ha-18t

[ha-18t]

Oguro Kafka - Thanatophobia

Novel

Chapter 2

💬 Translation under the cut!

...

Originally, fishing was something I only did because of the bet with my mother, but I eventually became obsessed. Playing outside was always difficult for me, but fishing was good for thinking. I could strategize about what to use as bait, but in the end, what I caught was entirely determined by luck. That kind of randomness intrigued me.

Ultimately, our bet ended in a draw. The day my father and I went out to compete against each other, the weather wasn’t very good and we both ended up empty handed.

My father looked so disappointed upon seeing our empty buckets, but my mother just laughed.

I spent the rest of that year fishing, up until I experienced a minor event.

Well, I say minor, but… to me it felt major.

“You fish at the hospital? That’s crazy!”

“Hey, hey, what type of fish do you catch here?”

That day, some children were following me around and being noisy without my permission.

The children were a pair of siblings close in age to me - I heard that their father fractured his foot in an accident and was hospitalized. When they went to visit him, they spotted me with my fishing rod and started following me around out of curiosity… That was our first encounter.

Since that encounter, the siblings would always follow me around whenever they came to visit. I wanted to ask them if it was okay that they weren’t in their father’s room and that instead they were here with me day in and day out.

To be blunt, I was confused and I didn’t know how to handle them.

Their father travels the world as a photographer, and they would also usually tag along with their parents for work. However, their dad had injured himself trying to take pictures in an unexplored area of Japan. “We’re happy just to be able to stay in Japan for a while,” they would say, thanks to him.

Well, I wasn’t necessarily interested in what they had to say. The siblings would just ramble on casually, but I didn’t want to hear it.

I didn’t know what these two wanted from me. I wouldn’t even respond when they talked to me. When I caught a fish, I’d explain what it was to them, but I still struggled with even that type of relationship.

Most of the other children just stare at me blankly when I talk to them. My way of speaking was just too complex for them to understand. Even when I tried to speak normally, I struggled to keep up with conversations. But when the siblings talked to me, it was like they were trying to completely grasp the things I was saying.

One day, my father asked me if they were my friends and it made me so angry that I burrowed under the covers. They were absolutely not my friends. There was no way they saw me as a friend either. Who would want to be friends with somebody who only said the names of fish?

“This… here! Let’s exchange messages through this cassette!”

And yet, one day, one of the siblings approached me with an idea. They handed me a cassette tape that looked straight out of the Heisei era.

“I’ve already recorded something, so make sure you listen!” They said, grinning wildly.

I was surprised.

Why? Why would they do that? No matter how much I tried to solve the equation or read into the complexities of their language, I couldn’t get it. An unfriendly and perpetually hospitalized child who can only say the names of fish - why would you want to give a cassette to somebody like that?

I reluctantly accepted it, but the idea made me nervous. It was the first time in my life I had received a gift from a child my age.

When I went back to my room and listened to the recording, the content was trivial.

They talked about their dad’s hospital stay, the hospital snacks they ate yesterday, research they’ve done on horse mackerels, and their interest in fishing.

Sometimes, I would hear the other sibling’s voice chime in.

“-Ah, you’re recording the cassette. You said you wanted to get to know him better, right?”

Every now and then I would even faintly hear somebody who must have been the sibling’s mother.

When I was listening to the recording, my heart started beating fast and my cheeks were completely flushed.

My heart wouldn’t slow down. It was a strange sensation.

I found myself listening to it over and over again.

I was asked to record a reply as well. What should I say?

I thought about it for a while, and I figured that since it was on a cassette, it would be easier for them to parse what I was saying.

Ultimately, I ended up pressing record on the tape.

I carefully responded to each topic one by one.

I wished their dad a quick recovery. I talked about the snacks at the hospital. I corrected their misinformation about horse mackerels.

Originally, I was just going to say goodbye and hang up at that.

“…I hope you’ll come visit me again.”

And yet, I found myself saying that.

I tried to turn it off, but the Heisei era cassette tapes didn’t come with a function like that.

At that time, thinking about the fact that one of the siblings gave me this cassette tape… I felt overjoyed.

