I used to sing a song!!!

2015 Fall


One day at the beginning of autumn, I found an old diary under the junk in the closet. The word "Diary 1984" was written like a graffiti on the bench of the park. It was a diary since high school in the first year. The memories of those days were vividly restored just by flipping pages and pages.
When I was thinking about those days while drinking non-alcoholic beer on a bench near the supermarket. I tried to remember the song I used to sing.
It was the first time in 30 years to sing that song by Tsuyosi Nagabuchi. A cleaning lady looked at me with a strange face.
30 years ... actually 30 years.
I had been always singing the song at that time. And then I was not able to sing the song by any means.
I grabbed the old guitar in the room and played it, I remembered the chord progression properly.


I had a friend who has been my friend for 30 years. I went to my friend's concert the other day. The song is "Azumino" by Masashi Sadai. It was also a song that had been singing for 30 years. My mind was a little bit more proud to hear that his song was much better than at that time. The weight of the years, let me say, and during that time, I realized the fact that I gave up on everything. "Yes ... I've given up on things ... I forget to ask for my niece ... I lost a lot of things as I got older. Good or bad", I thought.

...
When I returned to my room, I tried to sing a song called "The Diva" by Miyuki Nakajima with a guitar ... .I couldn't sing it better, because I hadn't sung it for so long")




Still, I thought that being passionate about something was a good thing. There was a moment when the world looked bright. I wanted to believe that capturing that moment was worth it, whatever the end.


I had had in the past only a total of five dreams, dreams or aspirations. It always went well for years, but always stumbled on something. I did not know right now what the cause of the cause. But then, with no title, it felt like there was true selfishness in naked myself. When I sat on the bench and smoked, I thought it's really like myself.


There were four good things about the bench. The first place was to sit and smoke without hesitation, the second to see the spacious sky, and the third to see the people who came and went, and the last place to spend no money.




1984 summer
The view from the window of the school building, the old desk, and the classroom that smells of chicken manure. From the window of the classroom on the third floor, I could see a small store and a prefectural road with a lot of traffic. I often used to count the number of cars passing through the prefectural road to kill time during class. My seat was on the window side, and it was my daily routine to count the number of cars. I did not know why I did such a meaningless thing. But high school was the time to find meaning in meaningless things. There were about 3,000 cars a day on the prefectural road.


I remembered about Midori-sensei. She was a beautiful English teacher in her thirties. She wore high heels on her sleek feet. Her class was exceptional. The speedy class that was conducted under the thorough professionalism was enough to captivate what you were listening to.
But her best feature was walking well. She walked around the classroom while talking.
"This infinitive is adverb usage."
She said she was trying to sew the space between the desk and the desk. I liked her like that.
At first, I was listening to her class as I fell in love with it, but it started to wonder how many steps she would walk in an hour. I actually measured the number of steps and recorded it on that day's notebook. "265" and "302" were all of my English notes.
That's how I spent my class time. Until one time I was an innocent student who was passionate about nothing.


One day, I was reading a book in one corner of the classroom. It was a book by Osamu Dazai that I accidentally found in a bookstore. The book was a shocking book for young me in that it portrays the secularity of the world, and since that time it had become an important element that occupies the shadow of my character.
When I was reading Dazai, there was a man who spoke from behind.
"Do you read such a book ..."
He was a boy named Sakata in the same class.
"I have read enough to recite the novel of Taisuke's old man."


Sakata said happily. Sakata was called "the bookworm" among everyone.
I just kept silent. .I did not feel bad about him. On the contrary, I was interested in him. I could not tell it.


That night, when I was hiding from my parents and smoking, a phone call came from Sakata.
"Good evening. Have you read Dazai already?"
"I read," I answered.
"Do you like it?"
"I like it."
"What kind of place?"
I'm twisted. After that," it's dark ."
"Don't you think literature is like a bad drug?"
"I don't know," I thought after thinking a little.
"I have a lot of books that are dark and dark. Let me lend them." And I hung up the phone.
In the living room, my father and brother were watching television. My father made a noise with my younger brother while drinking shochu. I watched these two men sideways and this time ignited the High Light imposingly. My father said nothing.


It was about a week since I was invited to Sakata to create a fanzine. I was attracted by his strong independent spirit. On the other hand, he had a sassy point for a high school student who was trying to set things up diagonally.
One day I was saying this on the phone.
"The world is sweet. I don't know for others, but for us we are sweet."
His confidence was also transmitted to me. The immediate goal was to take a university exam. We both encouraged and studied well. I reported on the progress of my study on a daily basis.
We recruited the same person and published a magazine called "group travel" on a monthly basis. The concept was his proposal "meaning meaningless".
Two of us became good friends. And we fell in love with the same person at the same time.


