It all started on a night when a thick fog enveloped the air,
and I happened to see a bluish dim light above the sky.
There are days like that?
When the sky and roads should be dark, but some bright light disrupts your vision.
A strange sense of déjà vu seized me.
“I’ve definitely seen that before…”
Before I could finish my thought, like a panorama,
memories of my childhood and the moments before arriving in this new city flooded back.
This was indeed the second time I encountered this thing
“Is that you? It must be you.”
The silent presence confirmed my intuition.
Yes, it was that very thing from back then.
Yes, you have always been there, unchanged.
Even though the sun, clouds, and nature are never the same anywhere, strangely,
you always appeared just as you did.
You never created unpredictable situations or variations.
I momentarily sank into memories of when I had seen it before.
In 1999 and again in 2009.
The first time, it seemed like a mythical being radiating a mysterious aura, or perhaps a shard of something broken and bluish. I was in awe, like those who witness some primordial natural phenomenon.
I kept approaching it, but it always remained at the same distance.
Since then, I have often been haunted by thoughts of what might have happened if I had gotten closer.
It shone red at times, blue at others, and occasionally yellow, emanating a totemic power.
Yet, it was always just out of reach, subtly and ominously influencing my thoughts and existence.
It had swept over me like a storm once, but recently, it had quieted down.
"..."
Now I see it again.
A thought strike me: Why is it still there? Has it been waiting for me?
I longed to escape to that place that had seemingly waited for me, feeling that I could do so.
I was so tired. Cold. I wanted to pause time, just for a moment.
Some might say that one can be mentally or physically unwell, but I have a body in this world and responsibilities I fulfill every day.
Escape isn’t something that can happen every day; I just occasionally need a place to run away to.
Just as humanity's crises have evoked a return to nature and nostalgia, perhaps my anxiety and sense of crisis in reality drive me to seek refuge.
That thing is a vision of the time I cherished—a memory from my past.
Then the next thought came: it felt like a 'portkey'. If I could touch it, it would send me somewhere else. But I had never reached out.
To approach it, I needed time, but if it disappeared, tomorrow would begin.
As I stood there, contemplating how to finish this remaining night, or perhaps wishing that time would stop and tomorrow wouldn’t come,
I felt a resonance in my heart.
It seems like it doesn’t want to set.
Its presence means the night isn’t over yet.
Yes, it didn’t want to set.
It’s been sending me signals all along, wanting to savor this night, even if just for a moment.
Just like me, it longs to escape, even if only for a little while.
Humans, relentlessly, never left him alone.
It had been fifty years since they first set foot upon his body,
and they poured all their imagination into touching the sacredness that split from him, dreaming of him, conjuring him in their thoughts.
Moonstone, voyages, myths—what does it all matter?
How bothersome…… You hate humans, don’t you? Of course, you do.
There must be times when you want to run away, to vanish entirely.
But even so, isn’t it lonely?
He always circled around us, watching over us,
Yet we, blinded by the light of day and burdened by the weight of night, could never bring ourselves to look up at the sky.
There’s a saying:
“He doesn’t think like I do. People who forget that get themselves killed.
When you look into its eyes, you’re only seeing your own emotions reflected back at you, nothing else.”
Yes, it’s true. We and he must hold gravity between us if we are to survive.
But can I truly turn away from his solitude?
He said to me:
“I don’t want to fall.”
So, I should bring it home.
For the dawn to never end.
As it wishes.
At that moment, we promised each other to be bound together?
I never intended to imprison it, but it seemed to want to escape to me.
We needed each other.
I inserted my being into this absolute, mystical entity. I overlapped myself with it.
The fact that humans are empathetically connected to the universe plays a crucial role in establishing my relationship with it.
The primal imagination that has maintained connections with natural elements has also been a driving force for the development and enrichment of human life.
However, with the mechanization of modernity, advances in technology,
and further developments in media, as the realms of life expand,
this primal imagination curiously possesses the quality of continually drawing us back to some world of nostalgia.
In other words, the determination to bring the moon back also serves as a form of totemic thinking for me,
reflecting my longing to escape and the selfishness, greed, and desire for possession that come with being human,
through a wild sensibility.
This is not an excuse or rationalization.
I am not a thief.
This is the truth.
