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Inventor 2 ~Character Activator

March 12, 2020

On this day, a young woman, in her early 20s, came to the inventor's office. She looked nervous. She didn't look at the inventor's face and started to say her concerns. Her voice was very quiet, so he could barely hear her: She worked for a kindergarten. She liked to work with children, so she chose to attend college for teachers of kindergartens. She started her career as a teacher about one year ago. But recently she wasn't confident to be a teacher anymore. The inventor wanted to tell her that he wasn't a psychiatrist, but, recently, the same type of orders seemed to be on the increase. Looking at her sad expression, he simply asked, "Why? Did something wrong happen?" She replied, "Nothing, particular." She explained that one day, in the morning, in the first class, when she was facing her students, she felt a certain fear thinking that she might not be a good enough teacher for them. After that, she tended to avoid looking straight in their eyes. She asked her college classmates about this, whether they felt the same, but they all said no. Rather, they said that she was thinking too much, she should refresh herself by watching some funny dramas. They even recommended for her to change her appearance. She changed her hair style. She started to use contact lenses instead of her glasses. But, there was no change in her feeling, she was still depressed. He asked her to come again one week later, and until then he would make something for her. She left. In this country it was called, "May Sickness." Freshmen would start their new jobs at the beginning of April. They were always tense to adjust to their new life, new city, new job, and after a long vacation in May, some of them would start to have various disorders, such as depression. Although hers was a little late, it was probably like her friends told her: overthinking.   It reminded him of a remark by either Dostoyevsky's or Tolstoy's. One of them told a story about a stone on the road. One day, a person was walking on an unpaved road and noticed a particular stone on the surface. From a distance, it was not so big. The closer that he approached it, the more curious he was about it. The more he wanted to ignore it, the more he was conscious about the stone. He wanted to step aside, but he ended up stumbling on it. This story shows the difficulty of controlling one's mind. Her fear about her school children was like the stone in the story ~it was too difficult to remove it. One week later, she came back to the inventor's office and received a machine, it was a pair of glasses. She looked annoyed because she used contact lenses. He explained that the lenses wore just ordinary glass. He explained how to use them. It was the shortest explanation of one of his inventions ever: wear them, that's it. It was only three days later when she returned to the inventor office. The sound of her stepping was bright. As soon as she entered the room, she shouted, "This is crazy!" Her report was like this: The next day after she received the gadget, when she got to her kindergarten, she directly went to the principal's room to get an agreement to use this machine during work. At first the principal didn't believe what she said, but soon her glasses changed their shape. When she entered the room, the glasses' frames were oval, but when she was talking, they became square. The principal jumped from her chair and asked her to do it again. She explained that it would happen randomly so she couldn't control the timing. The principal agreed for her to use the glasses, but told her to be careful because maybe it would make a big fuss. It did indeed cause a big fuss! When she entered the classroom, the children looked at her glasses but said nothing. Actually before she started wearing contact lenses she wore glasses, although a different style. Then, when she was talking to them, it happened. The square frames suddenly became round. At first the children didn't understand what was happening. Then they started to talk to each other, saying something like, "Did you see that?!" Then one of them asked her to do it again. She told them the same thing that she had explained to the principal. But they were not the principal, they started to chant, "Do it again! Do it again!" then it happened. This time the shape of the frames became star shape! It became chaos, and soon teachers came from the other classes, although they didn't know what was happening. She said, "Some of the children took my glasses and wore them, but the frames wouldn't change their shape. Why not?" The inventor replied, "Yes. The gadget was set to memorize the first user's, the owner's, face shape and will only work for that face." She said, "Of course, I can't use this gadget in the class anymore because I can't manage the chaos. But I don't need to depend on these glasses anymore. My fear has disappeared! Thank you." The inventor nodded. She remembered something and blushed, and she said, "You know what?! When I was walking with the glasses on, several men who noticed the change started to me, and asked me for a date."  The inventor said, "Really? In that case I should make another pair for me." They started to laugh. Her smile was cute.

*barely :かろうじて〜
*psychiatrist :心理学者
*disorder :不調
*depression :憂鬱
*unpaved :未舗装の
*conscious :意識した
*stumble :つまづく
*oval :楕円の
*fuss :さわぎ
*blush :顔を赤らめる