transiency - lasting but short time

Melt into the setting sun - Melaka

I was walking along the River Melaka without places to go. The sea scent came to my nose, and the waves sounded like a sigh from far off.

The town was a near maze, so I couldn't surely got to the sea. I walked until the solar angle was gone. I went through alleys, passed to woods, sometimes lost ways, and I reached the shore with acute rocks.

The Strait Melaka spreaded before me. I saw the island Besar ahead. When I gazed carefully, the tanker was running far. I looked down on the waves, I found the tide flowing. The sea was flowing. That the sea was flowing. I thought it was the first time to see that clearly.

I've passed the church, went through the red-wall old steet, and crossed the small bridge. The opposite was the old Chinese area. Antique shops were in a row, and Chinese Buddhism temples were so. The sweet scent of incense was flowing everywhere.

I got down to the bank of mouth. Sitting beside the anchored small ships, and I held my knees. The dead and decomposed fish was flowing. I gazed at its eyeball which became cloudy and no longer reflected, thinking that you didn't need to see anymore.

Gradually the sun was covered with clouds, my own shadow became thin and disappeared soon. I was looking at the sky. The wind blew from the strait and carried the smell, and I was putting up with crying.

I came out of guesthouse before twilight. Holding a hot tea glass with both hands at the stand, I repeatedly pictured and sank my feelings which I couldn't send to anyone.

I went to the hill on St. Paul's Church, and I looked at the sun setting over the sea. What we felt so beautiful was, maybe, that we got the reason to say good-bye to today. It was sweet but stirred up my ache. I remembered the same scene from Inamuragasaki and the girl who was next to me then. I felt the pain by which my heart was bound so tight.

The sun burned out, melting all the things into red. I heard the voice of Koran, praying in a foreign country.

translated by Nao Uematsu ©