（続き）
The music used for the slides was
chairhouse
His Little Nameless Unremembered Acts - #3826 '84R35 Percent 710 Left) By Chair House 240605
SoundCloud
I got married at the age of 25 and moved four times. The first and second, third and fourth times were each in the same neighbourhood, so the landline phone number only had to be changed twice.
The third time we moved to a residential area in the mountains, following the advice of an ENT doctor that our daughter had been seeing in the winter.
Every day, we could hear the cries of warblers and little cuckoos.
My wife told me that if we put a feeder on the drying balcony, it would attract small birds.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that small birds will come. Wouldn't it be a problem if pigeons and crows started coming? I responded,
Certainly. She nodded.
Beyond the balcony was a mountain owned by a private railway company, with a railway line running underneath it, lower than the road. There was no road into that mountain, even though it was visible right in front of us. Maybe that's why, somewhere on that mountain, an owl lives.
At the dawn of winter, at a time when it was still night, I got up to work on my take-home.
It was at that time that I heard the owl's call.
My wife must have still been asleep, but when we moved for the fourth time,
'Gorosuke ho-ho-ho. I guess they don't hoot here." She said.
I said, "What is that? I've never heard such onomatopoeia before."
She said, "Oh, you don't know? That's what owls call it.
She add, 'It's a more convincing onomatopoeia than the Hototogis teppenkaketaka,' she also said.
'Sad to hear it no more.'
At dawn the day before my wife's funeral, I went to the third house, where I had left various things, to pick up my mourning clothes; it was mid-November, but the owls were hooting and I remembered my wife's voice, which she had muttered ruefully some years ago.
Owls stop hooting in spring, as if they are going somewhere else, but when the nights are long, they start hooting again.
Perhaps it is not the same owl, but a replacement generation.
25歳で結婚して、転居は四回。一度目と二度目、三度目と四度目は、それぞれ近隣であったため、固定電話の番号変更は二度で済んだ。
三度目は、娘が冬になると掛かっていた耳鼻科医の助言に従い、山間の住宅地への転居になった。
ウグイスやホトトギスの鳴き声が聞こえる毎日。
妻は、物干しのベランダに餌台を置けば、小鳥が集まるのではないかと私に言った。
しかし、小鳥が来るとは限らない。ハトやカラスが来るようになったら困るのではないか？と応えると、
確かに。と頷いた。
ベランダの向こうには、私鉄の所有地である山があり、その下、道路よりも低いところに線路が通っていた。すぐ目の前に見えていても、その山へ入る道はない。だからなのか、その山のどこかにフクロウが棲んでいる。
冬の明け方、未だ夜のような時刻に私は起きて、持ち帰りの仕事に取り組んだ。
その時刻にフクロウの声が聞こえた。
妻は未だ眠っていたはずなのだが、四度目の転居で、
「ごろすけほーほー。ってここでは鳴かないのね。」と言った。
私が、「何、それ？そんな擬音語初めて聞いた。」と言うと、
「えっ、知らない？フクロウはそういって鳴いてるやん」と言った。
「ホトトギスのテッペンカケタカよりも納得できる擬音語だ」とも言った。
「もう聞けないのが悲しいね。」
妻の葬儀前日の明け方、いろんなものを残したままの三番目の家に喪服を取りに行った。１１月の半ばだったが、フクロウが鳴いていて、何年か前に残念そうに呟いた妻の声を思い出した。
フクロウは春になると、どこかへ行くのか、鳴き声を聞かなくなるのだが、夜の長い季節になると、また鳴き始める。
多分同じフクロウではなく、代替わりした世代なのだろう。
