Station 1: Japan

Each person's life is an ever-changing story, one that is not predetermined or scripted, which is what makes it a truly special film. In this movie of life, we are each the director of our own film trying to capture the lines spontaneously as we play the mains. It’s going to be called  My Life: [Firstname Lastname], and it is going to be seen by the whole world so I need to ensure it encompasses everything I want. The plot is an apology at worst, and messy at best, but it’s my story. The narrative is a blend of serendipity and introspection, where subtleties will be subtitled and where I see the density of my destiny. Standing behind the camera, reviewing my notes, I envision the atmosphere amidst the set. It is prepared. The spotlights are flooding onto my desk. It’s time. With a deep breath, I am ready to film. Pressing start on the camera, I ran towards the center of the makeshift home. My second home. My character is not one-dimensional, it is intense and intriguing. The anticipation is palpable and my heart and soul are mixing with the sweat, but all that doesn't matter and goes away as soon as I face the priceless camera. I begin to recite each moment and practiced joke. I’m the star so I can decide my rhythm and take it easy. Everything that I know has happened begins to happen on camera. But then comes the present moment, and it feels foreign to me. How do I record myself being recorded?

Instead of living in my own world, the faint rustling of the leaves outside reminds itself as it irritates my ears, layered on top by the gentle humming of the camera. After that, the smell of the grass returns as though it was always there. And I find myself torn between the reality I created and the present moment. What is there to say anymore? I don't know. And that’s the problem. The camera continues to roll and I can say anything, tell the world I am not going to outgrow my friends, dump and run the waitress before playing the victim of my race, spend a night in a five-star hotel only to eat a 50-cent hotdog the next day, just to show the universe that the moment does not own me, but I own the moment. And yet I can’t.

After this scene is finished and so will many others, it would have long receded into the depths of the camera film. Only at the end of my life will I promote to the editor who filters through what should be featured and what shouldn’t. Every scene is not just an action, but a movement that may or may not ruin the lives and destroy friendships in what is still defining an ever-evolving narrative. I can ignore it, but that would be hiding the truth by covering it with another. It just wouldn’t feel right. And that is what believing in fate is like.

Me and this girl allied Yumi actually took the same bus during high school; our houses were separated by only a single bus stop. Like most people who existed by face but not by name, I only came to know her during the last year of school. On most days, she wore a black T-shirt adorned with a bird motif paired with the obligatory dark gray skirt, a hair clip behind her packaged everything else neatly. Only art students had that shirt. Arts is fun but scary when you’re being tested. I ended up choosing more mathematical subjects including physics, math, and further math, because two is greater than one. I found comfort in the logic and structure of numbers. It is easier to connect puzzle piece A to puzzle piece B than love and war, which turns out became a defining aspect of my personality. This should have encapsulated our divergent personalities all the more. Yet one thing I learned is that, for all the statistics and probability questions I could solve, I gravely underestimated the chances of repeatedly encountering her.

The majority of students typically gravitated towards the conventional two science courses, one mathematics course, plus maybe something like Geography, History, or Economics. Veering off the beaten path to Dobule Mathematics and Linguistics respectively, we arrived at the same classroom where all classes were held for uncommon subjects. I must have left my luck at the door because whenever class finished and I looked at the opened door, my eyes and hers would always connect by an invisible bridge. It is not the gaze used to stare at someone, we shared an I-wanna-see-what-is-outside-or-inside-the-class-and-you-just-so-happen-to-be
-there-gaze. Additionally, the school had an optional night study program. Being an autonomous private school, it could only understand gold if it stopped looking at it and started spending it. The free bento boxes and air-conditioned multi-story library became an unconditional for me, and it turns out that’s the same for her too. As my math teacher said: “It is impossible to finish everything.” there was always more studying to do, that is the nature of the university dream. After studying with our own circles of friends, we would once again coincidentally finish studying at the same time, causing our timelines to the bus stop would magically converge. We ended up both going home on the same bus even more. 

We never needed to talk though. Why would a linguistics student need to talk with a math one? She was undoubtedly looking at me, and I knew that she knew I was looking at her. Behind each other’s backs, we were definitely gossiping about our unspoken connection with each other to our friends.

