Shinjuku Gyoen Glitch: A Pocket Chronal Loop
The sake tasted of ozone and wet copper. Not the smooth, rice-wine warmth I anticipated amidst the meticulously sculpted lawns of Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, but a sterile, metallic chill that sunk straight to my bones. I grimaced, placing the small ceramic cup on the smooth stone of the teahouse veranda. A lone maple leaf, shockingly crimson, spiraled down, landing silently on the meticulously raked gravel.
I’d come to Shinjuku Gyoen seeking respite, a moment of clarity in the ceaseless Tokyo grind. But the sake, purchased from a seemingly innocuous vendor near the English Garden section, had tasted…wrong. It was then I noticed the man. He was sketching furiously in a worn leather-bound book, his brow furrowed in concentration. He wore clothes subtly out of sync with the modern cityscape: a tweed jacket with elbow patches, a slightly too-wide tie, and spectacles perched precariously on his nose.
He looked up, catching my eye. A flicker of recognition, or perhaps alarm, crossed his face. He snapped his book shut. “Don’t drink it,” he said, his voice a low rasp. “Not again.”
“Drink what?” I asked, gesturing to the sake.
“The sake. It’s…tainted. With temporal residue.”
I scoffed. “Temporal residue? Is this some kind of joke?”
He sighed, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “No joke. I’ve been…researching the garden for years. There are…anomalies. Small pockets of temporal instability. The sake vendor…he unknowingly sources his ingredients from those areas.”
He opened his book again, flipping through sketches of familiar garden scenes. But something was off. The pagoda wasn’t quite right. The arrangement of the chrysanthemums was different. He stopped on a sketch of the very teahouse we sat in. In his drawing, a different maple tree stood sentinel, its leaves a vibrant yellow.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the sketch. “The garden…it shifts. It remembers other times. And sometimes…those times leak through.”
I took another sip of the sake. The metallic tang was stronger now, accompanied by a faint buzzing in my ears. The crimson maple leaf on the gravel began to shimmer, its edges blurring.
“What happens if I keep drinking it?” I asked, a growing unease tightening my chest.
“You’ll loop,” he said simply. “You’ll relive this moment. Again and again. Until the residue dissipates, or you find a way to break the cycle.”
He stood up abruptly, gathering his sketching supplies. “I’ve tried. Many times. It’s always the sake. Always the crimson leaf.”
“Wait!” I called out, but he was already walking away, disappearing into the meticulously manicured landscape. I stared at the sake cup, then at the crimson leaf. The buzzing in my ears intensified. The scene around me seemed to waver, like a poorly rendered photograph.
I dumped the remaining sake onto the gravel, watching as it soaked into the meticulously arranged stones. Then, I picked up the crimson leaf, its texture strangely rough against my skin. I held it tightly, focusing on its intricate veins, its vibrant color. I closed my eyes, willing myself to remember this moment, to break the cycle.
When I opened my eyes, the garden was the same. The teahouse stood serenely. But the crimson leaf was gone. And the sake vendor, oddly, was packing up his stall. Perhaps, I thought, just perhaps, I’d managed to escape the Shinjuku Gyoen Glitch.