-Gateway-

It's that same girl from before. She's in her uniform, but the jacket is missing.

"You must be wondering what I'm doing here." Her eyes are bright, as if she is delighted at my surprise.

I fail to make any utterances. The door had been closed.

"You know, I actually went and gave my uniform jacket to one of the homeless guys in Ueno Park. I went walking around for a long time, looking for someone to give it to – sort of like trying to find that right person you would spend the rest of your life with. In this case, I was matching up my blazer with some homeless guy. You just know it's the right person when you come across them. It was hard though, there are too many of them, and I couldn't exactly tell which ones were homeless for sure. I could only guess. Some of them looked very clean and shaven, maybe they had just lost their homes or maybe they're just very image-conscious and managed to shave and clean up somewhere, somehow. Some other guys were unkempt and had scraggly beards." She pauses and searches my eyes. She is much too close to me, almost breathing in my face. All I can see is black hair, her big glasses sitting on a small nose and eyes, one, very green. "They all looked at me funny maybe because I was wandering around peering at them. I got a few perverts staring at my skirt, so they didn't deserve my jacket either. Then I found the right guy. He's an old guy, with a beard, but it isn't too long and scraggly, or too childishly short - it's just right, like he had grown his beard for stylistic purposes. His hair and his beard is just starting to grow white; it is a mix of black and grey hair, which really looked kind of cool. And he was still wearing his suit and white shirt, like he had just gotten off work. It was quite dirty, scruffed and dusty looking, but there's no stains or anything like that. In his eyes there was some kind of glint that told me he was the right guy. He had that intelligent gleam, and probably somewhat cynical. You can tell right off the bat that he didn't belong there as a homeless guy."

When I don't reply, she continues on, "so I went up to him and said I have an extra article of clothing to give to him and asked if he liked uniforms. He said he used to collect high school girls' uniforms but his wife found out and burned it. He told me that it was entirely out of an objective scientific interest, rather than anything perverse. He was interested in the correlation of the design and sewing, the colours and the dimensions with human psychology, and why Japanese culture loved school uniforms. I thought it was all bogus but I gave him my jacket anyway. He started tearing up and crying right there in the park on a bench under a tree. He gave it one long sniff and thanked me."

She shrugs. "And that's that."

She studies me for a long time. I take a step back. "That's nice of you," I say.

But she ignores me. Instead, she peers around the room, like it's her first time seeing books. She's done talking about her uniform and I can almost hear the gears in her mind shift, levers and electronics whirling. "Alice in Wonderland, I wonder if it's still here."

"How did you get in here?"

"Ah, it might be over here."

"How do you know?"

"I just do," she says matter-of-factly and puts her thumb up against the corner of a bookshelf. "Here."

"What month is it?"

"April."

"April," I repeat after her.

The girl reaches up high and plucks out an old dusty copy of Alice in Wonderland. It looks like it hasn't been touched or read in many years. Perhaps in six or seven years.

"What year is it?"

"2015."

"Okay."

She looks at me strangely. "Do you have an issue remembering dates?"

"No. I just can't understand the concept of time, dates, numbers - anything with structure."

"Interesting." But she doesn't appear very interested. She flips open the book and starts reading. I watch her read. Her eyes sparkle, hungry, beady and almost desperate. As if she could swallow letters and rip them right out of the page.

"Is that your favourite book?" I venture to ask. I start to back away slowly. One little step, sliding my foot over the floor. Maybe I could make it to the door without her noticing and return to Shizuka.

"No, there are too many favourites but it's the one that makes the most sense."

"Didn't you say it's like a hallucinatory trip?"

"Yes of course, but hallucinations and dreams are the most real. The closest to reality. Closest to the truth. The world likes to distort the truth. But in hallucinations and dreams, the truth comes out, because you can't consciously control it or reign it in."

"I see. Sounds like Freudian dreams." I take another step back.

She flips another page.

"So you mean this is all real, the closest to the truth." I nonchalantly slip The Trial back in its place on the shelf.

"Depends on what you mean by the truth or what's real. Everything is both real and unreal isn't it? I mean, I could have given my jacket to some guy in the park but I could just have easily tossed it on the street and had let a car run it over. What I told you might, or might not be real. Maybe I gave it to a dog but I had imagined it was a man. Most of what we know are things that we are told or things we read or shared from cell phones. I mean, even when you see something with your own eyes, how can you guarantee it is real?"

"But what's real are in your dreams and hallucinations, you said. You mean what's real is what's deep within your mind. The core of your existence and the core of your thoughts. Some of this only surfaces in special circumstances or conditions, and isn't always revealed."

"Yes, if the physical things you see or do, or read or understand, like if information about the war in Iraq is only known from television and newspapers, images, sounds, videos, or worse, things people share or retweet on Twitter, it's like it had never happened. It only exists as those fabricated pieces of information, for all you know, it was just a fictional story. It's just a version of someone's or a group's construct. No one knows what it was actually like. Even the people there experiencing it, only understand the world from their tiny, narrow location at the bottom of a well. But whatever comes up from hidden sources deep within and beyond the mind, that is more real to me than anything else."