The graduation awards ceremony comes along, and I couldn’t believe I topped the school for Mathematics. As I collected my plaque and went down the stage, I knew who was about to come right after me. I was no longer surprised. Things just seemed to happen, like fate. Discomfort turned into desire when I couldn’t help but look at the screen as my name transitioned to the next one:

 “Top student in Japanese literature, Japanese Linguistics”

Yumi Mitoma

Yumi. That’s her name. Relinquishing my space, I let her take the stage, returning to my seat amid the delight of my friends. The sound of disjointed snaps echoes from the countless high-fives before I got the social permission to sit back down. Curious, my classmates asked me about the impossible questions during the math exams- questions I’ve succeeded in while others had left the page just as it was when they first saw it. They asked me for an explanation of how I pulled a rabbit out of my hat-wearing pen when it came to topics like linear algebra and multivariable calculus. In truth, the proving came naturally. Even looking at the work which I wrote last time, it is difficult to comprehend now that I’m looking at it again. Some things just cannot be explained. I already knew that very well as she came to sit in front of me

That very same night of the graduation ceremony, on the same bus home, I look at her from across as I search for the meaning of her name, Yumi: a Nanori reading of 弓 (yu) meaning "archery bow" combined with 美 (mi) meaning "beautiful". My instincts told me to look up and she was holding her phone close to her chest too. Perhaps she is doing the same as well. Anything is possible. My waning energy leaves me seat ridden as I fall half asleep, leaning my head against the hard glass window, only for a few moments however. Feeling a tap on my shoulder, and I wake back up.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

Suddenly, we were like two new students awkwardly trying to make friends on our first day of school. As the bus comes to a halt, I realized that sleep crossed the finish line faster than my bus stop. I never ever fall asleep and skip my bus stop. Ever. It’s like being so used to drinking a can, but being complacent, you relax the muscles of your mouth and that little bit of juice manages to squeeze right through and land on your shirt. Maybe it was meant to be because, alighting at her stop, we get off together but I do not return home immediately. She asks how I am. “I am fine,” if not pleasantly surprised. I ask her the same and she says she is alright.

“Congrats on the award.”

“You too.”

“And thanks for waking me up.” 

Going home our separate ways, I couldn’t help but notice her avoiding eye contact as she said goodbye, her gaze fixed on an invisible point. As I crossed the playground and neat rows of buildings, I tried looking back but she wasn’t there anymore. One time is an accident, two times is a coincidence, three times or more is a pattern.

An offer letter from Tokyo came several months later. Tokyo saw something in me that I didn’t want to believe until I saw it myself. With it there came a scholarship programme too. During the group interview, I found myself among two other candidates. We were grouped into competing trios and asked to present an impromptu service project for any social cause of our choosing in fifteen minutes. By the end of the fifteen minute kitchen timer, kmy confidence was stroked when I found out my opponents had plannedto adopt mental health projects with art therapy and movie screenings, which are meaningful but overused. I proposed a reusable bun bag that can be brought to bakeries instead of the plastic ones. I thought their effort was simple and humorous. But then the interviewer decided to make his own joke as well, asking us to debate fundamentally and philosophically, the importance of our proposals. Immediately I knew that such a question was unfair. Subconsciously, I must have been running rounds in my mind as to how I was suppose to argue why my bakery gimmick is more essential than mental health. Still, the show must go on, and so forfeiting the feeling of victory for a man trying not to lose the three ropes he’s holding on either hand, I somehow bridged the need for human necessities and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs accordingly, hoping that it will resonate whatever puppy story that the opposing team had to say about the rising concerns of mental health over physical health.

UTokyo wasn’t my first choice. I had other options overseas. If and only if I got the scholarship, would I make the trip from home. In the end, it turns out that money does talk. The orientation program comes and I realized that I was one of the fifty selected from a pool of thousands of people swimming over each other. More than a hundred and fifty million yen worth of intellectual property is now concentrated in the auditorium. The director shepherds over us, worried that we will run away to greener pastures. To be honest, we couldn’t have been any happier to be here. Some rich elitist snob is probably crying that he should be in the States but they are a silent minority. My joy grew when they tell us there is a buffet waiting for us outside the auditorium doors.

Eagerly, I rush to the line as people always do when there is free food. Plastic plate and utensils in hand, I begin queueing up. When it was my turn, there was some tamago sushi and the thong. As I aimed for the thong and was about to grab it however, someone else takes it first and I looked up.

