Cradle the Sky: Episode 2, Episode 3

By MORI Hiroshi

I do not even remember who I am. I was shot in a phone booth at a train station by Kusanagi, my former superior officer. However, I am still alive. Was it a dream? The boundary between dream and reality is terribly blurry, and I cannot understand anything for sure. I am living in a dream-like reality. Or, maybe it is a dream like reality. The only wish I have is to be shot by her again.

I want to be shot.
I want her to shoot me.
I want to experience the heat within my heart just once more ...

And then, I meet Kusanagi again.
While wishing that she is not an illusion, I am confronting her, face-to-face.

Only the final episode remains to be told in “Cradle the Sky”, the final (5th) novel of “The Sky Crawlers” series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716195174

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Cradle the Sky: Episode 2, Episode 3

Originally written in Japanese by MORI, Hiroshi

Translated by Ryusui Seiryoin

Cover illustration by mm

Cover design by mm

This work was first published in Japan in 2007.

Japanese edition copyright © 2007 MORI, Hiroshi / Chuokoron-Shinsha

English edition copyright © 2020 MORI, Hiroshi / The BBB: Breakthrough Bandwagon Books

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781716195174

Episode 2: Inverted

It was, oh I admit it, that we were kindred spirits. We looked each other in the eye, we saw the same devil, we weren’t afraid; it was – merry. But he outsmarted me; I’d known he could, and hoped he wouldn’t, and he did, and now: it’s too long to be alone, a lifetime.

This excerpt is from The Grass Harp by Truman Capote

-1-

It was a beautiful morning on the following day. It is a surprise that such beautiful light reaches to the ground, I felt.

I had decided to get on a bus at the nearby bus stop. Sitting on a bench, below which fallen leaves gathered, I talked with her for about 30 minutes. She was talking about not her past, but what life she wanted to lead. She wished to run a small café somewhere. The dream would become her. Her dream would come true, I thought.

A bus was coming, and I got on it. She was waving to me with her smile. Then, from inside the bus, I was seeing her get into her own car. I knew she would be going back on the expressway. It might be a slightly sad car drive for her. Even so, I could do nothing about that. I also got the impression that she appeared to be in a better condition this morning than yesterday. She might have been acting that way, though.

The bus was not crowded. I took the seat in the back. It would take about one hour to the station by bus. From the station, the destination was more than four hours by train. I could get there in the afternoon. In the bus, I slept most of the time. Still, each time the bus stopped, I always woke up. It was because I found myself sensing that a trouble was happening.

Thanks to the intermittent awakening, I did not oversleep, and got off the bus at the station. It was bigger than I expected, and the ceiling of the building was unnecessarily high. It looked like a hangar. Why do they need such a high ceiling?

Platforms were lined up. Although I looked at the bulletin board, I could not find out where I should go to get on the train. I asked a station staff about that when purchasing a ticket. I asked another staff again at the platform and got on the train.

After departing, the train ran for a while in a place like a gutter of a town. I felt as if I were going down a river. Then, the buildings got shorter, and the natural view gradually started getting more pronounced. It was sparsely populated, and a flat land stretched to all directions. While seeing the racing scene, I fell asleep again.

Someone touched my knee. When waking up, I saw her at the seat in front of me.

Fuko. Immediately, I recalled her name.

I found myself coming here. She smiled happily.

How could you have known that I am on this train?

I don’t know about where you go. Wherever is okay for me.

Honestly, I was feeling glad a bit. Has anyone had such an attachment to my life to date? I thought human beings were not sticky, cold, or bland like metal, and had independent relationships. For example, did even my mother have such an attachment to me?

Anyway, that was the way I thought. I analyzed that Fuko had to be associated with me as a service to a customer, or as an outlet for the confusion she was holding within herself. The word analyze might be a bit of exaggeration. Still, indeed, I somehow believe it that way.

So, I was probably putting on a smile. While relaxing my lips, I must have smiled naturally.

However, I soon realized that we were in a difficult situation.

My mind was working much more clearly than yesterday. I can now think about various things. I felt as if I could see through many people and the distant future. It was shocking me. Oh, is it my original human nature?

Currently, I was moving to a place where a scientist named Aoi Sagara was. She would shelter me. I was intending to depend on her goodwill.

Fuko seemed to have quit her job and to be starting a new life seriously. But, if she was thinking that she needed me in life, then it was her misunderstanding. She cannot possibly need me. She is having the wrong illusion. She mistakenly thought this human, namely me, was valuable. Probably, she was still seeing me as a pilot. But it was the illusion of me, who once had such a glorious past, like a slide show. Even I myself understood it had been just an illusion, but she tried to see the past glory. It was like a fake tale she once told me. She must have created my version of a fake story.

As I have thought so, I should make the point clear for her.

However, is now not the right time?

While looking at her smile, I was ending up thinking so for some reason. And she had come here all the way to me.

But, on the other hand, I immediately give bullets to enemy aircrafts and push them back to the ground, even though they have come all the way to the sky after much effort.

No, that’s a different story. Dying differs a lot from going back to the ground.

If so, shall I shoot at Fuko here?

I gazed at my right hand. My thumb.

But, wait ... there is no machine gun here. No control stick either. Therefore, I cannot assume the inverted flight orientation quickly to execute the escape maneuver.

My goodness. How inconvenient anything on the ground is.

Right, there is no refuge on earth.

We can take refuge to nowhere.

We cannot fall even more from this place.

The only thing we can do is to sit still by putting my feet and butt on earth all the time. Even when I can run a bit, I soon end up bumping into something. I will be cornered. I can go neither upward nor downward. I am not even allowed to go straight. It is evident that those who want to escape from this inconvenience have to approach the sky to a certain extent and then fall from there. No one can fall off from the ground.

Anyway.

I was keeping silent for the time being.

It can’t be helped.

Although I talked to her, I fell asleep at times. Probably because of her fatigue, she too slept almost all the time. Then, a little past noon, we reached the destination. It was not that much farther than I had expected.

When we got out of the station, it was raining outside. I did not have an umbrella.

Do you have any plan in particular? She asked me. How about eating something?

Wait here. I will make a phone call. I looked around.

A signboard in the station showed the way to a telephone. I left her at the location and walked in the crowd toward the direction. I reached to the edge of the station building, and noticed phone booths lined up outside. I pushed a glass door and got out of the building. I started running in the rain, and rushed into a booth.

I picked up the receiver and was about to take out coins from the pocket. It was when the door was opened behind me, and I was pressed against the glass wall. At first, I thought Fuko was attempting to surprise me.

But, I soon noticed that it was not the case.

The one who was clasping my body was not