"You're quite the young philosopher aren't you?"

"I just read a lot," she giggles and then continues to bury her nose in the book. I pretend to scan the shelves for another title. But I'm watching her. She's leaning back on the bookshelf, quite comfortably, in a relaxed posture. I realize her body is just starting to develop: there are slight curves in the right spots but it isn't so noticeable yet. She might grow to be a lot more attractive.

"You might want to think about leaving soon. While you still can," she murmurs without looking up.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't look like you're just here to read some books. Like last time you were waiting for someone. It doesn't look like you're waiting for someone right now. It looks like you're antsy; you're waiting for time to pass and hoping reading might calm your nerves."

"Are you psychic or something?"

"Maybe I could be."

"Maybe you could," I feint a smile.

There is silence. I can hear her soft breathing. Her lips move every now and then, as if pronouncing a word, but no sound comes out.

"How old are you?"

"I thought you don't like thinking about numbers," Shirayuki glances at me in amusement.

"I don't, but sometimes there's no choice."

"I'm seventeen."

It's then when I bolt for the door and wrench it open.

*

When I stumble into the shop front, there is no trace of Shizuka. Nor is there anyone else. All is but empty, a quiet hush and the smell of spring flowers seeping in from an open window. Soft music still plays from behind the counter somewhere. It is an old song, Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row". I haven't heard it in a long time. The one with allusions that reach right into mythic, naming off Cinderella, Romeo, Ophelia, Cain and Abel, Einstein, Freud, Pound and Eliot, blending time and space, all tied into a prophetic network of historic and political context. Yet I wonder how many now still understand such literary and lyrical genius. Perhaps such genius is illegal. The only reason it's playing is because it had been abandoned. The tracks simply continued on without ceasing, playlist on repeat. The music does little to pierce the hollow sound of the room.

I walk over and inspect the table we had sat at but there are no cups or saucers. It's spotless. The two chairs – wooden and tan coloured - are tucked in, at a different angle to when we had been sitting there. My backpack is missing. With it, all the essentials I had packed and my paperbacks. It's like we had never been here at all.

I don't dare say a thing, keep my eyes on the doorway I had emerged from - hoping not to see Shirayuki coming after me - and head for the door. But I catch the glimpse of someone passing by the window. The figure comes up to the entrance. Slow, steady, heavy steps. Each is clearly audible. I step back and disappear behind one of the large coffee machines at the counter.

My heart is pounding. I need a way out of here. April 2015 or not, reality or not, I can't remain in a confined space here alone. I wonder where Shizuka is, in April 2015. Where would she be? My body feels hollow and empty.

"We need to get out of here," Shizuka's voice says.

"Yes," I agree and look and see her striding towards the door, throwing my backpack at me. She had changed into Converse sneakers - prepared for every occasion. No one is outside the entrance. I watch her with much relief. It isn't entirely surprising.

When I turn and look towards the shop owner, I realize the lady is leaning against a table, holding her head.

"What's wrong with her?"

"We need to get out of here," Shizuka repeats. From my peripheral vision, the woman seems to flicker, like a bad signal. Like Ahn Mi Hyun had once did. I understand.

We open the door an inch and peer out. The street is mostly empty, except for the pastry shop, which has a customer bartering quite intently with the chef. Once a motorcycle finished roaring by, we step out and shut the door behind us. Even as we did so, I see the form of a man in a black suit take the woman's place inside. In the back of my mind, I make a mental note that an Anomaly, if indeed she is one, had just been "Processed" in front of our eyes.

Move, move, Shizuka says and I nod. We move, as fast as we possibly can, our legs burning, hearts racing, blood boiling, nerves screaming, wind whipping against our cheeks. My backpack shakes with every step, as if to throw me off balance. Running is like being tossed in a laundry cycle, flesh and bones jolting up and down.I'm definitely not accustomed to exercise. My legs feel heavier than they actually are. Shizuka fares much better than I do. She is running holding her heels in one hand. I watch their black sheen flash in the air. Soon I am lagging behind.

"Most people don't realize there are times in life where you must run, and run for your life!" she shouts at me. She's almost laughing, amused at my incompetence. She nearly runs into an old woman leaning on a cane. I laugh and pick up my pace. Anyone passing by gives us absurd stares but we ignore them. There is a strange sense of warmth filling my body from within. It bleeds through my core towards my fingertips and toes. It presses against the cold air. I take it as some sort of hidden strength.

We cut through an alleyway and a parking lot, passing a DoCoMo, a few minimarts and a dry cleaners. A car nearly hits us as we cross a street and we hop over low walls surrounding an apartment unit like high school delinquents cutting class. I don't recall ever doing this with friends in school, but the feeling of exhilaration is familiar. Maybe I had done something bad, something wrong, but could never recall it. And maybe it had something to do with the time my mother signed the contract. For some reason, dots begin to connect on their own, without my conscious thinking about them.

We emerge and come to a halt beside a bus stop. She leans on my shoulder, catching her breath. We wipe away our sweat with the pack of LiveNet tissues.