At five p.m. we finally made our way out of the door. We had apologized for taking a picture in the shop but the man who approached us didn't look very satisfied. Quite the opposite, he seemed to have an issue with the whole concept of a couple, as if it were despicable and a disgrace to the flawless design of humanity. There was no longer a friendly smile on his face. No rows of teeth or nursery rhymes. If somehow, the man had been operating according to the will of the System, he would no doubt be more than opposed to our photographic escapade, presumably very well against Etiquette, for both the policies of the store and against standard conduct as a Japanese citizen. Somewhere, on a bureaucrat's oak desk, there must be a thick tome as extensive as the Bible, scrutinizing every subject and aspect of one's life, tens of thousands of articles, sections, items, amendments, appendixes, and small script. From tampons to tea ceremonies, customs to book distribution. A particular section might warn against photo taking in ice cream parlours. There's no need to sign such a document because it's already ingrained from birth, filtered through cultural tradition, observation and imitation, parental guidance, intensive education, mass media and peer pressure. But uncannily, every person receives the same age-old cookie-cutter conditioning no matter from what source - it's the same message. Abide by Etiquette. There's no need to change. System is everything. Whether Shizuka had redeemed me, or my mind had naturally rejected complete conditioning, is an argument of the chicken and the egg.

Outside, the sun is descending, watered down into pastel pinks and blues, whatever hues manage to pass through cloud cover, as we cut through Cosmo World, between jangling game booths and whining coasters. One plunges in front of us from above like a great arching dragon, like screaming artillery. At first, I brace for some hellish impact, but like an abyssal hole had opened up, it's swallowed without a sound.

"The coaster continues below ground," she says. "Usually the hole is surrounded by water but today they seem to have drained it."

"It's too cold to ride a coaster," I say. "They must be freezing." There are cloud puffs in front of my face. I can't make out too many passengers aboard the coasters but they are there nevertheless.

"Habits aren't easy to change."

"You mean they come every holiday?"

"Some of them."

"Aren't there better places to visit?"

"You might want to ask them."

I notice her watching the coasters and I ask if she wants to ride one.

She tells me there's not much time left. "We need to get to the top of Cosmo Clock," she says with urgency. The spokes of the wheel are churning silently in the distance.

"What exactly is up there?"

"I dreamt of it two nights ago. I saw us climbing up to the top. It seemed to take the entirety of the dream. But there was nothing else." She leans a little closer like sharing a secret.

"Do your dreams usually have meaning?"

"All of them do; I don't dream regularly. I only have visions. Otherwise it's like floating through the universe in black nothingness. I'm floating consciousness. I see the wisps and specks and dashes of humanity that make up the Collective, but nothing happens until they reach out and touch me. Every night it's like that."

"Do you ever feel lonely up there?"

Her eyes twinkle curiously. "Sometimes."

I take her hand as if I could do something for her loneliness.

"Are you less lonely when you're with me?"

She looks at me in surprise. I look away - I have never spoken with such unrestrained impulse before. Something peculiar is in the air. Perhaps it's the cascading light from Cosmo Clock. It's intoxicating, brushing the world over in opaque ink.

There's silence for a while. Then she tells me she doesn't know. "Before, I could hide within myself, hide in my apartment, avoid hearing things. As blank as most people are, they still raise a massive commotion together, a thousands of voices in pirouette. I was naturally alone physically, and mentally - there had been nothing for me to do. I was in as much cyclic repetition as you were, but it was a comfort. I embraced solitude. Now, I feel alone in that no one out here recognizes their expiration date, like candles that burn out around me, into darkness. There's no one else but you, Maeda-san. It's sad." Her eyes are indeed sad. "We're here together, but it isn't comfortable. We are alone together. I don't know what's worse."

I watch our feet flash back and forth over pavement. "There's no turning back now. You're stuck with me."

She laughs. "I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Do you regret your choice of approaching me?"

"I don't regret things. Things are always happening, new things, old things," she says.

Around us, things grow quiet, suffocated in the cold. There's nothing between us and our destination. It looms directly ahead, a wheel of childish circus colours, ever changing spectrums like the Northern Lights, mystical and eerie. An immense alien vessel.

"Reminds me of E.T.," I say.

"Old school special effects."

"They made a robot E.T."

She says it was cute.

"I think it might have given me nightmares as a child."

She laughs. "How can you be scared of E.T.?"

"Apparently its face was formed after the likeness of Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg. Perhaps I was afraid of literature and science back then."

She laughs again and it has a strange musicality.

"Or maybe it had been the federal agents," I say.

