I recently started watching the live-action adaptation of author Kei Sanbe's manga series "Erased," starring Yuki Furukawa, Mio Yuki, and Jin Shirasu.
"Erased", also known as "Boku dake ga Inai Machi" in Japan, is about a 29-year-old manga artist who mysteriously finds himself sent back in time several minutes before a tragedy is about to occur, an ability that he calls "Revival."
After being wrongfully accused of a crime he did not commit, a classic case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, his "Revival" takes him back eighteen years in the past. He soon discovers that being sent eighteen years into the past is to prevent the disappearance and murder of his fellow classmate that is linked to the crime he is being convicted of in the present.
As I watched as each event unfolded from his life before the crime to his wrongful conviction and being sent back eighteen years in the past, it really made me think what it would be like to go back in time and relive parts of my childhood. How would you react if you woke up and you were getting ready for middle school again, surrounded by loved ones who have long since passed away?
This also made me realize that the people I love that are still on this Earth beside me aren't getting any younger, which makes me want to treasure my time with them that much more.
I thought to myself, what would it look like for me if I was sent into the past the way Satoru was? Almost immediately, this is what I envisioned:
It is early morning, slightly chilly. The sun has yet to start peeking out, but the sky is light. I am at my great-grandpa's house in Lahaina getting ready to go to school. I look down and am in my navy blue polo shirt with the Sacred Hearts School logo over my left breast, a circle cut into quarters with four figures in each space: the year 1862 in the top right, two hearts with a cross and a flame in the top left, two silhouettes of people in the bottom right, and two whales in the bottom left.
As usual, I have failed to tuck my shirt into my skorts, something I always dreaded doing but did anyway since it was part of the dress code.
My great-grandpa is in the kitchen warming up frozen waffles in the toaster oven. He wears a striped polo tucked into pleated dress pants that correspond to the color of his shirt, held up by a black belt with a metal buckle shaped like an "M". He smells of Marlboro cigarettes mixed with cologne, a scent I didn't quite mind. There is a pack of Winterfresh gum sitting on the countertop underneath the light switch.
I walk into the dining room and take a seat on the dark brown leather dining chair, the thin picnic designed tablecloth brushes along my knees. I hear the start of an engine, signaling that my dad has just left for work in his silver Dodge Dakota, the hum getting quieter and quieter as he drives away. Across the counter, my grandpa looks at me over his glasses, setting the plate of waffles on the counter with a "Here." Butter is spread in every nook and cranny and the waffles swim in syrup.
When we get in his Toyota Camry to go to school around 7:15, he immediately tells me "Put your belt on", referring to my seatbelt, and routinely, I do. I reach for the grey belt underneath the matching grey towels that he used to line the seats of the car. He starts the engine and we are welcomed with the voice of a Japanese woman who sings a few notes before immediately being met with silence. My grandpa has turned off the music.
The ride is short to Sacred Hearts. We walk across the parking lot, with me dodging all of the sticky seeds from the trees in a desperate attempt to avoid getting them underneath my white and pink Sketcher shoes, towards the Maria Lanakila church and make our way past the preschool and library to the courtyard where the first through eighth-grade classrooms are. We part at the staircase, and I make my way to Ms. Clorinda's third-grade classroom.
I'm not sure why this is what I think of when I envision what my "Revival" moment would be like, but it is. Maybe it's because it was the last year that we lived on Maui before moving to Arizona, a time where all of my great-grandparents were still alive and everyone I wanted to see was a short drive away instead of a six-hour plane ride over the Pacific ocean. It seemed like such a simpler time, and it's a memory I like to reminisce on.
