
What do you think if we die here together? It is an irregular, fragmented, and literally desperate lie. It is an illusion that only a living one is deceived into imagining. Such a notion is the arrogance that a living being thinks. So, whom the dead body, or the shadow in this world, lives with or parts ways with is entirely meaningless. I mean, when I die, I part even with myself. However, life and death never have the same meaning. To begin with, living itself is the possibility in which we might have to part with someone. That means I wouldn’t be able to be with you. With a really grim expression, she replies like this: If she were to be caught by the enemies, I would have committed suicide immediately without any hesitation.Įven so, I ask her why she is afraid to such an extent. In the first place, I have never been afraid of my death. I think I myself am ready to die at any time. The emotion proudly cries for its eternal pain more than any other remaining scars on my body do. I just want to do something for her, who is frightened. I have not had time for recalling the reason why we have gotten ourselves into this situation. We do not even have enough time to talk to each other. We are trying to get away from the attacking enemies as far away from them as possible and are trying to survive together for so long as we can. The two of us are running away through underground passages. I never thought that there was any other human being in this world. It is because the very worth of the humankind exists in her head. With the loss of her brain, a part of our civilization or history will be tranquilly terminated. In the dream, I am fighting to guard my precious person. This excerpt is from Teddy, a short story included in Nine Stories (written by J. Just because they don’t remember it doesn’t mean they haven’t done it. My gosh, everybody’s done it thousands and thousands of times. All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. Teddy sat, or reclined, in silence for a minute. I mean I knew that even though they teach Religion and Philosophy and all, they’re still pretty afraid to die. "could have, but I knew that in their hearts they really didn’t want to know. I didn’t tell them when they were actually going to die, though. The ridiculousness of such perspectives is more miserable than wars are. They hope that children will become the same beings as they are in the future. They want to think that they know more than children do. They believe that children were born from them. These are the three mistakes that they make: I will devote this to adults who do not know wars. Japanese edition copyright © 2001 MORI, Hiroshi / Chuokoron-ShinshaĮnglish edition copyright © 2017 MORI, Hiroshi / The BBB: Breakthrough Bandwagon Books This work was first published in Japan in 2001. Originally written in Japanese by MORI, Hiroshi