I still think that we can’t be friends. But really, deep in my heart, I wish we could be.

For some reason, the words my mother used to say suddenly flashed in my mind.

“It’s okay to be afraid of dying, Kafka.”

Wanting a friend and being afraid of death. I wasn’t sure how my brain connected those two things. Somehow, I feel like my mother would have understood.

After several rounds of recordings on the cassette, I finally said it.

“Come visit me tomorrow… and I’ll teach you how to fish.”

Is what I said.

At that moment, I made a promise for the future to a child I didn’t even know- and at last, we were both communicating.

-

There’s a saying that ‘Good luck and bad luck alternate like the strings of a rope.’ [1]

However, the gods of this world are a little bit cruel to me.

I asked them to visit tomorrow and I made a promise to them for that day, but overnight my health rapidly deteriorated.

All I remember is the tray holding my dinner flipping over as it fell to the floor, the pitter patter of footsteps around the hospital, and the frantic exchanges between the nurses and doctor as they carried me away.

“…he needs an emergency surgery, doctor!”

It must have been my father crying out.

“I agree - Kafka, please…”

My mother’s voice trembled as she spoke.

After that, they put me to sleep. I don’t remember anything after that, aside from the one thought going through my head-

I made a promise… that I would teach them to fish if they visited tomorrow.

If I were to die just like this… I wonder what those two would think.

What… would I think?

For the first time in my life, I made a promise to somebody outside of my family. Teaching them to fish would be nice. Even if just a little… it would be nice to have hope that I still could.

Why have I completely blocked out the idea of making friends normally?

Right then, I didn’t want to die.

‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,’ is what I kept thinking.

‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. I want to live.’

‘I want to stay alive, and I want to keep my promise.’

What have I even accomplished?

‘I don’t want to die. I can’t die yet.’

Even if it’s just something small, I can’t die until I have something that proves that I lived.

With that thought, I suddenly understood why my mother was so afraid of death.

Even though my body is nothing but 14kg of oxygen, about 4kg of carbon, 2kg of hydrogen, 700g of nitrogen, and various amounts of other elements.

‘A person only truly dies when all memories of them are gone.’

If I died right now, nobody would retain any memories of me and everybody would forget that I even existed in this world.

It was a depressing thought. My body and my mind would simply scatter into fragments of nothing into an eternal dark void. It was a terrible and vile feeling.

There is no guarantee that you will continue to live, even if you cling to it - death is unforgiving, and will rip you away without considering your personal wishes…

Ah, this fear…

This must be thanatophobia. I finally realized how my mother felt.

-

When I awoke from the anesthesia, I was back in the same hospital room as always.

The operation was a success.

Above my head, I could see the medicine in the IV pack dripping down.

I was unconscious for a few days - while I was out, the father of the siblings, who I had promised to teach how to fish, was discharged from the hospital.

…I assumed I would never see those two again.

‘I broke my promise, they must hate me now.’ That’s really what I thought.

That thought made an all encompassing sadness take over my body.

After all, it was the first time I expected a child my age to come and see me.

Really, I wanted to get closer to them.

That child, I wanted them to hold the memory that I lived.

Such a simple concept, and yet I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

I should have told them sooner, instead of being afraid.

‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know about fishing.’

‘I just want to talk to both of you more.’

That night, sitting with my regrets, I cried.

The next morning, there was a surprise waiting for me when I awoke.

“Good morning, Kafka.”

Right there in my hospital room sat the siblings that I so desperately wanted to see. The child I had been exchanging the tapes with had been crying, and their eyes were bright red.

When they looked at the IV stuck in my arm, they teared up and gripped my hand tight.

With a desperate look, they spoke to me.

“Let’s be friends, Kafka.”

The second they said that, they burst into tears again. I should have told them sooner. They were afraid that if I would have never woken up, they would have had to say goodbye without me hearing that.

At that moment, it was as if the world was shaking around me.

It was as if my tiny hospital room and my rough illness disappeared for a moment. My eyes were opening to a whole new future.

Mother. This may not be one of the secrets of the whole world. But in my world, this is what uprooted everything.

To just this one ordinary child, who was somebody nothing like me, who wasn’t extraordinary in any way… It was silly, but this person had sparkling and pure feelings for me.

