Please, listen to this.
There's a story that circulates in Yokohama. People say someone actually verified it.
Are you familiar with the Three Towers of Yokohama? The "King" of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Building, the "Queen" of the Yokohama Customs House, the "Jack" of the Yokohama Port Opening Memorial Hall. Three towers, long cherished as symbols of the harbor.
There's a story that from certain specific spots, you can take in all three at once — and apparently there are three such places. Aka Renga Park, Nihon Odori Avenue, and the international passenger terminal at Osanbashi Pier.
Visit all three in a single day, and your wish will be granted.
It sounds like something out of a tourist pamphlet, doesn't it. That's how I first heard it.
But the story my friend told me takes a slightly different turn from there.
It isn't my friend's story, strictly speaking. It's something a former colleague — a senior at his old workplace — told him. This person had lived in that part of the city for many years.
One autumn, a woman this colleague knew made the rounds of all three spots alone. She had a wish, apparently. He said he hadn't heard the details, but he suspected it had something to do with another person.
She started in the morning, moving in order through Aka Renga Park and Nihon Odori, and finally made her way to Osanbashi. It was close to evening by then. Autumn dusk comes early. She walked to the very tip of the terminal and turned toward the water, searching for the three towers.
King, Queen, Jack. All three, clearly visible.
In that moment, she said, everything went strangely quiet. The wind must have still been blowing, but inside her ears there was a sudden, absolute stillness — nothing but the sound of her own breath.
She spoke her wish, silently, in her heart.
And then she felt as though someone had come to stand beside her.
She turned. No one was there. In the evening light, the terminal was empty as far as she could see. And yet she was certain of it — a human presence, right at her shoulder. More than that: mingled with the salt smell of the sea, there was another smell, like incense but not quite incense, something sweetly charred and cloying, she said.
She told herself it was her imagination, and went home.
When the colleague asked whether her wish had come true, the woman paused for a moment before answering.
It did, she said. In a manner of speaking.
But, she continued.
What she had wished for was to see that person one more time, she said.
The person she meant had already passed away.
Three days later, she had a dream. She met him in the dream. So yes, it came true, she said.
But that wasn't what stayed with the colleague.
As he listened to her describe the dream, the woman said something quietly, almost to herself.
The one who had come to stand beside her at Osanbashi — she thought it had been him.
He came to meet me, she said, and she was smiling.
What the colleague told my friend he couldn't stop thinking about was this.
Does that place call them forth, in order to grant the wish?
Or is it that what's already there, waiting — is it us who go to seek it out?
When you look upon all three towers at once, perhaps all three sides are looking back at you.
The three towers still stand today, over Yokohama's harbor.
On a clear day, from the tip of Osanbashi Pier, you can see all three of them perfectly well, they say.
