The CD gets stuck in a broken car stereo unable to be removed, so every time starting engine, it plays a once-popular song on repeat. In the blind spot of the surveillance camera, the car park attendant is eating a soft-boiled egg, letting the yolk drip from the cracked shell. The car spots the ‘Vacant’, ceases to doo-wop.

The observatory at the man-made lake, Sayama-Lake managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Waterworks, is crowded with weekend strollers enjoying the view. On a clear day, Mt Fuji can be seen. What could be seen through binoculars (a tourist telescope) put one coin was a hazy memory of a minute and a half. From that panoramic view where he had once laughed with his girlfriend, he could not hear her voice. What she was drinking so intently might have been a milkshake. The scent of mashed strawberries mixed with the crushed ice melted into the air. She seemed pitiful but dainty.

“Such a slowpoke!”

The taunting words of a boy who held her hand on a kindergarten field trip frightened her, she said. At the time, the pedestrian walkway built into the embankment of the reservoir dam had no handrails. She was terrified that she would slip off the stone wall and be swallowed by a huge hole in the earth, her face contorted with fear of the deep water.

When groundwater seeps into cracks and then pools beneath the surface, it wears away these rocks and leads to the formation of underground caves and other openings. Soil particles fall into these gaps too, enlarging the chasms and facilitating the collection of more water. A sinkhole forms when these chewed-up sublayers can no longer support surface sediments hovering over the void left by erosion. 

What causes a sinkhole to form? *

The intake tower on the lakeshore is a facility connected to the water treatment plant via an underground aqueduct, beyond which lies an amusement park. He peers through binoculars at the cafeteria beneath the Ferris wheel. The two seated opposite each other are laughing out loud at the shoot-the-chute sliding down the lake surface outside the window, spraying droplets. No. Having lost her gaze, he may be looking at the past through the monocular.

The explanatory board for the tourist telescopes states:

‘Binoculars are designed for viewing with both eyes, providing a three-dimensional field of view.’

‘Magnification is the numerical value required to enlarge distant objects; however, higher magnification results in a narrower field of view.’

“Who are you?”

He talks to himself. Someone is looking at him through the steam in the self-service kitchen. A figure takes a plate of defrosted lasagna from the microwave. The two lenses of the tourist telescope lose perspective, Godzilla the Ride, the active volcano and the dusk fade away from his view in a minute and a half. Only the scars and stains etched into the landscape of his memory speak more eloquently than words, he knows.

‘I was fond of the way you stood on tiptoe, your eyes shining.’

Yet he will still text her.

…

hiromi suzuki is a poet, fiction writer, artist living in Tokyo. Her writing has appeared in 3:AM Magazine, RIC journal, Berfrois, Minor Literature[s], The Dodge and various literary journals on-line.

Quotation: 

*What causes a sinkhole to form? 

via National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/sinkhole