The girl was a small, pretty person who wrote a poem to our coterie.
She was named Mori Naoko. Her poems were small items that could read the girlish loveliness and the seriously annoying spirit. It might be said that we read her poetry and that we liked her.
On the early summer evening, on the way back from school, we were cool in the park with our school clothes on.
"I know her house,do you want to go ?
Sakata said.
"let's go!"


A cool breeze was blowing.
We rode a bicycle. I was excited.
In about 20 minutes I came to her apartment.
Several buildings rise in a large site on the side of the station. There were some trees planted in the street, and there was a park-like square. The area was covered in the twilight after the sun went down.


"Does Miss. Mori lives here ..."
I sighed.
"I think that's the building of the area."
Sakata said while pointing.
I was fascinated as I looked up at that side.
I didn't think much about trying to knock on the door of her house. We just worshiped her like God.




I remembered the window that shines in the summer sun. At that time, everything looked bright.
After the final exam of one semester in the second-grader, members of the same group gathered and launched. When I remembered that time, the first thing that came to mind was the window.
The window was the window of the astronomical club where I and Sakata were in, and the astronomical club was a meeting place for the same person. The room was a 12-mat room made for a warehouse in the school on the second floor, and only a 6-mat room was covered with tatami mats. The summer sunshine was coming in through the window.
Miss. Mori sat down to the end with her kind mother. I still couldn't talk to her. Sometimes I stole her and her mother. The two women looked very good.
After a chat for a while, I finally sang "Nagori Snow" on my guitar.


2015


For the past 30 years, I felt like it was for me to recover myself as a high school student in a natural way.
When I was walking on a morning walk, the dazzlingness of the sun felt like I was guiding myself who had been lost from the way by mistake.
"I have to sing a song."
From some time in my life, I forgot to sing and forgot my smile. The hard time to live continued.




1990 (after graduating from high school)


I entered a pachinko parlor in front of the station. That was where my heart settled down. Looking at the inside of the store, a large number of customers were drawing balls with bloody eyes..
For me in the mirror of the bathroom. There was no light in my eyes that I had in my teens.
There was a figure of myself who was at a loss, losing confidence. I was happy when I was with my father. It could be seen now that you were as enthusiastic as there had been even one believer.


As I graduated from high school, I left home. It was caused by the father's whistle now for no apparent reason. It was time for a businessman to walk along the street and put on a coat collar. I still remembered clearly the city that I walked frantically with no place to stay. The town where I grew up was a residential area about an hour from the city center, and I was a little bit off the station, and the shopping street was getting better and worse.
I had a dream I had not yet told my father. But then my dream faded little by little. I wanted my father to see how I succeeded. If my father did not love you, what was the meaning of success?
Walk between the neons in the cold wind of autumn. From somewhere, a drunken singing voice could be heard. I wanted to sing something, but what I came up with was such a phrase I learned in Japanese language time.
"The flow of the going river is constantly and not in the original water ."
"That's right," I thought. Then I came up with something like this. Bet the 5,000 yen I have now on pachinko.
And lost. I lost to the last hundred yen. I was not lonely. It seemed that my life was not my life. I slept on the bench of the station.
The next morning the newspaper delivery lady gave me some bread. She preached for a long time that "You're young, that's not good."


In hospital
When I moved to the large room, I was alone, not talking with anyone, just silently thinking of a letter to write to Miss. Mori. My mind was still confused, and I had to rewrite it many times to write a good sentence. I used to lie down on the bed and write for a while or watch through the window with the grille in place, for hours on the unpopular, inconvenient landscape.
When asked by other patients, "What are you looking at?" "Forest", "Mountain", etc. I answered briefly. I did not talk to other patients and I did not. Six patients were sleeping in the room, but none of them lost energy.
I had a plan. I thought of a scene that was repeated many times. Uncover the father's tomb ... I was thinking only about that. "First, I get out of the hospital. Then I go to the tomb of my father who is supposed to be on the outskirts of Machida city and see with my eyes that my father really died".
To that end, I had to ask Mori to cooperate. I have to uncover my father's tomb, I wrote.


