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—How long has it been since I’ve had a decent
meal?
he wondered—but there was no time to stop at a rest area for a bite to eat. They
were in too much of a hurry.
By this time, however, Tengo had been reunited with Aomame on top of the slide
in the park. Buzzcut and Ponytail had no idea where Tengo was headed. Above Tengo
and Aomame, the two moons hung in the sky.
Ushikawa’s body lay there in the frozen darkness. No one else was in the room. The
lights were off, the door locked from the outside. Through the windows near the
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ceiling, pale moonlight shone in. But the angle made it impossible for Ushikawa to
see the moon. So he couldn’t know if there was one moon, or two.
There was no clock in the room, so it was unclear what time it was. Probably an
hour or so had passed since Buzzcut and Ponytail had left. If someone else had been
there, he would have seen Ushikawa’s mouth suddenly begin to move. He would have
been frightened out of his wits. This was a terrifying, wholly unexpected event.
Ushikawa had long since expired and his body was stiff as a board. Despite this, his
mouth continued to tremble slightly. Then, with a dry sound, it opened wide.
If someone had been there, he would no doubt have expected Ushikawa to say
something. Some pearls of wisdom that only the dead could impart. Terrified, the
person would have waited with bated breath. What secret could he be about to reveal?
But no voice came out. What came out were not words, not a drawn-out breath, but
six tiny people, each about two inches tall. Their little bodies were dressed in tiny
clothes, and they trod over the greenish mossy tongue, clambering over the dirty,
irregular teeth. One by one they emerged, like miners returning to the surface after a
hard day’s labor. But unlike miners their clothes and faces were sparkling clean, not
soiled at all. They were free of all dirt and wear.
Six Little People came out of Ushikawa’s mouth and climbed down to the
conference table, where each one shook himself and gradually grew bigger. When
needed, they could adjust their size, but they never grew taller than a yard or shorter
than an inch. When they grew to between twenty-four and twenty-eight inches tall,
they stopped shaking and then, in order, descended from the table to the floor. The
Little People’s faces had no expression. But they weren’t like masks. They had quite
ordinary faces—smaller, but no different from yours or mine. It’s just that, at that
moment, they felt no need for any expression.
They seemed neither in a hurry nor too relaxed. They had exactly the right amount
of time for the work that they needed to do. That time was neither too long nor too
short. Without any obvious signal, the six of them quietly sat down on the floor in a
circle. It was a perfect little circle, precisely two yards in diameter.
Wordlessly, one of them reached out and grabbed a single thin thread from the air.
The thread was about six inches long, nearly a transparent white, almost creamy
color. He placed the thread on the floor. The next person did exactly the same, the
same color and thread length. The next three followed suit. Only the last one did
something different. He stood up, left the circle, clambered back up on the conference
table, reached out, and plucked one frizzy hair from Ushikawa’s misshapen head. The
hair came out with a tiny
snap
. This was his substitute thread. With practiced hands
the first of the Little People wove together those five air threads and the single hair
from Ushikawa’s head.
And thus the Little People made a new air chrysalis. No one talked now, or
chanted out a rhythm. They silently pulled threads from the air, plucked hairs from
Ushikawa’s head, and—in a set, smooth rhythm—briskly wove together an air
chrysalis. Even in the freezing room their breath wasn’t white. If anyone else had
been there to see it, he might have found this odd too. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have
even noticed, given all the other surprising things going on.
No matter how intently the Little People worked (and they never stopped),
completing an air chrysalis in one night was out of the question. It would take at least
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three days. But they didn’t appear to be rushing. It would be another two days before
Ushikawa’s rigor mortis had passed and his body could be taken to the incinerator.
They were well aware of this. If they got most of it done in two nights, that would be
fine. They had enough time for what they needed to do. And they never got tired.
Ushikawa lay on the table, bathed in pale moonlight. His mouth was wide open, as
were his unclosable eyes, which were covered by thick cloth. In their final moment,
those eyes had seen a house, and a tiny dog scampering about a small patch of lawn.
And a part of his soul was about to change into an air chrysalis.
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