012
i didn’t find it.
No matter how much i dug and dug, there was just plain sand. Before i knew it, i reached the bottom.
It was Nadeko’s first time learning that sandboxes have bottoms.
Though it’s obvious they do.
But according to Nadeko’s experiences as a child, sandboxes contained an endless amount of sand─like a bottomless swamp.
Well, i learned what was at the bottom of it all: concrete.
Apparently it’s just concrete buried in the ground in the shape of a pool…how inelegant. i’d rather not have known.
As far as its depth, i’d estimate it went down about two feet.
i guess that’s all the depth you need for it to seem infinite to a toddler.
“Mister Serpent.”
“…”
“Hey, Mister Serpent?”
“…”
Now he was being the silent one.
It’s like we’ve exchanged, no, reversed characters.
“Hey.”
Hey. Hey. Hey, Nadeko keeps calling to him stubbornly.
Since he’s enwrapped around her wrist, it’s not like i can give up and leave just because he’s fallen silent.
i might be “irittating” him, and i would leave if i could, but i’m also too tired even to move.
“It’s not here. Your object of worship.”
“…”
“It’s not here…”
Mister Serpent finally responds to this repeated statement with a huh.
He seems undaunted. Defiant, even.
“Looks like I malfunctioned.”
“M-Malfunctioned…”
He says it still sounding undaunted…and after telling Nadeko so confidently that he was certain, too.
After vibrating that furiously, like a hurricane, on someone’s wrist─a malfunction?
“I see, I see. So this can happen. What a learning experience. Isn’t that right, Nadeko?”
“I-If you malfunctioned, that’s fine, but…c-couldn’t you tell me sooner? You must have realized it a while ago…”
It’s rare for Nadeko to complain like this, but i can’t help it.
i didn’t just dig up one spot in the sandbox, i dug all around. You could play human whack-a-mole here.
Plus, i’m going to have to fill the holes back up and smooth them over.
So pointless and unproductive.
“What’s the matter, can’t you just leave it like that, hmmmm?”
“i can’t… It’ll be a ‘social issue.’ What if a child fell in and got hurt?”
“You worry too much…”
Maybe, but i need to try and make it look like the way it was, even if it won’t be the exact same.
In which case, this is all i’ll be able to do for tonight’s search. Even i don’t think it’s a good way to put it, but Nadeko’s first outing started and ended with her playing in a sandbox.
How juvenile.
“Still, you could malfunction?”
“Stuff happens. Even gods aren’t infallible.”
“Aren’t gods what they are because they’re infallible? Aren’t they supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent?”
“Infallibility and omnipotence are two different things─look them up in your dictionary if you want the details.”
“Hmph…i don’t have one. So is your not-infallible dowsing going to keep on malfunctioning? Because all the fruitless and wasted labor is going to be pretty tough on Nadeko in terms of both time and energy…”
“Don’t get so worked up, I know what it’s like when I malfunction now. It won’t happen again.”
He’s full of confidence.
That makes Nadeko trust him even less.
i think this is what you call a “wrash promise”─and it’s Nadeko who’s going to have to suffer for it. It’s no laughing matter.
Besides, Mister Serpent enwrapping Nadeko’s right wrist tires out her arm even more than it normally would when she uses the gardening trowel. i don’t think i’ll get “tendanitis,” but Nadeko’s muscles might be sore tomorrow.
“Why do you malfunction, anyway? Is this like how the Missing Person Stick in Doraemon is only accurate seventy percent of the time?”
“No─that’s not it.”
i feel a little dissatisfied that the Serpent immediately understands Nadeko’s obscur comparison thanks to our sharing some degree of knowledge, but in any case, he shoots down the question.
“It means that my spiritual energy is scattered─simply.”
“Scattered?”
“Maybe I ought to say it’s been scattered.”
His energy has been scattered─um.
It sounds like something i’ve heard before─but where and when?
A hangout.
The bad things there─something.
Didn’t Big Brother Koyomi end up needing to…
“So in other words,” i ask the Serpent, “you’re more metal detector than dowsing stick? Like finding buried landmines being harder if the sediment has a lot of iron in it…”
“Nadeko, are you comparing my body to a landmine, hmmmm?” he says venomously (being a snake), but considering how he doesn’t go on, i might not be too far off.
Nadeko sighs.
If Nadeko is right, how many more pointless wastes of holes is she going to have to dig? And─what if we run out of time?
If we run out of time… Well, it’s not Nadeko who’ll be in trouble, but Mister Serpent…
Still, Nadeko hates wasted effort just as much as she hates having to try.
No matter what i say, though.
As far as this dowsing goes, this process of identifying the location of the item we’re looking for, i have to leave it all up to Mister Serpent─in a sense, Nadeko is a living gardening trowel who just needs to believe and obey, whatever trouble she may or may not be put through.
Believe and obey. Just like someone serving a god.
“Well…in any case, i guess we’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Hold on a second, Nadeko. You’re too good at calling it quits, what kind of brilliant gambler are you? Instead of giving up, why not try checking just one more spot?”
“No. i’m tired.”
i’ve gotten tired. Miss Nadeko is now quite tired.
Turning a deaf ear to the Serpent’s arguments, i get to work leveling out the sandbox─no, thinking of it as work makes it feel tiresome, so Nadeko imagines she’s playing around and plowing the sandbox as she messes with the sand.
Maybe that was the problem.
Because i’m thinking of it as play, i’m not as efficient as i could be and take longer than i usually would─to give a detailed confession, i get so caught up in it that instead of just filling in the holes that i dug, i really do start to play, making little mountains and castles, and that was the problem.
You might also say Nadeko’s luck ran out.
Given the outcome, i should have just agreed to Mister Serpent’s request and moved somewhere else to search a little longer for his object of worship.
It’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle, but don’t you want genies out of bottles? It certainly sounds more fun…
“Oh, Sengoku. There you are.”
Just as i’m building Nagoya Castle (in case there’s some kind of copyright issue, we’ll say something resembling Nagoya Castle) and having trouble figuring out how to angle the shachihoko, i hear a voice from above Nadeko’s head.
i look up.
Nadeko wasn’t doing a good job of keeping her cap on right.
Which is why our eyes meet.
“B…Big Brother Koyomi.”
There, standing a step outside the sandbox, is Koyomi.
Big Brother Koyomi.
Legal name: Koyomi Araragi.
He’s wearing a serious expression─in the middle of the night, too.
Is he taking a walk?
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