Tatsuhiko Takimoto - Welcome to the NHK!

“This is no good, Satou. I found out something terrible! I’ve had an epiphany!” Yamazaki declared. ”This is really, really bad!”

I tried to say something, but my mouth wouldn’t work.

Yamazaki was getting agitated. “Are you listening? Listen closely: This is a really bad thing!”

As there was nothing else I could do, I listened closely.

Pulling himself to his full height and wearing the largest grin imaginable, Yamazaki said, “I was able to logically prove that I am the monotheistic God who created the cosmos!”

I died.

Then, I came back to life.

“Please watch, and I’ll clean up your room now, using my superpowers.” Yamazaki pointed his finger at the rubbish scattered about the floor and screamed, “Move!”

Naturally, the rubbish did not so much as twitch.

“Hey! I’m ordering you! Why are you resisting me?” Yamazaki fumed.

Observing this situation, I felt something rise up inside of me. It was a strange sensation, bubbling up from the very depths of my body. Folding my arms, I thought carefully about this feeling. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I realized what it was. I know, this is…

It was nausea! I was attacked by violent nausea. I tried to dash to the bathroom, but the path there was challenging. My legs wouldn’t move forward. The hall seemed to have stretched into a fifteen hundred foot tunnel. The bathroom was so far away. Would I make it? Could I get to the bathroom before spraying vomit everywhere?

I’ll be fine. Calm down.

Yamazaki had just said it. He had said, “I am God.”

But I knew. I knew that his words were completely mistaken. How did I know? Because I was God! I had confirmed that truth just a moment earlier, using a thoroughly logical thought process.

I would definitely make it in time. I am God. I will make it to the bathroom in time.

I made it.

Prostrating myself before the toilet, I threw up. Afterward, I felt much better. Then, I became energetic. I was enjoying myself. Skipping slowly back into the room, I found Yamazaki squatting there, still grinning.

“It’s no good. Elementary students are no good.” Muttering under his breath, he looked like he was thinking of something criminal.

For some reason, his situation triggered an extreme sense of déjà vu. This sort of thing has happened before, hasn’t it…? While I thought about it, ten consecutive aggressive feelings of déjà vu suddenly hit me. Everything I was looking at had happened before.

I decided to engage Yamazaki in a discussion about this sensation. After a moment, I became unsure what was really going on. “Huh, have we had this discussion before?”

“What are you saying, Satou? I have no idea what—”

“Wait just a second. Let me think carefully about it.”

Lying face down on the floor, I thought as hard as I could. When I did, I was able to remember. … I was a soldier from an ancient civilization several thousands of years ago, who had transmigrated through time and space to come to this world. Naturally, I decided to keep this revelation from Yamazaki. It was a gravely important secret, after all.

After a little while passed, Yamazaki broke in on my thoughts. “You should breathe. You’re dying.”

I breathed. I came back to life. Sincerely thanking Yamazaki, I pondered the way that the world was wrapped in love. I bowed my head to say, “Thank you, thank you.”

However, as if to balance out my return to life, Yamazaki abruptly acted like he was in extreme physical distress. Clutching his throat, he rolled about on the floor, writhing in agony. When I asked, “What’s wrong?” he just uttered an inhuman cry and, without speaking, continued convulsing.

Finally, he picked up a notebook and ballpoint pen in order to communicate the problem to me. Hands shaking, he wrote something down in the notebook.

Taking my time, I carefully deciphered his letters: “I forgot how to use my voice.”

Yamazaki gripped his throat, looking miserable. I whacked his back as hard as I could.

“Ouch!” he said, and then he gave me a thumbs-up. His broad smile returned.

I decided it was time for us to head out. It was already the middle of the night, so I wasn’t afraid that we’d be seen by the police or any neighbors.

We headed toward the neighborhood park. Yamazaki was walking like a robot. Maybe he really was a robot. In the end, could I have such thoughts and also be human? I found the idea a little mysterious.

At that point, I tried banging my head against the streetlamp in the park. This was bad: It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. I am actually a robot….

Thus, I discovered a new truth.

Be that as it may, the park at night was wonderful. Though the streetlamps were the only light source, the park shone and glowed like a photograph taken using a long exposure. The park was full of life. Everything there pulsed with life: the gentle creaking of the old bench, the steady breathing of massive trees lining the road, the dynamic twists of the branches and leaves. All this, every last thing was alive.

While I was transfixed by the scene, Yamazaki said, “I can hear music.”

I heard it, too. From somewhere in the park, inexplicably beautiful music was playing.

We were looking for the music’s source—pushing our way through the grass, shoving our heads under the bench, combing the park for quite a while—when, at last, we found a speaker. It was buried in the roots of the largest tree by the road.

However, it was strange. We didn’t really understand the speaker’s mechanism. Yamazaki and I considered it together. We concluded that the speaker was a “white hole”, which pushed out matter rather than sucking it in.

We walked into the white hole and emerged near a beautiful lake. Yamazaki slowly shed his clothing and dove headfirst into the lake. However… “Argh! It’s a sandbox!”

It seemed that the lake was, in reality, just a plain old sandbox. It really had looked like a lake to me. I decided that I couldn’t trust what Yamazaki told me.

In any event, it felt as if time had been playing tricks on us. First, we were going back in time, and then we were headed forward into the future. I thought about this. When could “now” possibly be?

“Hey, Yamazaki. What day of the week is today?”

There was no answer. It seemed as though he had gone back home already.

Having grown sad, I climbed into the brush, picking the spot where we had detonated Saturday night’s bomb.

In the brush were Yamazaki and myself—from three days ago!

“Okay, it will explode after three minutes. Please, back far away from it.”

Me, myself, and Yamazaki retreated.

“I wanted to be a revolutionary, but that dream didn’t come true. I wanted to be a soldier, but that dream didn’t come true. My father is dying, and then I’ll have no choice but to go home. I wonder whose fault that is. I think there’s some evildoer out there somewhere. I wanted to blow him up, like in a Hollywood movie, with this bomb. You know…”

As I could see only our backs, there was no way for me to check Yamazaki's expression as he said that. But I already knew.

“Huh? Three minutes already have passed, but it didn’t explode.” Yamazaki walked over in the direction of the bomb. As he did, I heard a loud bang, and Yamazaki fell over.

I knew. I knew that he had been crying. “This has no force at all. This bomb I worked so hard to make only has the power of a few firecrackers. This is no good. I’m going back home. See you.”

And then, he went back home to the countryside.

When I returned to my apartment, only the life-sized anime doll that Yamazaki had left was waiting for me. She asked, “Aren’t you lonely?”