A Man

by Keiichirō Hirano

“I keep myself together by living other people’s pain,” he said eventually with an indescribably lonesome smile. “It’s like the expression ‘the man who goes mummy hunting ends up a mummy himself . . .’

Novelists, whether consciously or unconsciously, are always on the lookout for people that can serve as models for their novels. That is, we eagerly await the serendipity of someone like Meursault or Holly Golightly appearing out of the blue one day.

Was this how the world revealed itself to his eyes, so open and unfettered? What would life be like to calmly face such a reality?

That was enough music for him, for he felt both his inner and outer worlds grow placid while maintaining their separateness.

I suppose it’s a fact that the present is a result of the past. In other words, one is able to love someone in the present thanks to the past that made them the way they are. While genetics are surely a factor too, if that person had lived under different circumstances, they would have probably become a different person—but people are incapable of telling others their entire past, and regardless of their intentions, the past explained in words is not the past itself. If the past someone told diverged from the true past, would the love for that person be mistaken somehow? If it was an intentional lie, would that make it all meaningless? Or could it give rise to new love?

it was heartrending for Kido to see how the man’s bloated sense of self-importance had hurt his wife, had put their young child through agony during what little time had remained to him, and was now in the process of bringing his own life to ruin.

Much as with many perpetrators of domestic violence, his efforts to show Kido that he was a respectable person reeked of desperation.

Her small diamond necklace caught the light and glittered like a grace note in a song.

The idea that there might be a connection between loving someone and their philosophy never even crossed my mind when I was young. It’s hard to say if I was overvaluing love or undervaluing philosophy.”

Kido now saw the potential for a new sort of hobby in synchronizing himself with the life story of another so as to vicariously inhabit their inner world. Admittedly, a shameless game with a bitter aftertaste.

I’m afraid to die, he thought. The instant he died—and not a moment later!—his consciousness would cease, and he would be incapable of thinking or feeling anything ever again, leaving time to proceed with no connection to him, passing solely for the sake of the living.

It had nonetheless exterminated him via capital punishment for violating the legal order it upheld, looking on with implacable righteousness, as though reality thereby accorded with justice. Kido believed this was wrong. For the judiciary to cancel out such a failure of the legislative and executive branches by nullifying the existence of the resulting lawbreaker was simply disingenuous. If such a system went unchallenged, a vicious cycle would emerge in which the blighted citizenry needed to be executed in ever greater numbers as the state slipped further and further into decline.

“If we are ever going to wipe away the evil of murder, then as a fundamental baseline condition, we need to reject the idea that it is acceptable to kill in extreme cases. It may not be easy, but I believe that that is what we should be aiming for. Offenders will surely never be forgiven, but the state should bear the blame for the social conditions underlying their crimes and take responsibility by providing substantial support to the victims, instead of feigning innocence and pandering to punitive sentiments. Whatever policy is chosen, my view is that the state must never descend to the same ethical lows as the evil of murder.”

“Shouldn’t Japanese people treat it as a problem with their own country and be obligated to go to the counter-demonstrations themselves? They’re the ones who are giving those scoundrels free rein,” Kido had told her, even though, as a Japanese person, he should have been rushing to the scene to show his support from day one . . .