[Essay] On Pouring Water into a Chipped Vessel

On the second shelf of a small cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, there sits a slightly large mug that hasn't been used for years.

I cannot recall the exact date it was last used. However, inside it, a faint coffee stain that wouldn't wash away remains, like the coastline on an old map.

When I boil water for one, I always unconsciously put enough for two into the kettle. It is only when I turn off the heat and go to pour the water into the cup that I realize, 'Ah, too much again.'

The excess water I boiled is poured straight into the sink. As I watch the clear, hot water being sucked away with a gurgling sound, I think about that surplus of just about a hundred milliliters.

It is like a small gap that has somehow become embedded in my daily life.

When we lose something, we stand frozen by the magnitude of it.

The glasses on the desk that the person once used.

The space in the closet where one extra hanger sways.

The habit of my fingers checking the smartphone screen without fail at four in the afternoon.

The void does not fill.

Or rather than not filling, it takes on a different shape and continues to reside there.

Much like an old wooden house that, over many years, tilts just a few millimeters in a certain direction.

Before I know it, my own body has become accustomed to that tilt.

In October, when the wind turned cold, I was sitting on a bench in a neighborhood park.

An old man sitting next to me stopped his hand as he was about to take something out of his pocket.

He then started to say something toward the space on his left, but stopped.

The slight, yet decisive hesitation his fingertips showed at that moment.

I watched it and could not take my eyes off it for a while.

For some reason, I still remember that way his fingers hesitated very clearly.

A wound closing does not mean returning to the way things were.

The sensation around the scar is different from how it used to be.

I cannot explain it well, but it does not feel like it has returned to the way it was.

There is skin there that feels a little hard and tight.

Compared to the soft skin around it, that skin is slightly less sensitive.

Or, conversely, it aches strangely in response to changes in atmospheric pressure at the turn of the seasons.

We continue to stare intently at the place where something was lost.

The afterimage of what has vanished still clings to that spot.

A daily life where the fact that something is "gone" becomes the norm.

My body grows accustomed to drinking cold tea alone.

Rather than the wound hurting, my skin is simply becoming familiar with that coldness.

And then, memories I thought I had completely forgotten are pulled back in an instant by the scent of someone's perfume as we pass by, or by the angle of the twilight light.

I take three steps forward, only to be suddenly thrust back to the very first step one night.

That is all there is to it.

I do not know the reason.

Uneven gears are turning, different from the clock of reality.

I sometimes think about the phrase "to have one's eyes stolen".

When we encounter beautiful scenery or something that captivates our hearts, we use this expression quite naturally.

However, what is actually being lost there is not our eyes.

It is, perhaps, time.

I was watching the sunset, and before I knew it, thirty minutes had passed.

When I opened an old album, an hour had vanished.

When I traced back the history of messages that would never reach anyone again, the night had turned to dawn.

We offer up irreplaceable fragments of our lives to those things.

If I say I 'lost time,' it sounds like a mere loss, but if I say I was 'captivated,' for some reason, I feel a little more forgiven.

Though that might just be my imagination.

By having our time taken away, we drift a little further from the reality that exists here and now.

Like when you find yourself staring for hours at the rhythmic drip of an IV by a hospital bed.

Or when you cannot take your eyes off the exposed traces of wallpaper in an old building being demolished.

What they have in common is not beauty.

When we look at things that are ending, for some reason, our eyes linger.

I don't really know why.

The word 'rebirth' has a somewhat unnatural brightness to it.

It is like the illusion that if you rewind a worn-out videotape, the same vivid images will play again just as they did at the start.

But our lives do not rewind.

It is just a process of clumsily mending the tears in our clothes with thread of a different color, continuing on and on.

Perhaps we cannot laugh the same way we used to.

But there is a new, slightly quieter way to laugh.

Leaving a seat empty in the room for that person.

I don't really know why I do that myself.

I simply stop trying to keep pace with those around me and walk at a speed that doesn't make the wounds inside me ache.

People who carry a sense of lack sometimes see their surroundings with strange clarity.

I do not know why.

Looking out the window, the sky is slowly shifting from a murky grape color to a deep navy.

The light at this time of day is always a little cruel.

Because it stretches the shadows of everything, blurring the contours of the world.

I stand up to go to the kitchen to reboil the water.

As expected, there is a bit too much water in the kettle.

I do not try to reduce it, but put it on the flame just as it is.

The blue flame quietly envelops the bottom of the kettle.

Before I knew it, the number of things left unused has increased.

My daily movements have changed a little, too.

That doesn't really bother me much anymore.

There is no need to force yourself to love a wound that will not heal.

It is simply there.

The kettle began to whistle with a small sound.

For the few minutes until it boils, I just stare at my own silhouette, shoulders slightly slumped, reflected in the darkening window glass.

There is no one there.

On the second shelf, that mug is still there.

I watched it for a while, just like that.

#Essay #Philosophy #Loss #Regeneration #Words