深く
Fukaku [Deeply]

When it rains, I am the dam at the mouth of a river. When moon turns to mist in the phantom dusk, the tide turns too, and I am left there pushing back the salivating currents which threaten to spill across the land. When I was younger I used to love the rain, and then when I became older and I lost everything, I hated it.

Now I realize that nothing lasts; not hate, not love. Every emotion is a droplet of water welling like slow, seeping blood from the pores of bloated rain clouds. The clouds are themselves perhaps merely a manifestation of our own unworthy souls and the ugliness of our unforgiven sins. I can still see their faces sinking beneath the waves.

The moon returns and the rain stops, but the water continues to rise. Something cold shivers past my ankle and I look down to see the silver skin of a darting fish slipping away under my shadow. If I take one last breath, will the water engulf me? The world has turned colorless, except that the moon is black and the water is white, as white as the stars.

I think I might let go.

There are pale fingers rising from the river surface, but they are not like the fingers of a ghost. They are just more like the lingering vestige of a forgotten nightmare. A hand touches my face, and I smile. Everywhere there is the sound of water.