"They replaced guns with walkie-talkies in the chase scene for the 2002 reproduction."

"Hmm, 1982 or 2002 version, I don't think any child enjoys the idea of being pursued. Even now I can't say I do."

"In 2002, I would've been eight." She's two years younger than me. I realize I had never asked. There never seemed like there was a need to. We're simply Anomaly and Espre, playing at lovers, a speck of grit in the system.

"I'd figure people would like to see more guns, not less," I say.

"People enjoy being told things that aren't real. It takes away from the burden of reality perhaps."

"When the film was produced, Processing and Free Energy Transfer had already started twenty years prior right?"

She nods.

"Do the arts and literature still have any insight and thought?"

"Sometimes, yes. But it seems like Processing is becoming faster and more efficient now, like they're researching new ways of harvesting energy, their victims are younger and younger. At the college level or equivalent, many are already close to being Images, and productions now no longer have that kind of depth, catering only for entertainment and mass consumption. Violence, horror, tasteless humor, sex. Still, there are some instances where the subconscious dribbles through like rainwater between cracks in the windowsill."

"Like rainwater," she says again. Her face is lit from the multicoloured glow, swirling in a trance, converting her features into an abstract work of art. A sense of curiosity seems to fill her and nothing would take away her attention from the spinning contraption, even as she spoke. She resembles a child with a new toy on Christmas Day. An eight year old. And a ten year old. Holding hands.

"E.T. phone home." She looks over at the sound of my words. But she quickly returns to the ferris wheel.

"We never belonged here, in this world." Her voice is quiet like letting on a profound secret. "We have to figure out how to leave, how to get home."

I get the impression that we are the same, separated and isolated in our own corners of the universe until she found me.

"Did you know E.T. is inspired by Spielberg's own experience as a child?"

I wait for her to continue.

"He had an imaginary alien companion after his parents had divorced."

"Do you think it could have existed?"

"I'd have to read Spielberg's mind for you."

I put our hands in my coat pocket. Her shoulder brushes against mine.

"I think existence is something that has to be confirmed. If you had never spoken to me, then to me, you would never have existed."

She considers my words.

There's just the sound of our own footsteps. But not of those who pass by. We take our time, we are in no rush. Just a quiet stroll through our neighbourhood. All we can see ahead is the swelling size of the clock face. 17:10. It grows ever larger.

"I'm glad you took me along for the trip. I would still be reading a book in that coffee shop otherwise."

She smiles. "I like it when you speak your mind."

"I thought it's better to control my mind."

"Well, either speak your mind or control your mind. Being silent and keeping thoughts to yourself is selfish."

"I'm sorry."

"Etiquette expects us not to speak out and then it encourages us not to think at all. Nothing good will ever come out of it."

"You can read my mind though. I can speak to you through my thoughts."

"But it's the conscious decision of expressing that matters. Especially when thinking about how beautiful someone is." Her voice trails off absent-mindedly. It might have been the coloured lights, but her cheeks take on a rose tinge.

I smile. "So you'd like me to say such things."

But we have arrived at the feet of Cosmo Clock 21.

"Looks like we're here."

She doesn't reply. We stand there for a long time, hand in hand, looking up like children in front of the Goliath.

At first, it's hard to recognize its full form, as if the sky had lit up with a million watts, a puddle in the middle of a galaxy, or maybe a swarm of fireflies. These lights seem to overflow and shower down over our heads, all around us, and my vision blurs and I grow weary. Though we can make out each orb hanging on crisscrossing bicycle wheel spokes and elaborate Eiffel Tower-like construction, they travel in a prescribed fashion in straight lines: again and again, laser beams erupt from the center, in a display of unearthly wizardry and galactic warfare. Wave after wave of colours: crimson, emerald, violet, sapphire. They warp and blur, dance and gyrate around us in exhilaration like some kind of alien initiation ritual. I half-expect them to reach out, engulf us in an otherworldly light and draw us into its machine. Or perhaps a mysterious creature in a metal wheel may descend before us, complete with a throne for two. We might embark as honorary guests airlifted to a welcoming feast. Surely, that would make things easier.

We're mortals looking up at the face of God.

But when I blink my eyes, the fireflies have disappeared and they no longer dance. They become simple Christmas lights on a black canvas of the night.

It's beautiful, she says.

Yes, I say. I hold her hand and watch her eyes wonder.

"You are too."

She smiles at me. It's a vulnerable smile. She asks if it's part of the act.

"Just the truth," I tell her.

At that moment however, like I had evoked an ancient incantation, I'm keenly aware of someone behind us. 

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