You s.h.i.+ne in the Moonlit Night +Fragments

Author: Sano Tetsuya (佐野徹夜)

Translations: Ren

Editing: Kani

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When I opened my eyes in the morning I thought, I'm still alive, as if it were somebody else's business.

A pale light coldly illuminated the floor of the hospital room.

We often say that the early bird gets the worm, but if you were to say about a hospital patient like me, you'd probably be at a loss.

There was nowhere I could go.

There was nothing to do.

Looking at the clock, it was just past six in the morning. Until the time to wake up at seven, I had no choice but to just take in the morning in the dark hospital room.

During such times, when there is nothing in the "present" before their eyes, people have no choice but to ruminate their memories. In my case, even if I recalled my memories, it seemed like they could only become more depressing.

I was admitted to the hospital when I was in my first year of middle school. The first signs of my poor health showed in the morning. My head hurt like it had been cracked. I decided to go to school despite the pain and ended up collapsing on the railway platform.

It's probably a heart problem. That's what my family and I thought at first.

We soon found out that it was not such a simple disease. We went to several different hospitals before we were finally told the name of the disease.

Luminescence disease.

It was known as a disease that could never be cured. Since they didn't know the cause of the disease, there wasn't any treatment for it either. I would gradually lose my strength, and eventually I wouldn't even be able to walk by myself. Finally, my heart would stop working and I would die.

Additionally, a characteristic of patients with Luminescence disease is that something unusual would happen to their skin. At night, the body would glow with a faint light while bathed under the moonlight. At first, the light wouldn't be very strong and couldn't be seen with the naked eye. However, as the disease progresses the light would gradually increase in intensity.

In truth, the test to diagnose a patient with Luminescence disease is simple. It can be tested by using a special wavelength of light in a dark room, taking a picture, and then a.n.a.lyzing the image. That is how I was diagnosed with the disease.

I'm going to die.

What did I think when I first heard the news? I don't really remember anymore.

My father became depressed and seemed to have lost all emotion. My mother repeatedly asked, "How can this be?" as if something had been broken. I told them, "It's okay," as I didn't know what else to say.

Please, everyone, don't wear such grave expressions on your faces.

After all, there is nothing that can be done about this.

"Because I'll be fine."

Or so I told myself.

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I was basically always in the hospital since I was hospitalized. It wasn't that there was nothing do, but there wasn't anything in particular to do either. The only thing to do was sleep in my bed. Otherwise, my only conversation partners were the nurse, the doctor, and my mother. My parents got divorced after I was hospitalized, and my father never came to see me since.

I was no longer a normal person after becoming a "person about to die." After entering such confines, it seemed that the way people spoke around me changed. I felt that this happened sometime after my life in hospital started.

At the beginning of my hospitalization, there was a girl from cla.s.s who occasionally came to visit me. She would tell me about things like who was dating whom, school events, and excursions. Listening to such silly stories made me feel normal.

"I also want to go on an excursion," I said. The atmosphere became awkward as soon as I said that.

"I see. I'm sorry for bringing up such a thing…" My cla.s.smate made an expression as if she had made a serious mistake and apologized remorsefully. I was stunned and couldn't think of anything to say.

It's because I'm not normal.

If I'm not normal, then let's live that way, I thought.

When you think of living people, you always expect them to have some kind of role in life. Take me for example: before I was a hospital patient, I was a.s.signed the role of a student. All I did was study and play around moderately. It's because we all have roles that this world can function normally. Do you play your part properly? Or do you deviate from your role when you feel that it's a burden and feel repulsed by it? But if you want to deviate from your role, you must have the energy for it. Oftentimes, sick people aren't healthy enough to do so. And I'm one of those who didn't have that energy.

My new role was that of a hospital patient.

In addition to that, I was one with an incurable disease and more specifically, my role was that of one about to die.

I have to play this role for the rest of my life.

As it is, this is probably a pretty easy way of life.

There isn't much technique involved in playing this role. It's probably easier than being the prime minister, I thought while watching politicians wiping away their sweat and argue over something on the TV on the bedside table.

A dull hospital lifestyle where you can't go anywhere and had to be careful was a normal part of my everyday life. After spending my time like that, I came to antic.i.p.ate when my last days would come.

It would be nice if it would all end already.

It would be nice if I could die quickly.

Thus, when I was told by the doctor that "your condition is getting worse and you could die at any time," I didn't feel shocked at all.

A life expectancy of zero.

Knowing that, I wanted to die quickly.

I was prepared to die.

I had already sorted things out in my heart as I laid alone in bed at night.

It wasn't a very difficult thing to accept.

My life is meaningless, I thought. I'm just a nuisance to others.

I lived a joyless life and it was one that only made other people sad. There was nothing to achieve, nothing to offer to others, and overall it was an unproductive life.

Why? I wondered.

What can I do from now on? I knew there was nothing that could be done.

Every night, I accepted that I could die in my sleep.

I think that sleeping is a lot like a temporary death. It is the task of accepting that one will return to nothing someday.

I might die in my sleep. That would probably be the best way to go.

I spent many nights thinking such thoughts.

But even then, I did not die. A year had pa.s.sed since I was notified of my life expectancy and I was still living energetically.

"It's a miracle," the doctor said.

I was able to live for another year after being told that I would die soon. To be honest, being put in such a situation was not easy for me. Even though I was ready to die, no matter how much time pa.s.sed, I still wasn't dead. Because I planned to die, I didn't feel like trying anything new and, strangely enough, I was left feeling like a monk.

Naturally, I felt that I had become strange.

So, I stopped thinking about it. I gave up thinking. Although we are people, we are animals before all else. However, I wanted to live like a plant.

It was when I was thinking such thoughts that my cla.s.smate, Okada Takuykun, arrived.

