Volume 5, Prologue

Life is a long series of passing by.

The people one passes far outnumber the people one meets, or so a recondite English philosopher once— did not say. Those were words I just thought up on the spot. Thinking back on recent happenings, or rather the happenings of this past week, I got in the mood to put on airs and say something philosophical.

A week of nothing but passing by, where never once did the gears lock into place.

You could say unmeshing gears were an everyday occurrence for me, but I get the feeling this time was especially striking. So unengaged you could call it remarkable, passing by to a miraculous extent.

I was trying my absolute best in my own way, and everyone around me was trying their best as well. When not a single soul had omitted a step in the process, even so, I got the impression we were going in circles the whole way. Like stepping on the accelerator of a car with a broken clutch, no matter how we floundered, the power wouldn’t reach the engine. While I got the feeling that something came about, it ended as only a feeling.

As I thought, the world is always turning in places I don’t see. Surely somewhere out there, a traumatic development I don’t know of is unfolding.

But even if that was the case, my knowledge is restricted to what I know.

I can only speak of the world from my eyes, from my point of view.

That’s why—even if somewhere I don’t know, one of the players goes missing, it might end without me taking notice.