| The Spider's Thread |
Jun 28, 2020
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| There was a famous short story entitled "The Spider's Thread" written by a famous writer named Akutagawa. Akutagawa was a gifted novelist, but died young leaving some good stories. After his death, a new literature award called the Akutagawa Award was founded for short-to-middle ranged stories written by promising writers. Anyways, the outline of the story was like this: There was a thief named Kandata. When he died, as he was a criminal, he was sent to hell. But, God remembered that Kandata did a good thing once: Kandata helped a spider from drowning and released it. So, God decided to give him a chance. When Kandata was struggling in a sea of blood (in this country a sea of blood was the typical punishment place in hell), he found a spider's thread hanging down from Heaven. Kandata was delighted and started to climb up happily. He came to the middle of it and when he rested, he noticed that some other criminals were climbing up the string as well. He got upset. The thread didn't seem strong enough, even for his own weight. He started to yell to the others to let go of the thread. He said that it was his, not theirs. But, of course, nobody followed his order. Kandata was furious and started to kick some of the climbers. Looking at the scene, God sighed. After a while, the thread broke, and Kandata fell down into the sea of blood. When he was a junior high student, he read this story in his textbook. At that time,  maybe it was taught as some moral lessons, warning about selfishness and self-centeredness. But now that he remembered it, the story didn't seem that simple. It mentioned about human beings' nature. Human beings tend to think about oneself as being 'special'. If he or she has been lucky or fortunate, he or she tends to think of oneself as "chosen". If they win something, they are special. God gave Kandata a chance because he had a kind mind once, but it didn't mean only he himself had a kind mind. Others also wanted to escape from that harsh environment, and they might also have had the right to be helped...When he watched an interview about the Coronavirus, he remembered this story. A guy in a business suit was interviewed on TV on a street in a big city. The lockdown wasn't removed yet. Precisely it wasn't a 'lockdown' because, different from other countries, this country didn't apply strict restrictions, like needing a document to go out, or if somebody violated the rules, then one would be fined. In this country, judgement of going out or not was left up to the individual. If the person thought that it was very important or in an emergency, going out was allowed without permission. The guy expressed a little bit of guilt, but said, "I needed to go to work today. I had a very important task, although I know the current situation." He then added, "There are some people moving about in the city, kind of a lot in fact, and I am surprised about that. The government is asking to refrain from going out unless it is an emergency or very important. But, people think differently about 'emergency' and 'importance'. I don't accuse them, though." When he was shopping, he saw that some people weren't wearing masks and felt that they were careless. He was the type of person who if he takes a product from the shelf while shopping, he doesn't put it back thinking that others might feel uneasy when seeing it. On the other hand, he had heard the term "Mask Police". If you don't wear a mask, they will accuse you. If you don't do social distancing, 1.5 ~ 2.0 meters apart, they will complain about it. "They" were like the invisible police or militia. But, recently, when he entered his gym, the female clerk at the counter didn't smile nor say anything, different from her normal cheerful greetings. She looked stiffed. Soon afterwards he realized that he wasn't wearing a mask. And he felt somehow offended. It was just his carelessness. The shop had a rule to wear a mask, except for the pool and spa areas, and he usually always followed the rules. Feeling offended was from a selfish idea, maybe. People tend to be lenient towards oneself, while being strict towards others, and things become complicated. He just hoped that the world would go back to normal. |
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*promising :前途有望な
*struggle :もがく
*punishment :刑罰
*yell :ののしる
*self-centeredness :自己中心
*now that he remembered it:思い出してみると
*harsh :厳しい
*restriction :制限
*fine :罰金
*up to :による
*individual :個人
*unless :ないかぎり
*accuse :批判する
*militia :市民軍
*offended :侮辱された
*lenient :甘い、寛大な