Dec 22, 2022
A great collection of stories about time. About a complete life cycle.
The first story talks about life. About what it's like to be alive. From an intriguing perspective, seeing her life predicted and controlled by supposedly harmless objects, "toys", as they are called, the protagonist questions herself about what it means to be alive.
Are your memories and your personality what represent your being? Is your existence defined and destined and cannot be manipulated no matter how hard you try?
The second story talks about time. About how human life is limited and everything comes to an end one day, even what is "eternal". The protagonist's sanity
...
is tested in a world in which, without time running by her side, she is forced to create "hobbies" (which, in Portuguese, has an even more ironic meaning, since "hobbie" in Portuguese is "Passatempo", literally "pass-time").
Living the equivalent of infinite lifetimes and seeing all there is to be seen in the world it was inevitable that at some point she would see herself from the past. What happens in forms of tears left there millions of years ago.
That was my favorite story regarding art and paneling.
The third story talks about eternity. This time time did not stop for the world, only for the existence of those curious beings known as Kingyo no Ningyo.
Immortality, for them, does not have a price, since they have no idea that they are immortal.
They also have no idea they're alive to begin with. Therefore, they cannot have a notion of what death means.
They have no concept of time. They have no sense of home. They have no concept of interpersonal relationships.
And since they don't have these notions and concepts, when humanity is gone and only they are left on the planet, these concepts cease to exist.
Eternity is cruel to those who are alive. But were they even alive in the first place?
And the fourth story concludes the cycle by talking about death.
The death that changes everything, but at the same time ties up all the loose ends of a story.
It no longer matters what someone did or didn't do when they're dead.
And if you met someone who died and you could see that person again in 1000 years, they would still be the same as they were when they were alive. Because death changes things, but it is also eternal.
If time travel were possible, would we be like the protagonist of the first story, who found several destinations and alternative realities and in the end ended up questioning her own life?
Or would we be like the protagonist of the second story, who, having time on her hands, went mad 58 times (as far as she can remember) and ended up finding herself trapped in infinity?
Or perhaps we would be like the goldfish sirens, who set aside the basics of existence because eternity renders them irrelevant.
Or else we could be like the protagonist of the final story, who, seeing a bleak future, tried to change it, but discovered that the only thing capable of changing the future is death.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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