At the End of the Matinee

by Keiichirō Hirano

“How sad. Nowadays people stay healthy well into old age, so falls are what’s really dangerous.”

“People think that only the future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing the past. The past can and does change. It’s exquisitely sensitive and delicately balanced.”

My father told me I suffer from Death in Venice Syndrome, a disease he made up. It supposedly means “Growing suddenly tired of conforming to society at the onset of middle or old age and taking self-destructive actions with the intent of returning to one’s original self.” That’s me in a nutshell.

I suppose you could say their beauty makes the horror acceptable, brings it into focus. Few people can look at horror straight on, unadorned. If they do, they try to forget what they’ve seen, to expunge it from memory.

All sorts of things punch holes in our destiny, I think. Without there being anything we can do about it. And sometimes it may be a bullet. That’s what it comes down to.”

“Your existence has punched a hole in my life. Or rather, it’s embedded deep within me.”

Loneliness, when it came down to it, was the awareness of your utter lack of influence in the world—knowing that you could and would have zero influence on either your contemporaries or on future generations.

Don’t give up hope. You are going to get better. But instead of trying to go back to your old self, you need to shape your new self in a way that you can accept.

“Free will is necessary to have hope for the future. People need to believe that there is something they can do to make a difference. Right? But at the same time, free will increases their remorse over the past. They feel there must have been something they could have done. Sometimes, a belief in destiny is comforting.”