Former Mr. Mori


I have to uncover my father's tomb. Otherwise, my delusion that my father may still be alive will not disappear.
My father is not dead. No, I do not know what it means to die. Specifically, for example, I can not see if I can see my father's remains. As I said earlier, I have no idea. If I uncover my father's tomb, would I be able to accept something certain?
I am very confused. It's as if a human climbing a rocky area is stuck in a storm and can not see the foothold.
So I always dive into the bed and imagine where I'm digging a hole. It's a dark night, it's raining. I put the flashlight on the tombstone and I dig the soil. The soil is soft and can be dug deep immediately. And scoop hits something hard. It is an antique. And make sure inside. I try to touch my father who became a skeleton.
I always go through such imagination. Mostly in bed, sometimes looking out through the window.Mori. Do you think I'm sick? What should I do?


This is just a place to keep people shut. Just give me the medicine. When it is time for medicine, a long procession can be made before the window. At least the people in the procession are justified in the procession.
I walk down to avoid looking at people's eyes to avoid trouble. I have never encountered any problems, but I have a small skirmish about once a day. After taking the medicine there is nothing to do. You either sleep in bed or smoke on the bench. On the bench, patients are talking about politics and religion all day long. What the patients are saying is that something is always distorted or exaggerated. That probably applies to me as well. Listen to the shit of the sick person, I wrote..
My current theme is that I want something certain. It is something that supports me to live strongly. And here's the problem, but that's not true. I just do not believe in God etc. And I'm thinking about something that I can prove.
When I think so, everything becomes suspicious. There is no possibility that the milk in front of you is poisoned. May not come tomorrow. It may have been lost forever even yesterday.


By the way, I would like to talk about a man in order to have some understanding of the confusion I am having. It is a story of a man named Fukaya who is sleeping in front of me.
He is always crying. He is in bed and crying like a child.
Fukaya is a 23-year-old niece. He suffers from the delusion that at night he sleeps unknowingly while he sleeps and kills people.
"I'm a murderer"
He is always crying.
I see him and I think I would do nothing about myself. That I don't know anything makes me uneasy. My mind is floating in the dark air.


After I wrote the letter, I turned to the bed and stared at the ceiling. As I watched the dirt on the ceiling, it looked like a human face or something like a scary ghost. The view of the world, or how this world looked to people, felt like something on the ceiling, something that could be seen in any way. For me, the world was elusive like a vision, as this pattern. Sometimes it looked like a mysterious mystery lurking, it seemed like there was a hidden secret, it looked like a meaningless chaos, even a machine with a purpose Looked.


1984 high school days


I remembered well that Miss. Mori jumped into the summer camp of the astronomical club that summer. In order to observe Perseus, we headed to a lake in Shinshu. Of course, Sakata also participated. It was a poor trip to go by the youth 18 ticket.
When I was playing cards on the train, I had eyes with her several times. Was she aware of my feelings? Sakata must have understood such a feeling of me.


When we arrived, we unloaded and looked at the scenery. The water in the lake was clear, and it was sad for some of the unused freight train rails to disappear to the bottom.


Luckily the weather was fine. We set fire to Kamodo while watching the sunset.
At night we all layed on a large monolith, and we saw the Milky Way, which we could not see in the city. A meteor flew without a gap. It was spectacular.
Sakata was lying next to me and eagerly looking up at the sky.
"University, where do I get?" I asked.
"Faculty of Law," he said at a glance.
"You're right. But what?"
"Because it's the top. I want to try how far I can go."
I really didn't understand. I thought that I wanted to write a novel, but I did not say that.
I thought while looking up at the distant starry sky. Someday I would like to write some of the dusty human joys and sorrows of this vast universe. But how could I do that?


I was staring in the dark, wearing a baseball cap and putting my back on the wall. The time is 4 am. It was the time when the eastern sky was lightly white. Everyone was sleeping in the bungalows. Everyone seemed tired at night meteor observations. Some people were snoring.
Mr. Mori was wrapped in a blanket and seemed unable to sleep. As I watched, she noticed my sight and pointed at the exit. I felt that my feelings were understood.
I walked silently to the lakeside. I threw a stone into the water in the dark. The sound of water shook quietly.
"I'm a little strange," she said,
"Yeah", I nodded.
"Worshiping Mary. Personally. Worshiping is a bit strange, but I always put her statue in the room and see how beautiful she looks. Is it strange?"
"I am worshiping Dazai."
She was thinking a little. And I said such a thing.
"Human beings are not good for clean things.
The words remained in my mind for a long time. Then we shut up. The eastern sky is stained red. The lake water reflected the red. The two returned to the bungalow and went to sleep.


That summer I made a silent date with Mr. Mori. It was really silent. I took a train from Machida and saw a movie called Flash Dance in Shinjuku. And until we came back eating hamburgers, we were silent at all. That was the age. This date was planned by a serious senior. So I didn't know what she was feeling. But at last she said, "Don't go away, are you?"