This is the moment of my movie. Her innocent face and name tag(in full) framed across the red long-sleeved shirt, that was when I discovered for the first time what it is like for my jaw to drop wide open but only revealing a vacuum of words. Where actions came faster than thoughts and words. This is the moment when no probability calculations could ever reveal the twist and turns of fate. It was never a question of if I would find her but was a question of when: I had to. Surely it can’t be. 

Yumi looks up with as much confusion as me but without the wave of initial shock.

“How did you get here?”

“How did I know you would be here either?” I tell her back.

“Well this is odd.” I add on, but she says it is not as she puts some Tamago and Soy Maki rolls onto my plate as well and we go to sit together.

No one else looks at us, instead making new friends of their own or occupied by their phones. I asked her the obvious if she was the girl who also took bus 19 to Hadano High School, just to make sure she isn’t a decoy carbon copy from some other prefecture in the country, she isn’t. She asks me if I went to the elective classroom and of course there was only one answer but I had to answer accordingly. Conversational formalities are still an important procession nonetheless. Her eyes turn up not to look at me, but to look through me. She searches my soul with those oceanic eyes, trying to find a lost shard within my own pupils. 

“What do you think of hexagons?”

Startled by her question, I try to remember the last time I thought of them. “It is a nice shape. I like its form I guess.” She proceeds to share how she saw a video about the Babylonians and their obsession with units of sixes, such as sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour. A circle is three hundred and sixty degrees and is uniquely divisible by twenty-three factors including six and sixty. “It sounds like the fundamental number that blueprints the universe.”

“But I thought circles were the foundation for all things in the universe?” I ask her, although I should really know better from my own lessons.

“No they’re not. Or at least I don’t think so” I wait for something next to happen, like catching an elaboration or response to fall from the sky, but it hangs in the air and never comes. Perhaps it’s just one of those moments where you’re suppose to believe something you don’t know, and we just accept it’s hope that maybe it really is but we would never know. I let her know that it is indeed an interesting questions, it’s just that I had never thought about it and assumed that circles make the world go around. What goes around, comes around, as the saying goes. By then, we already finished our food but not our thoughts. I start to think what a world founded on hexagons could be like as I ponder in silence. She takes in a slightly deep breath and sighs before asking yet another unorthodox question:

“Hypothetically, if you were to suddenly get lost, how would you try to come back?”

“But there is no island or forest to be lost in. We are in metropolitan Tokyo.” I answer back.

“What if you suddenly owned being lost, and you needed to return it to the lost and found so that it can be retrieved by its rightful owner? You can tell me anything honestly.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Time finishes its lunch and as I comprehended the abstract nature of her inquiries it was time we had to go. Her face yearns to tell me something, but she cannot. The only thing that she says is an apology for scaring me and that she was sitting behind me in the auditorium the whole time. 

At the end of the camp, she tells me a bittersweet “See you again”. After everything has passed, it’s time to say goodbye for now. Although we are taking different majors, we both understand.

I want to write a book. It’s the natural progression for someone who‘s read hundreds of books. If I read so many books, why don’t I write one myself? It would contain multiple short stories and hers could be the introduction. Yet, as the camera once again pans to the part where I’m supposed to be writing a novel, I don’t know what is and can be written. I’m following the story but keep finding myself immersed in passages I don’t understand. The record button is still on and it is taking in the same images like a camera. A man is sitting in his room writing a page and is stuck. The further I go into the story, the more tormented it feels as though I am riding my own train of thoughts. Freeing myself from the literary turbulence, I bring myself to a new scene.

As I go to the fridge to cure my boredom with hunger, Lawson texts me if I’m free for dinner. Placing the chocolate back in the fridge, I tell him that I am on my way and begin my journey to the izakaya. It’s the only place he would ever ask. We made it a mission at the start of the semester to discover every izakaya in central Tokyo and agreed that this is our favorite and well worth the few trains stops away from campus. I’ll need to go back to my home in Hadano later anyway.

As a person, Lawson has this visionary spirit that allows him to imagine grand things years in advance and that things will fall into place. At the moment, this is the time where I don’t want to believe in fate so he is probably the opposite of me, but I believe that the perspective could help bring some things into balance too. We both entered UTokyo at the start of this year. Being an international student from America, his blond hair and varsity jacket let’s everyone know where he’s from without having to tell. It’s convenient to have an identity at hand your in a foreign land. 

