(will that be my solace?…Probably.)
（続き）
The music used for the slides was
PianoGuy
Butterfly Dance
SoundCloud
Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cahha3pon5tpzngpddaimdof/post/3mmwyay2bfk2m
It was past six o’clock and getting a bit dark, but I felt like taking some photos of the doll.
At the west-facing window, as usual.
I placed the eco-bag with the picture of a blue hen on it there.
Apparently, it’s from a well-known supermarket chain in that part of the world. I received it as a souvenir.
‘It looks more like a cockerel than a hen,’ I thought. As I searched online, wondering if there really were blue chickens, I discovered for the first time that there is a state with the same name as a variety of seedless grapes.
From there, though the country is different, I imagined the daily lives of an elderly man and woman, much like Matthew and Marilla.
Even living in a dominant nation, they would likely never leave their hometown for their entire lives.
Every day, they would till the land, grow old, and pass away.
No matter how powerful a nation may be, there are always people living modest lives.
A world where everything is evil, like Giedi Prime, exists only in fiction.
I have sometimes daydreamed of a story set in Japan’s Warring States period, about a single peasant in a small country caught between great powers.
The young heir to this small country is clearly a man who has lost his mind. His followers, too, have a possessed look in their eyes as they spend their days engrossed in warfare. Among the neighbouring peasants, a man emerges who dreams of going to war and rising to prominence. Yet, gradually, signs of possession begin to appear in him too. Meanwhile, the peasant protagonist spends his days tilling the land trampled by men and horses, gazing from afar at those possessed by demons. And so, he quietly grows old and dies.
I wonder if anyone would write a historical novel like that.
The blue hen on the eco-bag reminded me of a time when I used to dabble in such foolish things.
If my wife were still alive, she would surely have listened to the end and then said:
‘You’re the only one who finds that sort of story interesting.’
That smiling face, saying those words, now exists only in my imagination.
It struck me as something rather strange.
18時を過ぎて、薄暗くなってきてはいたのだが、人形を撮りたくなった。
いつものとおりの西の窓辺。
青い雌鶏の絵のエコバックを配して。
なんでも、彼の地では有名な食料品スーパーマーケットのもの。お土産として頂いた。
雌鶏と言うよりも雄鶏のようなだな。とか、青い鶏がいるのかと思いながら検索していて、種無し葡萄の品種と同名の州があることを初めて知った。
そこから、国は違うが、マシューとマリラのような、年老いた男女が営む日々の暮らしを空想した。
覇権国家に暮らしていても、彼らは一生、地元を離れることはないだろう。
毎日、土地を耕し、老いて、死んでいく。
どんなに勢いのある国であっても、慎ましい生活を送る人々がいる。
Giedi Prime のように全てが悪という世界は創作の中にしか存在しない。
日本の戦国時代、大国の狭間の、小さな国の一人の百姓の物語を夢想したことがある。
小国の若い世継ぎは、明らかに常軌を逸した人物。付き従う者たちも何かに取り憑かれたような目つきをしていて、戦に明け暮れている。近隣の百姓の中から、同じように戦に出て、成り上がることを夢見る者が出てくる。が、その男にも、次第に憑き者の相が現れ始める。一方、主人公の百姓は、取り憑かれた者たちを遠く眺め、人馬に踏み荒らされた土地を耕して毎日を過ごす。そして、静かに老いていき、死ぬ。
誰か、そんな時代小説を書いてくれないかな。
ひと頃、愚にも付かぬことを弄んでいたのを、エコバックの青い雌鶏から思い出した。
妻が生きていたら、最後まで聞いてから、きっと、こう言うだろう。
そんな話が面白いと思うのは、あなただけよ。
そう言って笑う顔は、もう想像の中にしか存在しない。
それが何とも不思議なことに思えた。
