Well then, tonight I have a story from Nagasaki.
There is a place called Nomo-machi. The southernmost tip of Nagasaki City, out toward the end of the peninsula. Some of you may have heard of a park there called Gongen Hill Observation Park. On a clear day you can see Gunkanjima from it, and the sea is the colour of paint laid on with a wide brush — a place of remarkable views, or so they say.
In one corner of that park stands something called the Bell of Sincerity. It was placed there as a prayer for world peace, and visitors ring it when they pass through — that sort of place.
This is a story I heard from a man. I cannot give his name, but he lives in Nagasaki, early thirties. There is no way to verify any of it, but please, listen.
It was an autumn evening, several years ago. The man and a friend of his went to the park late in the day — not for sightseeing, nothing like that, just a passing whim, pulling off the road in their car. Seven o'clock, perhaps eight, already fully dark, and not another soul to be seen. Only the distant lights of the town, and the sea wind blowing steadily on and on, he said.
It was the friend who found the bell. "Let's ring it," he said. There appeared to be some kind of notice posted near it, but it was too dark to read properly. The man thought to himself that perhaps they ought to leave it alone — but his friend had already taken hold of the rope and pulled.
Once.
Twice.
A low, heavy sound spread out across the night sea and faded away.
The man said, "That's enough, surely," but his friend laughed and pulled once more.
What happened was after the third ring had sounded.
The tone of the bell dissolved cleanly into silence, and everything around them went utterly still. And that was when the man noticed.
The sound of the sea wind, which had been there all along, had stopped completely.
Not a leaf stirring. No sound of the tide. Nothing at all. Like his ears had been stopped up, he said — that particular feeling.
The two of them stood there without speaking, and then — from somewhere near the base of the bell, right around the stone paving at their feet — came the sound of a child's footsteps.
Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat.
The sound of a small child running toward them. But nothing was visible. Just the two of them in that dark park, no one else could have been there.
His friend managed a strained laugh and said, "It's a cat," but to the man it did not sound like that. It was a clearer sound than that, a flat slapping sound, like bare feet running across stone.
After a time the sound came right up to the bell itself, and stopped.
The two of them looked at each other, said nothing, and walked back to the car.
That is all there is to it, that is all —
But the man says that when he got into the car, there on the passenger seat were small wet footprints.
Even though the windows had been closed, he said.