It was just for a while one day in April.

I was reading a book at the time. Reading was one of the few activities I could enjoy while I was hospitalized. It was a tool that made me like I wasn't here but flying off to somewhere else. However, because I was informed that I would die soon, I stopped reading new books.

Recently, at the time, I had been tapping to the rhythm of footsteps on a book I had read once. I suddenly raised my head while I was in the midst reading, thinking that somebody had come to visit me. The owner of the footsteps was a boy wearing my high school's uniform.

Our eyes met.

Before I could think, Who? it occurred to me who it was.

Every year around this time when a new school year began, someone would bring me important doc.u.ments and all that. The cla.s.smate who brought them always seemed to wear an uncomfortable look on their face. Once in a while, a teacher from school would come to visit. However, just this one April, a cla.s.smate whose face was unfamiliar to me came.

It was probably just a consideration on the school's part.

We didn't forget about you, you're also a member of our cla.s.s, was the message that this cla.s.smate's visit seemed to bring.

"Watarase-san?" the boy asked me.

It seems that his name was Okada Takuya.

Even conversations that begin with self-introductions continue naturally. Perhaps it was because I hadn't talked to other people in a long time that I became absorbed in my first conversation with him. But that's not all.

He treated me as if I were a normal person. It seemed like there was no way to treat me differently.

"Say, Takuykun," I said. "Will you come to play again soon?"

I asked that while facing him when I became aware of it.

He cast down his eyes as if to think for a bit and replied, "Soon."

He probably won't come again, I thought.

Thus, I was a little surprised when I saw his figure the next day.

"Oh, it's you, Takuykun."

What am I doing? I thought as I called out to him. He turned around to look at me, wearing an awkward expression on his face. I thought it was strange and took a closer look. There were shards of gla.s.s at his feet.

They were the remains of a snow globe my father gave me a long time ago. Inside the gla.s.s ball was a miniature log cabin and "snow powder," which imitated particles of snow. It would appear to snow inside the globe upon shaking it. Then, the scenery of a snowy country would appear inside the gla.s.s ball. But the gla.s.s that confined that small world was now broken and scattered across the floor. It became just another thing.

What are you doing? Why did you do such a cruel thing?

However, in the back of my mind, I knew he didn't break it on purpose. I didn't feel angry at him even though he broke it.

I think I was probably just shocked. In fact, the details of what I talked to Takuykun about were omitted from my memories. Although I had an impression of his embarra.s.sed face, that was all. Leaving that aside, what I felt more surprising than that was the emotion that arose within me.

It was very sudden.

I felt at ease even though something so precious to me was destroyed.

Why? I thought to myself while alone in bed at night.

What keeps people attached to the world are their obsessions.

If you think about it, the process of being born and dying is a continuous cycle of loss. Sooner or later, everyone will lose just about everything. I no longer felt afraid of death once I let go of all my attachments. There was no need to fear loss anymore.

However, that didn't mean that all of the fear inside me was gone. It's not only material things that keep people in the world.

Why is it considered tragic to die young?

What is the difference between dying old and dying young?

It's a matter of possibilities, I thought.

If I live just a little longer, it may be like this or it may be like that. The number of "maybe's" is what increases one's attachments to the world. However, for me, who was going to die young, it was still not enough to only throw away everything that I had.

How should I get rid of all these possibilities?

That might be the best thing to do

My mind might finally be at rest in doing so.

Those kinds of thoughts were what came to mind.

During the day, I asked my mother to go to the hospital store and buy a notebook for me. It was a lined B5 notebook without any peculiarities, just like the ones that high schoolers use to take notes from the board in cla.s.s.

I compiled a list of things I wanted to do before I died in it.

・I want to try going to an amus.e.m.e.nt park

・I want to try bungee-jumping

These kinds of trivial things sound good, I thought while writing them down. But no matter how much I thought about it, the things I wanted to do most would not surface from my consciousness. What was it that I really wanted to do? How many people are there who clearly know what they really want to do?

・I want to see my father

I hadn't seen my father since the two of them got divorced. I kept writing up until that point when I was. .h.i.t with a sudden realization.

In any case, it's impossible for me to carry out this list of things I want to do before I die.

Because I can't leave the hospital.

Why didn't I realize that?

Writing them down is pointless.

I realized this and stop writing. Well, this is fine. I couldn't help getting serious about it. It didn't matter whether or not I could make it happen. However, it's important to understand the obsession with life and the desires within you, so I reconsidered it. These feelings inside me— let's write them all down and kill them off one by one. And so, I began writing once again.

"Why don't I help you with that?" Takuykun came to my room again while I was in the middle of writing.

This guy seems to have a lot of free time, I thought coldly. What merit is there in getting involved with a dying person like me?

His face was strangely expressionless and vague. I couldn't figure out what he was thinking.

I wonder what the reason for him being interested in me is.

But I had an idea of what it was in my heart.

It was because he was interested in dead people.

Well, isn't it fine if it's like that? I thought. I didn't feel particularly uncomfortable with it.

"Because I want to make up for breaking your snow globe," he said. "I did something that can't be undone. It feels like something is missing just by saying sorry and apologizing with words— it feels cheap and shallow. I can't really phrase it well but… Anything is fine. I will do anything that I can."

And so, an idea came to me.

I would have Takuykun carry out the list of things I wanted to do before I died in my place. I was tired of spending every day in limbo like I was on the death row, waiting for the announcement of my execution. To reduce my fear of death, I wanted to get rid of all my possibilities. People live not only in the past, but also because they are swayed by possibilities. If I could get rid of all of them, then surely, I would die peacefully.

So, I decided to ask Takuykun for his help.

I want you to carry out this list of things I want to do before I die in my place.