| Short Story |
December 12, 2019
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| He liked to read novels. His repertoires of novels were broad. He mostly liked to read detective stories, but he also read science fiction, historical stories, social problem stories, business stories, as well as love stories; in addition, he liked short stories. Of course, each short story can be categorized in each of the above mentioned genres, but he thought that short stories should be separated as one genre. Short stories have strength, they are short so a reader can read a story quickly. But, it can also be a shortcoming. When a reader reads a book, a normal one, after a certain number of pages, the reader have momentum and can read the book through to the end. It's like a car which needs a certain amount of power to start, but after it gets moving, the car moves smoothly. On the other hand, a short story finishes soon, so when you start the next short story, you need momentum from scratch. Because of this, he could rarely read through anthologies of short stories. However, on this day, he bought an anthology of short stories at a book store. When he saw it, he felt nostalgic because the author was famous in his generation for his short stories. When he was a high school student, his friends read his short stories, but he was not a fan, so he couldn't remember any of his stories. But, on this  day, he became curious about his anthology book because the author's main field was science fiction, and he was very curious to see whether his works that were written a long time ago had become a reality now or not. At home, he started to read the book. It had seventeen stories in it, and he immediately read five of them. They were really great! The first one's title was "An Incident in the Future", it was written in 1984. The story was about a guy who woke up. His vision was blurry. Soon a nurse came in and he was told that he was in the hospital. He had an accident and had surgery. He couldn't move his body, he thought it must have been a big accident. He felt an itch on his leg and asked the nurse to scratch it. The nurse's voice sounded tense, and she explained that it was his illusion because his legs were amputated. He was shocked, but after a while he thought about artificial legs. In this high tech society artificial legs' quality was very good. He thought that he should be thankful for being alive after that accident. But ... as the story proceeded he came to know that he didn't have his hands anymore, in fact he didn't have his lower body either. And, finally, the reader came to know it was only his brain that lived by being connected to a machine. The story mentioned that this era's technology would enable his body parts to regenerate and he could live like others do soon. He thought that the story had predicted iPS cells technology. The forth story was named "Shift". It was written by form of the protagonist's diary. "March 1st. I went to a bar after work for the first time in a while. I ... March 2nd. I went to a bar after work for the first time in a while. Wait a minute. I wrote the same thing on yesterday's page. That's odd ..." After a while, he realized that his character changed every other day, like the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th days were Mr. A, and the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th days were Mr. B. Mr. A was a diligent person, while Mr. B was a lazy person. After a while Mr. B stopped working and drank a lot every day. Mr. A advised in the diary for Mr. B to change his life, but Mr. B ignored it. Mr. B started to think about committing suicide, and Mr. A persuaded him not to do it ... The story proceeded like this until a third person, Mr. C, appeared. He was amazed at how the author got this idea. The fifth story's title was "The Department of Sustainable Living". It was about a guy and his colleague who started for a drive to visit people. It was their routine to drive and visit people that were listed on the cards that their boss gave him. In this society, thanks to the government's good policies, people's lives were very good: they all had a good house, they all ate good food, they all were healthy, they all spent a relaxing and enjoyable pastime. There was no crime in the society. Society seemed perfect, except for one thing. The protagonist, a senior worker suggested his colleague that on this day they would go to each of the houses that were on the cards randomly. It was a fine day for driving, so the colleague agreed with the change. After comfortably driving, they went to the first house, and a middle aged woman answered the door. The senior worker explained about their purpose of the visit and the mother almost fainted. They came here to tell her that her daughter was selected for elimination. In this society, a certain number of people were eliminated regularly, randomly. And it was their job to tell the person. The mother begged them to choose her instead of her daughter. It was very sad to take the life from a child. But, of course, they didn't have any authority. To guarantee others' certain level of living standards in a society with a certain amount of resources, sacrifices were needed in this society. They started to go to the next person's house. The senior worker took the next card and read it. It was his own name. He said that his life was good, he was satisfied with his whole life up until then, and had no regrets … From the information from Wikipedia, the author passed away in 1997 leaving about a thousand short stories. These stories might be a message or a warning to modern societies, which emphasize economy rather than sustainability. But, he felt another something else ~as long as human beings have an imagination and originality like this author, human beings must be able to manage any problems. |
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*repertoire :レパートリー
*genre :ジャンル
*shortcoming :欠点
*anthology :選集
*blurry :ぼやけた
*itch :かゆみ
*amputate :切断する
*protagonist :主人公
*persuade :説得する
*faint :気を失う
*eliminate :除去する
*sacrifice :犠牲、いけにえ