| Inventor: The Diary | |
March 2, 2015
|
|
| A man in his early fifties came to the inventor's office and started to tell his concerns: His father died last year. It was so sudden that he didn't have a chance to say anything nice to his father. Originally, he hated his father; or, at least, he was afraid of his father. His father was very strict to him. His father died of a heart attack last year in his seventies. When his father died, he felt nothing; but, as time went by, he became to want to know what his father thought about him. The inventor asked, "Didn't your father leave some letters or such things to you?" The guy replied, "Tons. He left me a lot of messages like this." He showed the inventor two pieces of paper. One read, "From your father to my son: 10 things you need to know. One, you have to be gentle to others. Two, you have to …. " The other paper read, "I came up with this idea so I want you to listen to it: You should be stronger. Your family will rely on you. You should …" The inventor looked at the guy. The guy shrugged. "I hoped my father would have
The guy said, "I don't know. He was not the type of person who said his inner things to his son. After my mom died young, he became stoic and strict to me." "Was he strict only to you?" The guy thought for a minute and said, "At his funeral, many people came and said he was a kind person. Maybe only to me. Simply, was I a bad son?" The inventor replied, "I'm sorry but I'm not a counselor, so I don't know." He told him he would try to make something for him so come back again one week later. One week later, he came back to the inventor's office. The inventor showed him a gadget that he invented. He looked suspicious. It looked just like a diary. In fact, on the cover of the two centimeters thick book, there was the word 'Diary' with decorated letters. With a smirk, he said, "I hope you don't want me to simply write my father's memories so that I understand more about him." The inventor looked uneasy but started to explain how to use this machine. That night he opened the first page of the 'diary-shaped-machine'. He had prepared some albums from his childhood. He opened the oldest album and started to look for photos which he and his father were in. There was a photo with his father holding him when he was one year old or so. He picked up the photo from the album and placed it in the diary's scanning section and closed the diary. Soon a camera shutter sounded. He opened the diary, and removed the original photo. On the scanner, there was a crystal clear image of the original. He then press the 'Image' button. Soon, a hologram appeared above the scanning section. It was a small colored 3-D image of the picture. He felt that he was there, his young father holding him as a child. He started to write on the bottom of the page: "March 1st, in XXXX (He copied this from the album.) I was one and half years old. I was smiling in my father's arms. My father looked relaxed. He was young. He was smiling at the person who was taking this picture, maybe my mom." He was looking at the elaborate hologram for a while. Then, he pick up the next picture and did the same thing. It was a picture of the three of them at the sea side. He touched the 'Image' button and a hologram appeared again. He started to write: "I can't remember this. Maybe, we were at the coast in the next prefecture. My mom was young. She looks to be in good shape. She didn't look like she would die so young. My dad's eyes, looking at me and mom, were warm …" Actually, he couldn't continue to write. He cried silently for a while. The next week, the guy came to the inventor with the gadget. He said, "This is amazing. Strangely, my demands to want to know my daddy's real mind about me have completely disappeared. This is a good thing, I mean to take a 'memorial diary'. I don't need this machine any more. Now, I can clearly picture my old days better than this hologram. And, I can buy a new real diary." He winked. |
|
| |
*diary 日記
*nice 良い
*afraid 恐れる
*strict 厳しい
*leave 残す
*come up with 浮かぶ
*rely on 頼る
*shrug 両手を上げる
*inner 心の
*suspicious 疑いの
*so that ~するように
*prepare 用意する
*place 置く
*remove 取り除く
*hologram ホログラム（立体映像）
*good shape 健康そうな
*for a while しばらく