One day her house may have come close. The statue of Mary in the room was smaller than I thought. A small desk, a CD radio cassette player, and a study desk.
She handed the album, saying, "See?"


"I can't look at people's eyes," and she stared into my eyes. About 30 seconds, we were staring. The song of the woman vocal which was pleasant was lavish.
"Who is this?"
"Like me, lend me?"
"OK···"
It was the era, the evil woman," the lullaby" of the thistle moth, "the fight", the old masterpiece. Strange to say, Miyuki Nakajima looked good on her. The darkness suited a 17-year-old girl who wrought delicate poems.
After listening to Miyuki Nakajima for about an hour, I returned.


From that day I became a fan of Miyuki Nakajima. For me, 17-year-old, her song was a tribute to the coming life. Her dark song somehow reminded me of the light of hope. That's where Nakajima Miyuki is good.


I started reading Dazai. It was the summer of high three. It was a disgusting summer. I read the whole book "Osamu Dazai" on the sofa of the library with cooler.
Someday Sakata was saying.
"If you read Dazai, if you do not intend to criticize, you will be drawn into the world of the work."
But I couldn't read anything critically. And as a result, I wanted to be drawn into the world of his work little by little. It was a world of refined self euphoria. In that world, everything was slightly exaggerated than it was.


"Literature controls people. That is attractive." While I wanted to be a writer, I felt love for the work of him. This was a definite change that occurred in the process of becoming a boy and adolescent. Good or bad. And I spent that summer with Dazai.


I decided to go to visit the tomb of Dazai when I was calling with Mr. Mori. My relationship with her continued without progress like this. I applied to her for a date that day. Where are we going?
"I'm being invited to some other way ... how ..."
She said in a dull voice.
"Everyone loves Mr. Mori ..."
It was also hard to say. This was my confession.
"Where are you going?" She said.
"Go to the tomb of Dazai"
"Good to go alone ... then let's go somewhere together"
It seemed that there was no way to go to the tomb of Dazai with two people. But at that time I thought it was a good place for two people, seriously ...


The weather was fine in the morning of visiting the grave. According to the weather forecast, there will be a lot of clouds from now on. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and gave incense to Buddha. There was a picture of my father on the altar. The face of the photo was not laughing. He was a poor person with a smile. "I'm going to go to the tomb of Dazai, from now on," I put my hands together.
What did Dazai die of? Was it a love story out of the world? Or did he feel some literary despair? I did not know the fixed theory about such a thing. I just read the work. However, it was only certain that the power of his work increased by committing suicide.


I took the train to Mitaka and asked the way to the old-fashioned barge-headed man in front of the station.
"Do you like Dazai?"
The man looked awkward but told me a lot.
"That's right after buying a book. That's right, don't cross the world."
A trail continued along the narrow river. Sunlight was blocked by trees and did not reach the water surface. The leaves that had fallen to the water had already begun to turn yellow. The sand in the park caught my eyes in the wind. The sign of autumn was spreading.
When I was looking at the water, I suddenly found that the emotions that had dominated me had changed.
I threw a stone on the surface of the water.
"Goodbye Dazai"
I crawled in my heart.
I was about to end high school.


1996


I met Mori-san since I graduated from high school. Miss. Mori went out of college and got a job, and I wrote a letter from the hospital and had her notice.
At an old wooden coffee shop on the outskirts of Tama city, she dressed in a business suit and had a different taste from high school days.
"We saw the stars together ..."
She said so with eyes that looked a little further.
"I wanted to be a scholar of the stars ... so I think about life, like the Galaxy Railway 999."
I said a little bit.
Mr. Mori handed me the package, saying that he had borrowed it from my parents' home. When I opened it, it was three old photos.
I forgot the scene with the three pictures. I did not remember anything about childhood.
In the first picture, the baby, probably me, was wearing a baby's nightwear and laugh.


In the second picture, I was three years old at my amusement park and my mother is holding me. My mother was pointing to show me Mt. Fuji in the distance.
In the third picture, in front of Takaosan Shrine, I, my brother and my father were posing for three people. My father wore thin sunglasses and smiles.


I pressed my eyes. And I felt like this. I, my father, my brother, and my mother were all happy.


2017
Long years had passed. "People are old and return to boys, "I think on the bench in front of the supermarket. Next to me is my partner who had been with me for the last 10 years. I liked the winter morning light. As I wrought about my partner, this would also be a long story, so I would write it later.
The song I sang for the first time as a boy was "Please give me wings" ...
All things shift. Time flew like a cigarette smoke. But I still had to go beyond all that will happen. I sat on a bench and spent my time singing songs from my youth.


Thank you for reading the end !!!! 1