Isn’t that enough of a wonder to classify it as one of the secrets of this world?

…

[1] lit. “Kafuka wa azanaeru nawa no gotoshi”

[ha-18t]

Oguro Kafka - Thanatophobia

Novel

Chapter 1

💬 Translation under the cut!

...

That day, I woke up in the same hospital room.

The seven year old me sighed. The bright white room was in the children’s ward of Daikoku Hospital. For as long as I could remember, I had been in and out of the hospital, but recently I had not been able to go back home at all. That house on the wharf was only faintly visible in my memory.

“I wonder if my father will visit today… or maybe my mother…”

I might have been physically sick, but that didn’t mean I was unhappy.

My family would always take time off of work to visit me. My father, who was the tourism director, and my mother, who was a scientist, would always visit my room.

The times when my mother would visit were always interesting - she was extremely well-informed and would always have a story to tell me.

My father was… Well, he would just tell me it was lonely without me in the house. But he would always do his best to express his feelings to me. That was how I received his love.

“But… I’m going to die someday, right?”

Looking out the window and into the clear sky above, I whispered that to myself.

I couldn’t go outside, I couldn’t go to school. I had no friends. I wasn’t the only one in the children’s ward, but it felt like everybody kept me at arm’s length. Well, it could have been because I didn’t act my age, or maybe because my family was a household name in HAMA.

“You’re a bit special.” My mother would tell me,

“But being special is a blessing, Kafka. If everybody was the same as you, what would make you stand out?”

But was that my mother’s belief? Or my own?

Either way, if my life ends early, what sort of blessing would my special-ness have given me? If I were to die right now, what would I even have been born for?

Neither of my parents showed up that day, so I asked for permission to go up to the rooftop garden.

Although the garden was simple, it had a bench for me to read and think on. That day, there was a small bird laying dead on the concrete. It must have hit something and fell. The little bird’s eyes were closed and it was completely limp.

‘Poor thing’, I thought for a moment. I thought it would be a good idea to bury it. But, I wasn’t sure if somebody as frail as I was should have been handling a dead, wild bird. I asked my nurse, who gave me a mask and gloves, and I buried it in the courtyard of the hospital.

Despite its sudden death, I didn’t think we were that different from each other. Just like the bird, I could have had a sudden heart attack, fell over, and died on the rooftop garden. And I would have just wanted the person who found me to be kind to me.

The nurse left, and I just stood there in front of the little bird’s grave. Suddenly, a shadow cast over me. I looked up and saw my mother, clad in her white uniform. She must have left work early.

“You buried a little bird?”

My mother definitely heard it from the nurse.

“Yes, it was dead.”

I was sure the bird was dead, but even through the gloves I could feel its body, heavier and warmer than I was expecting. It made me wonder if it was still alive.

“One day, will I also be like that bird?”

“….”

My mother suddenly fell silent, then asked me…

“What do you think it means to be ‘dead’?”

“Isn’t it when your heart stops beating?”

“Or, maybe when your thoughts stop?”

My mother took my hand and pulled me towards a bench in the courtyard so we could talk.

“Some people even believe that a person only truly dies when all memories of them are gone.”

With that said, my mother continued with the subject.

“The current Japanese medical definition for death is cardiac arrest, cessation of respiration, loss of the light reflex, and dilation of the pupils. Legally, you can define death as the cessation of respiration and a general inability to resuscitate.”

“Is animal death the same?”

“If we are only talking about physical death, then death can simply be defined as the irreversible departure from life.”

My mother led me to the bench and then sat down beside me.

The wind blew gently through the courtyard, and I could faintly smell chemicals from my mother’s work uniform. The scent was sterile, tranquil, and cold. I didn’t dislike it.

“So, yes. All life on Earth is dependent on carbon polymers. When you look at it that way, the process of dying isn’t that different between humans and other things on Earth. Either way, the body stops, decomposes, becomes microbial fertilizer, and leaves behind everything that isn’t usable.”

My mother talked about death so bluntly.

She stroked my head and asked me, “What do you think about death, Kafka?”

