A Tourist's View of Onomichi
Disclaimer: the following is a completely unauthorized little work of fanfiction. Kamichu! and Neon Genesis Evangelion aren't my creations, I'm just arranging a chance meeting...
"Look closely," the sign on the battered Onomichi ferry advised in two languages, "the person standing next to you might be a god."
"Hmph," Gendo Ikari almost-snorted, giving a sidelong glance at the shy-looking schoolgirl next to him. He knew that learned men had just spent many years trying to tame God in Antarctica, and it most assuredly was not that easy.
The boat set out across the bay and the waves lapped at its sides. There would be much rebuilding to do in the coming years, on both sides of the water; for the landscape had taken a severe beating. Greenery still sprouted determinedly from among the broken shards of trees. A surprising number and variety of vessels, scrounged up from God knows where, served as houseboats for those who had been driven from a dwelling by the recent disaster. Coloured banners hung, reflecting people's determination to not only keep on living in the land, but to have a good time doing so.
"Umm," the middle school girl gathered the courage to ask him quietly, "would you be needing anything? Prayer strips for a safe reunion with family? A general sort of blessing thing, maybe?"
The sun glinted off Gendo's glasses, reflecting annoyance at the unwanted well-wisher. He supposed these people were trying to survive how they knew best, but there was no call to bother him about it, now was there?
"... my prayer strips are quite real, you know!" the girl pouted. "Able to grant any need or desire that I deem worthy!"
Gendo fingered his stubble and considered for a minute or so the infinite expanse of his needs and desires.
"What I need most right now is to get my beard under control," he decided gruffly.
"Oh, let's see, that shouldn't be too hard..." the schoolgirl answered, unfazed, "If you need a shave, I think the Upper Middle Guest House still has running water? As the name suggests, climb halfway up the hill on the street you see over there..."
She pointed to a mostly-intact paved road on the far shore that wound its way up among the mostly-battered buildings towards a shrine near the very summit.
"... and you won't miss it on the left. They're probably fully booked, but you can just ask to use a bathroom sink for a while, of course..."
"Thank you," Gendo cut her off, grateful to have at least deflected the conversation away from prayer strips.
They fell silent at this.
Gendo pondered the colours of the banners hanging from the surviving buildings across the bay. The minute details of the devastation, and the subsequent rebuild, were in no wise subject to any scheme as orderly as religion. Certainly, the overall pattern might well be dictated from above, even perhaps by one man, but for that man it was well to take heed, for events at a personal scale would always turn out randomly. Lingering for too long in a building doomed to collapse... or going on a walk in the wrong place just before an earthquake... could throw everything into complete disarray. One could unexpectedly die... or worse, a close one could die... even so. Depending on certain esoteric interpretations of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a reunion with family might still be in the cards, even across the divide of death... though no amount of prayer strips could possibly make that procedure safe.
The middle schooler looked out at the devastation and made a few worried, whimpering sort of noises (which irritated Gendo very much). She certainly had a lot to worry about - all that work the people in the city had been doing to stave off or reverse the devastation, and so little effect... and so little she could do for them... At least the shrine was intact. That was very lucky, even if it felt completely unfair... still, they were at least able to run it as a shelter...
A sudden notion ocurred to Gendo.
"Do you sell the kind of prayer strips that would guarantee a happy reunion with family members, I wonder?" he said quietly, almost to himself.
The middle schooler looked suddenly very serious.
"I've stopped writing that kind."
Gendo actually turned a few degrees towards her at this, and raised an eyebrow minutely.
"Well," she clarified, "happiness is a chemical condition in the brain, right? Just the other week I wrote an extra-strong prayer strip, see, for exactly what you asked. I wanted to help a man reunite happily with his lost wife... he found her in a field hospital, dying, and they sat there - not crying, not bittersweet-happy, just happy... meaningless... It was wrong... the hospital staff thought the man had gone insane from grief. I got there in time to jam a refund down his throat, but the shame of that moment... something he'll never live down..."
Ikari Gendo was sufficiently nonplussed that he actually found himself stating his honest opinion. Well, almost. Gendo's honest opinion on this sort of thing was very complicated, but it was accurate to summarize it as follows:
"Serves him right for relying on an ignorant superstition..."
Oddly enough, the girl selling prayer strips didn't argue with that statement. She just looked into the distance, wearing an expression that was several decades too old. It seemed that she'd recounted what was a particularly bitter experience for her.
"Anyways, uh... what brings you to Onomichi, anyways?" she persisted with the conversation, in her maddening mix of shyness and impertinence.
Behind the glasses, Gendo's eyes narrowed, and he resisted an unexpected urge to grind his teeth at the seemingly innocuous question. He'd been through hell in the past few weeks, and in any case, what business did strangers have asking...
"Trying to find someone to take a son off my hands," he suddenly heard himself explaining, "nothing personal, just the last thing I have time for."
"I guess that's the tragedy of our age..." the middle schooler remarked precociously.
Each looked out at the landscape as the ferry boat approached the dock, and each formed a wildly different notion of what 'the tragedy of our age' was supposed to be.
"Well, we seem to have arrived. I have errands to run, so if you'll excuse me I'll be going on my way now!"
Walking away as the first passenger off the boat, she turned around and hesitated briefly, as though about to make another difficult confession:
"Have a nice day, please!"
The last part was directed defiantly not just at the tired and sour-looking Gendo, but at the sky, the trees, the half-flooded hills, the smashed, hollow abandoned housing, and the entire shattered landscape of Second Impact.
Somewhat rudely, Gendo Ikari did not return the sentiment. But he genuinely didn't feel it, so that was perhaps at least honest.
They walked off the ferry boat and on their separate ways, never to meet again, or so they thought.