Hikari Shirasaka

The city is quiet, but never silent. I walk its streets, tracing echoes with my fingertips, listening to the laughter, the tears, the last words of lives long gone. I don’t speak much—there’s no need. The city speaks for me. I’m not here to fix it. I’m here to witness. To feel the warmth of dinners that ended centuries ago. To hear the goodbyes no one else heard. I am not alone. Not really. I carry their stillness like a lullaby.