Who is the man of time and space?
The “jiku no ossan” (man of time and space) is a mysterious man who appears in strange accounts told on internet message boards and elsewhere. One day, the story goes, you notice that people and cars have all vanished from the streets, and you have wandered into a silent, empty world. While you are at a loss, a middle-aged man in work clothes or a suit appears and says angrily, “Why are you here?” or “You mustn’t come here,” and then you find yourself back in the normal world.
What the accounts have in common
The accounts share many features: “the phone connects but no one answers,” “the clocks have stopped,” “the color of the sky is strange.” Sometimes the man is alone, sometimes he seems to have colleagues, and some say he was in contact with someone by something like a radio. Many reports gathered on occult boards of a large message board in the 2000s, and he came to be known by the name “jiku no ossan.”
Who is the man really?
Theories say he is a “caretaker of the other world” or “time-space security guard” who sends lost people back, a resident of a parallel world, or a person from the future. Of course, some see the accounts as dreams, false memories or made-up stories. Either way, the fact that he grumbles but helps in the end draws many people to the story.
Similar stories
Stories of wandering into a world without people have much in common with the Shimokitazawa time slip, Kisaragi Station and the elevator to another world. It might be called a modern version of the age-old kamikakushi (spiriting away).