I thought for a moment, and decided to tell her what had been going through my mind.

“No matter what, all living things die… So I shouldn’t be afraid… but really, I’m not sure. Sometimes I feel as if I’m going to die, but I’m still alive.”

My mother kept stroking my head, and lapsed back into silence.

At some point, her hand stopped.

“I am… a thanatophobe. Death has always been… a huge fear of mine. When I was giving birth to you, I was terrified.”

The usually intense voice of my mother suddenly seemed so small. I looked up to meet her face, and she was staring far into space as if lost in thought.

But in a split second, my mother’s face turned to a smile.

She pulled me close to her chest and hugged me wistfully, squeezing my arms.

“Of course, I’m so happy that I gave birth to you.” She added.

“…But, I wish it had been a healthier birth. There are some things you only learn when you’re close to death. I know that from experience.”

It’s very rare for my mother to make such a negative statement. Rarely, and really only rarely, would my mother say something so gloomy. Only when she would talk about my body, or my death.

My mother and I look so much alike. My father would always say that. He’s so proud that I inherited my mother’s beautiful face and smarts. He wishes I wasn’t so sick though. He doesn’t say it, but I know he thinks it.

“Kafka, unlike me, there’s a major surgery you can have when you’re an adult. It’s possible to make a full recovery. If you live until 20, you will likely have a healthy future.”

“Unlike you…?”

“I…”

After saying that, my mother couldn’t get a clear word out. I didn’t know what to do. My mother had a job, but just like me, she was always bedridden and in and out of the hospital a lot.

“Kafka, let’s make a bet. If you live until 20, I’ll give you a surprise.”

“Huh?”

I wanted to ask her if she would be alive then, but I couldn’t get the words out.

These little bets that my mother and I would make were so much fun - like our own secret game.

It was always how she would try to lighten the mood.

Every single day felt the same. I would wake up in the same hospital room, and I would sleep in the same hospital room. In the midst of instability, I counted on these bets with my mother to get me at least a little excited about the future.

That’s why… I didn’t want to bet against my mother.

“I think it would be more fun to bet on what’s for dinner tonight.”

“Is that so?”

We bet that the hospital would have Jell-O. On the way to the cafeteria, my mother unexpectedly put her head to mine and whispered to me.

“Until your surgery at 20 years old… no, even after that… we can’t be afraid of death, Kafka. Death is simply a cessation of the physical being. The mind is much more complex than that.”

“Isn’t being so close to death and so terrified of it exhausting?”

“Having justifiable fears can add purpose to your life.”

My mother looked directly into my eyes and murmured, as if she was revealing the secret to life.

“If you live your life to the fullest, you’ll eventually be privy to the secrets of the world.”

“The secrets of the world…?”

When I repeated her, my mother let out a painful, wistful laugh.

“Whether knowing them is a blessing or a curse… That’s up to you to decide.”

My mother was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand.

The secrets of the world, huh. Are they that important? More important than unsolved mathematical formulas, undiscovered ideas, and the story of everything beyond our universe?

My mother, who has lived her whole life afraid of death… does she already know all the secrets of this world?

“Think it over, maybe while you’re fishing.”

My mother let go of my body and stood up quickly. I was caught up on her bringing up fishing so suddenly, but my mother just laughed and stroked my arm.

“There’s a fishing spot by the hospital, just through the courtyard. If you want to learn, your father can teach you.”

“Ehhh… I’m happy just playing on the computer.” I grumble.

“Let’s make a bet, then.” My mother says.

“Fishing is surprisingly heavy on the brain. You have to think about the tides, the wind, the temperature, the season, the bait. I bet you can’t catch more fish than your father. You wouldn’t think about that kind of stuff.”

When my mother wanted me to act upon something, she would always say ‘Alright, then I guess Kafka has thrown in the towel and I won the bet!’

“Alright! I’ll learn from my father, and I’ll make you proud!”

My mother just laughed out loud at my defiance.

The sunlight reflected off of her in the courtyard, making her hair and eyes sparkle.

Back then, she looked like the surface of the ocean on a sunny day, reflecting the light onto the pier.

...

[ha-18t]

Misc. Kafka Home Screen Lines