Prose
They said I would have my own empire to stand over, and it was true; for no one stood closer to the sun than I.
When I came to life, my kingdom was but a crater in the earth. Metal, sand and plastic stretched as far as my eyes could see, but I sensed that gleaming potential in every direction. My eyes, looking hungrily future-ward, already knew the world as it would be.
And it would be glorious.
Back then, I gazed upon parkland and the beginnings of the wheel; when they placed the Golden Mask upon my face, it was then I came to have Suita within my sights. Suita was ahead, and Festival Plaza, behind. I would see everything that was, and everything that would be.
I saw it all, my kingdom, my subjects, from there on my knoll.
When you anticipate how your short life will end, or how it will begin to end, the most magnificent sense of perspective becomes yours. The years between my birth and the day they prised the Tree of Life from my body were no more than a moment for me – and with that my empire too began to disappear, bit by bit. Soon my protection was all but gone, along with everything else. I stood alone.
My faces, though, kept staring in all three directions – past, present, and future. I never wavered from my task, even when the lights of my eyes went out completely. Even when my kingdom – for so long that pinnacle of the ‘future’ – was razed to the ground. I could descry my own end as sharply and clearly as I understood that the future I represented would never materialize. The dream had long ended.
Ah – but was it so bad? After all, only I was blessed – or cursed – with the knowledge. No one but I could see the whole of Osaka in quite this way. And though others came who dwarfed me in stature, it was still I who would be ever nearest to the sun.
