It hung from the ceiling of the archive shed.
When it was set up, and by whom — not a single line about it exists in the shed keeper’s old ledger , nor in the meticulous digital archive Spice built. Yet as far as any resident of Amencho Town can remember, that thin steel wire and iron ball have simply always been there. Wearing only the faintest coat of dust, it swings on, slowly, almost imperceptibly changing direction over the course of a day, in the dim light. Most visitors to the shed never notice it, and those who do rarely ask why.
“It’s a Foucault pendulum .”
Tacchi said, crossing his long legs. “A device that proves the earth’s rotation . The plane in which the pendulum swings stays fixed, viewed from outside the universe — it’s the ground below that’s moving. At this latitude , the angle should shift roughly thirteen degrees an hour, and that, more eloquently than any experiment, proves the motion of the earth—”
Kopo let out a huge yawn.
“Not listening?”
“I’m listening. It’s hard. …So, when did somebody put this here?”
Tacchi didn’t answer. Instead, he silently stood directly beneath the pendulum. His long body stretched parallel to the steel wire. As if testing the feeling in the soles of his feet, he lifted his heels once. His narrow eyes tracked the bottom of the arc .
“That’s odd.”
He murmured it, tracing the arc marked on the floor with a finger. “Compared to an hour ago, the deviation angle’s barely moved. Either the earth’s stopped rotating, or — this thing isn’t following the earth’s motion at all.”
Kopo felt the hair on his back stand up. The steel wire was black, as if swallowing light, and the iron ball gleamed dully, as though it held the warmth of a living creature. Outside the shed, spring birds sang, yet the dust-laden stone floor alone seemed cut out from some other tense of time. Kopo found himself wondering, if he were this pendulum, whether he too would follow the earth. The sound from outside the shed suddenly grew distant, and only the faint scraping friction of the iron ball against sand remained at the back of his ears. No answer came.
The two of them stood in silence together for a while.
Eventually Kopo noticed the floor. The trail the pendulum’s tip was carving into the sand wasn’t a simple fan shape — slowly, as if drawn with intent, it was forming an outline.
“…Tacchi. Isn’t this the shape of the town?”
Tacchi tilted his long neck and gazed at it in silence for a while. The stone bridge, the weeping cherry along the river, Dragon God’s Lake, the open lot before the crossing. The line the pendulum’s tip traced did indeed seem to trace the map of Amencho Town in one continuous stroke .
“Coincidence,” Tacchi said. “And even if it isn’t, it should be called one.”
Kopo didn’t press the words further. He only quietly decided he would tell no one that, for just an instant, the pendulum’s arc had seemed to pause at the point marking Dragon God’s Lake. “If it’s not following the earth, where’s it heading?” — the question sank in his throat and never came out. Tacchi never once broke his composed expression, but on his way out of the shed, he closed the door quietly, without looking back.
Margin note: The next morning, when he went to check the shed floor, the lines in the sand had been swept away cleanly. The pendulum was, once again, simply swinging.
【Core of the Tale】
- Phenomenon or prop used: a Foucault pendulum of unknown origin hanging in the archive shed (it does not follow the earth’s rotation, and traces the map of Amencho Town in one continuous stroke)
- The story’s hidden theme: in a place where the unmeasurable outnumbers the measurable, what does a person choose to believe?
This is an English translation of “振り子が刻む町”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).
