Cape waits alone for souls coming from the sea. She, too, questions the presence of being watched by someone, but there is no answer. What appeared there was the spirit of the late Taira no Koremori (the fifth generation).

The 'eye' existed above the heads of the two as they talked, saying, 'It seems Rokudai-dono (Takakiyo) is alive...' The legends of Kamakura, the daughter of the red-haired woman, and Kiyonari, who became a mountain ascetic. The threads of different stories become intricately intertwined at this cape.

Chapter 4: The Observer and the Girl of Time

In a modern art room, Navio stares at a painting of 'a whale-like airship with many large eyes' drawn by Yoichiro-senpai. His senior said quietly, 'Isn't Dali painting dreams?'

The painter Salvador Dali had actually seen that 'eye' in the sea of Portlligat. The eye belonged to no one; it existed solely to observe the world, and every time it gazed, it reshaped the world and stretched or compressed time.

The eye finds a small light inside a crack in a pomegranate. It was the shadow of a nameless girl jumping rope. Every time she jumps, the shadow shifts to a different time. She herself is 'time itself,' and the eye was the 'memory of the world (Alaya-vijnana).'

'Which time will you choose?' the eye asks. The girl replies, 'Every time you gaze upon becomes my path.'

Final Chapter: The Moment of Awakening

The moment that dialogue was exchanged, the world awoke from its dream, the earth was born, the sea filled, and Mitsuya, Zarial, and the Old Woman of the Cape all began to walk their respective stories.

The giant eye disappeared from the sky, but if you look up at the sky suddenly, a faint trace of that gaze still remains there. Everything seems like scattered fragments, but they are connected in a spiral on this shoreline, drawing a single magnificent sketch of memory.

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