This Was Still Just The Beginning / Steel Tower in the Wasteland, “Chizuru” Waits in the Countryside.—
She sings in a pretty voice, like the murmur of a stream.
A blocked tunnel. A red, torii shrine gate nestled inside.
The Sugarcane Eye is dyed red with paint.
That red seemed to be responding to something. That red seemed to be
connecting with something.
She says,
“He can’t be a replacement.”
“The Sugarcane Eye can’t be a replacement.”
The girl who had been hidden away from the world stayed in a
partially destroyed house.
Inside a closet on the second floor.
Gathering up pieces of wood, she made numerous small torii gates.
She needed to make a connection.
She needed to make a way home.
Winter.
Underneath the frozen surface of the pool.
A school uniform.
Her pretty song.
The schoolyard where pretty spells were written. The light of the
path to the mountain. The vanished sheep.
The Seven Wonders. Repeating signals. Festival music. The festival at
the shrine. Sacrifice.
His path.
G.o.d’s path.
Life’s path.
Her pretty song.
Pale blue, spectacle gone to waste, steel tower.
Chizuru waited in the countryside.
—
Steel Tower in the Wasteland, “Chizuru” Waits in the Countryside.
Although clumsy, it was if the song pumped blood.
“This was still just the beginning,”
It would nice if that were so.