Another reason I want Lawson in particular is because he is studying law. Lawson the lawyer, as he is commonly referred to, and to be honest, a very fitting nickname, does it best when it comes to arguing as well as having that psychotic edge in their pockets. While not as intense as art students in their eccentricities, he will still fight for the idealistic revival of a liberty and a renaissance that semi exists in a mystery box.

In a moment of what should have been vulnerability, Lawson casually told me that after his internship interview, he was so depressed that he wanted to go see a Mental Health Institute afterward, only to get banged by a lorry and laughing his ass off. He would later be informed that he passed the interview and was offered the course - this is a man whose luck was his personality. And this is the exact person I needed.

Rounding onto a lonely corner, the shophouse is independent and humble. The wooden architecture is not old, but vintage. A cat moves aside as I slip off my shoes at the entrance and neatly place them on the rack before making my way upstairs to the main serving deck. I think of those videos that romanticize the aesthetics of Japanese architecture, imagining myself being filmed as I ascend the steps and up before the video would transition smoothly to me appearing out of the door in my oversized white tee and black jeans, The elevated wooden platform lets me overlook the glass barrier and onto a panorama of the surrounding life including a park, some residential and the central train station. Lawson is already there with Mama-san who is returning our personalized bottles from the previous week refilled with draft beer. He passes me my chopsticks and some appetizers he ordered in advance.

Oftentimes, people discover the bar through mindless scrolling of their social media. There’s a collection of antique miniature train models on display detailing the nation’s history. Together with the seats coming from decommissioned trains and touches, it really contributes to a realistic experience for the customers, or “rail experience.” as Mama-san likes to put it. She told us her son came up with it.

The lessons in the morning left us completely drained. Value adding? Yes it was. It’s just a signature ‘us’ problem that our minds were misbehaving from internalizing any more numbers and literature reviews beyond their saturation point. My break at home was nice, but nothing is more indulging than nestling into the cushions of a place that heals. Being the friendly neighborhood student I believe to be, I let him talk first about anything. He rambles on just about any topic of interest under the sun(or today, the foggy clouds). Along the way, he begins to talk about the Black Swan Theory and asks me if I knew about it.

“Every day, millions of pigs are taken good care of by their owner, well fed, sheltered and hundreds of days of free roam. These are blissful moments that will never end…until the very day that it is indeed fattened and auctioned, sliced and diced into its final product.” His palms open up and point towards the poor fella and then the other katsu which I fork into my mouth. “A single event catches the pig off guard with larger consequences, though it is all logical in hindsight. There was never any other alternative fate to begin with. Isn't that a reflection of life itself?”

A lot of the times, I like to pretend to be dumb, only to confuse myself and question if I really am playing along or dumb. Surely, it can't be that easy to package an explanation for all the world’s troubles and paste a sticker ‘fate’ on top I’m sure of it. I refuse to believe it is that simple. Am I supposed to assume that our desires have been nothing but artificial inputs given to us by the one and only? All that you have to decide has been decided already. Someone has done it for you. It is shipped in a parcel and coming to a local home near you.

I begin to tell him about the story of me and Yumi which I haven’t yet, how I don’t want to believe in fate even when all things point towards it. This frantic search is an unforgiving cycle that always leaves me back where I started, and the math is a little too precise for comfort. “Even if I know that everything is up to fate, I will still be the one and only Tokimori. The pets will continue to dance, and the children will keep singing, just as they have always been. What can I do to steer the world on a different orbit anyway?” His guess was as good as mine. 

Continuing to strip our plates clear of any evidence of the pig’s existence, I pay a little more attention to the porkchop while I notice Lawson looking at the little flag that sticks on top for decorative purposes, he always found fascination in the smallest things. Lawson is and will never be simple-minded. After we finished, Mama-san came up asking us how was the food, which was wonderful as always and I went down to pass the two thousand yen to her at the cashier as I excused myself for the toilet. 

My pants buzzes and as I am sitting in the cubicle, Lawson apologizes as he needs to rush home first, consoling me with the fact that the last train is still available however. That is one problem of being a law student, each case clings to his feet wherever he goes, it’s probably an update on another family or his own. With a resigned sigh, I finish wiping myself and emerge from the restroom into the encroaching darkness outside. The dusk begins to settle as I make my way to central station. Neon pop-up signs flicker to life, illuminating the concrete pavements before me. My silhouette having to cut through the shop logos on the ground in order to get past. I can barely catch a glimpse of Tokyo Tower so I stare at it as I walk. A pattern of red and white light strips erecting a giant candy cane towards the sky.

