Roppongi Hills Echo: A Micro-Novel of Temporal Redundancy
The champagne tasted of static and premonition. Not the crisp, celebratory bubbles expected atop Roppongi Hills, overlooking Tokyo’s glittering sprawl, but a flat, electric tang that numbed my tongue. I’d come seeking clarity, a panoramic view to settle the unease that had been building for days. Instead, I found…this.
The bartender, a woman with eyes that seemed to hold the weight of centuries, merely shrugged. “Some nights,” she said, her voice a low hum, “the past likes to revisit. Especially at this altitude.”
I dismissed her words, attributing them to the late hour and the cumulative effect of overpriced drinks. But then I saw him. Across the crowded bar, a man sat alone, nursing a whiskey. His face was gaunt, etched with lines of exhaustion and…recognition? It was me. Or, rather, a version of me, perhaps ten years older, haunted and hollowed out. The image of Murakami Ryū flashed in my mind – that sense of detached observation, of urban alienation, now staring back at me from across the room.
He raised his glass, a silent toast, and I felt a jolt, not of connection, but of displacement. It was as if a mirror had cracked, and I was seeing not my reflection, but a glimpse into a possible, deeply unsettling future.
The Glitch in the System
My phone buzzed. A notification: a news alert about a building collapse in Shibuya. The date…it was yesterday. Impossible. I checked again. The same story, the same impossible date. I tried to find other news but the phone’s data connection stuttered, as if fighting itself.
Panic began to creep in, a cold dread that seeped into my bones. The champagne glass trembled in my hand, the bubbles fizzing and popping like tiny explosions of fractured time.
I needed to leave, to escape this…this loop. I pushed through the throng of salarymen and tourists, the music a cacophony of distorted sounds. As I reached the elevator, I glanced back. He was still there, my future self, watching me with an expression that mingled pity and resignation.
The elevator doors slid open, revealing not the lobby, but…the same bar. The same music, the same faces, the same electric taste in the air. He was still there, holding the same glass. “Leaving so soon?” he mouthed, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.
This wasn’t a glitch; this was a prison. My own personal Roppongi Hills hell, looping endlessly through a moment in time, with the worst possible company. Trapped.
The champagne tasted of static. And despair.