In One Kameido Block, Every Clock Reads Three Minutes Slow
In one block of Kameido 3-chome, home to 28 households, it has emerged that every clock — from the public clock to the ones in each home — reads three minutes slow against the correct time. A covert patrol officer on night rounds noticed the discrepancy against standard time, and the TDA has opened an inquiry, but the cause remains unknown. It is a new mystery found in the same Kameido district as the previously reported 'vanished alley.'
Around midnight on the 11th, covert patrol officer Iori Kiryu, 29, previously reported in these pages, noticed something odd during her night rounds through one block of Kameido 3-chome — home to 28 households, including two shops. Comparing her patrol chronometer, synced to standard time, against the public clock at the block's entrance, she found a three-minute gap. "At first I thought my own watch had drifted," Kiryu recalled. "But as I kept walking the rounds, I noticed the clocks visible through each house's window, and the time displayed on the shop shutters, were all slow by exactly the same amount."
Responding to her report, the TDA visited all 28 households in the block from the 12th through the 13th. Of 41 clocks it was able to check — the public clock, wall and tabletop clocks in each home, and the register clocks at the two shops — all 39 that were running read exactly three minutes slow against standard time. Because the time shown on mobile phones and internet-connected devices was normal, most residents said they had not noticed until this inquiry. Across the single road marking the block's boundary, every clock checked was normal.
A TDA spokesperson said, "There is no sign at present indicating any connection to Yuragi," while adding, "At this point we cannot explain the mechanism or the cause." The block lies in the same Kameido district as the previously reported "vanished alley" (the 7th), but the agency remains cautious about any link: "They are simply close geographically; there is no basis to connect them."
A woman who has lived in the block for nearly thirty years, 61, had her clock reset to standard time during the inquiry, but checking again on the afternoon of the 13th, found it three minutes slow once more. "Fix it, and it just slips the same amount again. So nobody really tries anymore," she said. A company employee, 44, living nearby laughed it off: "Three minutes doesn't get in the way of daily life. If anything, realizing it's pointless to fix just my own clock made things a little easier."
One shopkeeper said, "I panicked at first when the register clock didn't match, but customers just laugh and say, 'this shop runs three minutes slow, that's fine.' It's not all bad." The mood in the block, she said, is less one of alarm than of quiet wonder.
Kiryu, reflecting on her work, said, "People always say the job is not being heard. This time, instead of hearing nothing, I was helped by something I could see — a clock." The ward plans to continue its on-site checks, and the TDA plans periodic re-measurements. The truth remains unrevealed, and Kameido has one more mystery to its name.