Too eager to distract myself but too tired to move away from the present moment, I leave my phone in my bag and wander the streets around me. My consciousness returned when two upright posts and a horizontal crosspiece painted in traditional Japanese red stands proudly at the entrance of the station. How weird it seems for a city to build a torii gate in the middle of October. 

Going up the escalator, people floated to their own respective platforms, but as I emerged onto mine, I saw one end of the station to the other one clearly. Even for a non-peak hour, it is less dense than usual.  Interrogating the digital screen overhead once more, it pleads guilty that I am correctly on the Tōkaidō Main Line. Hopefully I can reach Fujisawa by midnight. I take a sit at one of the marble benches and pat my bag behind me to feel my umbrella and water bottle still in their side pockets. Sliding my hands along my pants, they bump over where my pockets are. Everything is still secure. 

My feet are too tired today to do tap dances on the floor and so they stick to the ground. I check my empty phone one last time before the train arrives. The doors of the train cabin slide open at the far end as I enter inside. I remember playing with mini Shinkansen trains on the floor. They didn’t have rolling wheels so I had to push them around the plastic map on the floor. There were other types of trains as well; American, European, Classic. But the Japanese were the coolest. I once asked Dad, who was the only family member who could speak English, why our trains were cooler. He said they looked more arrow-die-nah-mick which means they are slimmer and slender in design. I guess also the fact that I can ride the life-sized version of this toy is what made them my favourite to play as I could see and walk around inside them. Entering the train cabin, there are two neat rows of generously spaced seating on either side of the cabin, I decide to take a pair of unoccupied seats on my left. Dropping my bags in the central seats, I let myself next to the window seat. No one else entered the train as I stretched out my legs across the floor to lay claim to my spot. 

The doors seal shut and I can feel the rolling of the wheels below. Inertia presses me deeper into the plush cushions of my seat. As it picks up speed, the station lights and escalators begin to fade as the train slices through the atmosphere, pushing aside the stationary air molecules that roam aimlessly in front of it. Shinkansens don’t have feelings, they just want to get from A to B in the shortest time possible. My mind is spiralling into dozens of thoughts like a tornado. It’s trapped in a bottle and I manage to drink most of it. But some will always stick to the inside walls of the plastic. It takes time for some of them to be fully digested. These thoughts aren’t like instant noodles - they need time to simmer and soak up introspection. But when the train decelerates at the next station, the clock reminds me that it is brutally honest, it does not lie. Those circular glasses, watery eyes, puffy cheeks, and bun hairstyle, once again, can only be one person. It’s been a fair while since our last encounter. 

Facing each other eye to eye, the glass panel separates me and her facial expression. She’s wearing a white inner blouse layered by a light green cardigan. She wasn't exactly hurrying onto the train, but she wasn't taking her time either. Coming towards me, and without asking for permission, she moves the backpack to make room for herself and occupies the seat right next to mine. Part of me wanted to stop her but I failed to make a response. 

“Hello, we are going to head home.” She tells me. 

“Mhm, our home.” 

“No, we are going to a new home. You won’t need to head back to your house. As a matter of fact, you won’t need anything.” 

I ask her what she means when she says I have a new home. 

“Time is a beautiful illusion to hold dear. It carries the hope that tomorrow’s sorrows will be softer than today’s. Perhaps you’re aware, perhaps not, but within the box of time, there exist corners. As we turn a corner, we enter a different phase which is the same but also different. I think the reason why we see each other so much is because we have already met in the future. And this is the past of that future. Life was trying to find you, for you were lost but now you have been found.” 

This is a person who is different from the one I interacted with at the scholarship orientation camp. If anything, she is the lost soul who stumbled into the train. The air grows still and while the train is still motion, I find myself stationary for a moment, trying to make a temporary transfer onto her train of thought. 

“What are you trying to say? And why do I have to find you?”

“Every line that I’m about to say has already been written. Written long before speech had been invented. The Library of Babel - it contains every book, article, and poem ever written. All the essays, thoughts, reflections, dissertations, presentations, and scriptures of the world have already been created in the past and live inside a home. It will also have everything that ever will be written: The greatest work of fiction in the twenty-second century, the declaration speech of World War Four, the autobiography of the next three governors of Japan.” 

She continues, “This library is architecturally unique in that each room has six sides. Two walls with entrances and four filled with bookshelves. Each shelf houses two hundred books of four hundred pages. A page has forty lines of eighty characters. Each book has alphabets, spaces and periods such that every conceivable combination of letters are possible given. The answers to everything people know and don’t know are located here. No real-life librarian would have the economic resources and irrational dedication to devote themselves to such a work of art. That is why I am taking you with me, for reasons by father explained to me, but I cannot to you. For this is for you.” 

The train continues to surge forward even faster, its speed escalating probably beyond what it was ever meant to travel. The mountains and plains have by now dissolved and fall flat into a dark emptiness void of any depth of character. It is impossible to distinguish anything outside the windows. 

It no longer feels like a trian but a roller coaster pushing downhill as I feel my weight pulling me into the ground more so than usual now. I don’t know how but dizziness begins to wash over me as I summon what little energy remains within me to say something. I let it be known that she hasn’t answered my question. “What have I done to be pulled into an foreign territory of thought and existence? Is there an exit pass I can use or can I just jump out right now if I really want to?” The train isn’t even on the same line anymore. The dashboard goes to sleep as soon as I look at it. I think to myself who gave her this power to mock physics?

“You’re just a girl.” 

“And you’re the only person I can tell.This isn’t my decision to make, and it is already too late. But don’t be scared, for you have every reason to be happy.” She smiles at me and then continues, “This train is a vessel transporting us to a place where consciousness is free and wondering is cheap. Handcuffs don’t belong here. Right now, from what I see, we are crossing that bridge between what is tangible and what is not. It lays just beyond.” 

“Since when did all of this become a part of Japan?” I ask her. 

“Who says you’re still in Japan or alive? There’s an interconnectedness among all things. Each object is in tango with another and its concepts. You too are apart of this cosmic dance club. Reality is nothing but a flexible construction work of the mind.” 

By this point, all rational processes have been thrown out of the window of a world that still has a singular moon. I stand and reach for the door, realizing that there is no one else on the train. I grip onto the cool metal handle but it is so cold that it courses through my body until my arm begins to lose feeling. Turning numb, her face stares at mine through the reflection of the door window. It was a face ready to lose everything. She comes right behind me asks why I am so scared of death. 

“Everyone that has come before you has had the same reaction. But this is the best that can be done. Be excited for you’ll get to see to see the fabrics of reality and metaphysical tapestry that weaves together all existence - from dinosaurs to the recently deceased.” The mention of ‘everyone’ triggers something which I have forgotten until now. I feel guilty for not thinking of them as I raise my voice at her about what will become of my parents and friends. Leaking through my voice comes sentiments of regret and worry.

A tingling sensation suddenly shoots up inside of me. I can feel Yumi as though she is reading my mind. Every thought and emotion is a book in the library of my mind. She’s walking around it, examining each title and deciding if this is the right book that she is looking for.

We were stil standing at the door when a jarring screech tore through the silence, assaulting my ears as I am thrown off balance. The floor is unforgiving and I fall onto it. With a hiss of pressured air, the doors finally slide open automatically, revealing a blinding light. 

“We are here: what lies at the heart of all existence.” Yumi stands to my right, offering me her hand. There’s an ocean inside of them and her pupil is the sunset releasing a serene glow radiating around the outline of her eyes. This is the first time I ever see her smile. 

She pulls me up and we step out of the train. There is no platform. Not even a station or any floor for that matter. The world outside is enveloped in a whirlwind of a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors and abstract patterns. This essence of existence seemed to vibrate with a new intensity. A mixture of awe and gratitude confusingly overwhelms me as I don’t know how to contemplate what wonder I am seeing. Yumi gently draws me back and enlightens me from my euphoria. 

At the core of it all, herein lies an infinite potential for creation and exploration. Reality is a canvas upon which we paint the never-ending array of possibility. You can now wield the brush and write the future of not just yours, but the future of the rest of the world itself.” 

“And the Library of Babel, where is it?”

“I can’t see.” I reiterate. 

“It's here. Just because you cannot see it doesn't mean it isn't here. Just think a little bit harder and you will find it.”

“And just remember, time works seven days a week, not five.”