The Future

Passed.

The last part of my chronicles (I hope it is the last part) will begin in a saying I recall reading on a forum back in the day;

"Sleep 4 hours, pass.
Sleep 3 hours, fail.
Sleep 2 hours, ace."

How many hours did I sleep last night, you ask? One and a half. I was cramming so much, before I noticed, it was past 4 in the morning. When I eventually decided to go to sleep, I set the DS to be one of my alarm clocks, and realise looking at the countdown that I only had about 90 minutes to go before I force myself out of bed again.

This was of course not the best way to tackle an exam that as I stated, will control the outcome of my life from here on. However, at this point, I didn't care about the mathematics and just thought, hey, I'll add some counterbalance to this pathetic excuse of a test-result with more physics questions solved. And seeing as I have a 50-minute break smack in the middle of exam time (from taking a ridiculously easy English exam), I slept some during the day.

Try and visualise it. Between mathematics to make you want to cry and physics packed with hope and electromagnetism; between skyscrapers and underground-trains (going over-ground, under you and over your head); between 11AM and 12:20, I succumb to a very deep sleep and dream for the first time in weeks or months. Seemingly completely pointless dreams; designed to keep you curious enough to want to see more; to see something interesting. Whatever it takes to rest that brain just a little longer, the dream will work to entice you. Sleep just a little longer.

And then the English exam is over with, the physics exam over with (felt like I did the best on that one so-far), and what I'm left with is four days where all I can do is wait.

If I look at the trends up until last year, the faculty I want to enter has required less and less points for the total of the exams. However, the one next to it in the list has gone from 66% to 40% in like, two years. Meaning there is no guarantee for me that this year won't be a freak-year where everyone scores really high and I fall behind being the stupid foreigner. Although, if I trust the trend and assume I got half as many questions right as I think I did, there is no doubt to the fact that I passed. Sure, it would really suck if I didn't pass right now, I would probably kill one of my room-mates and then rape all the school-girls in my province, figuratively speaking, but the statistics man (I hate statistics; it shouldn't be part of mathematics), they speak in my favour and I want to listen.

Listening will make these four days of waiting a lot easier.

I have now completely lost confidence in myself and almost wonder why it is everyone believes in my ability to perform well in pretty much everything.

The first question of a lot of related questions in the Physics exam today was like, what is the vertical component of the object being launched? I break up the vector, formulate what the vertical component is, look at the options and realise it's not there. What the fuck?!

If I'm lucky I probably scraped up half of the points on that test. The mathematics was a different, also very sad story. No long-division, no geometry, a trigonometry question that pretty much limited itself to the tan spectrum of the unit circle, no differentiation (pretty much) and no mercy whatsoever. Not pleased at all with that test. It was pretty much 200% shit-in-your-face, giving you little to actually do for the time remaining, because you sure as hell can't figure anything out.

Today, however, I spent the 50 minutes of time remaining after answering and checking the English questions in a very deep satisfactory sleep. Yesterday, I was like, "focus-focus-focus-focus-don't blink-focus-foucus-E=mc^2-focus". Somehow mentally preparing for the next test because the first test was such a slap in the face.

Anyways, I'm sure I'll do a lot better tomorrow. I think one of my problems is I spent so much time going over the physics (even parts that are not going to be on the exam, like modern Einstein physics) and not actually going over exam papers. So what I'm going to do tonight, is go over all the exam papers I have in possession, repeating questions if I have to. And I realise this is something I should have done since day 1. Because while I understand "everything" on the tests, I don't always know how to derive the answers. Even when I remember all the formulas, I somehow don't find my way to the desired answer. I think this is directly related to the fact that I haven't "done" much physics. And in essence, "doing" physics is the same thing as "doing" mathematics alongside sometimes plugging in constants.

Fucking frustrating test.

So as of today, I may perhaps technically be a university student here in Japan.

I made it through the first day of exams. My impression; a lot more difficult than what I expected.

I really did get 100/100 on the English bit, there is no question about that. There was one tricky question with at least two possible and perfectly valid translations, that I had to give some second thought. But knowing Japanese, I know what the question aims to make you think about / get confused about. However, the mathematics... oh my god, that was a serious kick in the teeth. There were a few fields of mathematics I actually left un-studied because the past-papers only included one or two questions related to those fields in one and the same paper. But this morning was like they only used questions from those fields. And while I understand basic probability and chance, there's quite a bit of it I can't calculate because I don't know the algorithms / the notation / the answer to question 2-III that is being referred to in the three follow-up questions.

So not too pleased about my performance in mathematics; I even got the formula for area of a triangle confused with the cosine rule. On the other hand, I'm sure I got about half of the physics questions without fail. I realised a few embarrassing mistakes on the way home, like the sides of a triangle with angles 30, 60 and 90 degrees. That helped me mess up a pretty long calculation because of something that should be simple enough, like cos(60).

Anyways, I was really disheartened after only answering a few parts of the mathematics and probably making mistakes everywhere. So I asked once and for all how the tests are weighted. I mean, the lowest passing score is set pretty low. Would it be possible to just do really well at certain exams and at the same time not do well at all for mathematics? Turns out that is exactly the case. It also turns out there are a lot of people showing up to the exam after mathematics is already over with. So in theory, it is completely feasible to pass this exam without getting a single point for mathematics.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how the questions within each test are weighted. So I may actually be taking all the points for the cheap low-ranked questions (except for the English bit, where I'm absolutely sure I get the full score) bringing me to a total that is less than those who skip whole test-subjects.

So in conclusion, the first day of exams is done with... feels like a complete disaster. But at least I know fairly certainly that I passed.

I actually bought this album today and meant to write a review for it, but considering there are two CDs and a DVD of pure awesome to take into consideration, I guess I'll get back to that in due course.

And thus, I'm a day closer to the day that will dictate whether my dreams come true or not. Feels good man. I'm very anxious about the test, of course. But something tells me all the textbooks I waded through back-to-back weren't waded through for nothing. Something tells me the past-papers I went over weren't in complete waste.

I heard some interesting speculation at school today. "Don't they mark entrance exams in favour of foreigners?", "Isn't it easier to get in as a westerner?". I'm sure they do want westerners to come to Japanese universities. I read all about that in the newspapers here. They are indeed actively trying to make studying abroad easier for non-nationals. But I doubt marking of entrance exams would be done in favour of foreigners.

On the other hand, there are plenty of different ways for a student to enter a university here in Japan. Japanese kids, in general, take a bunch of tests in the beginning of the year, get ranked and send their test results to the schools they could consider going to. Others might do what I'm doing, which is go to the actual school they want to enter and take tests they have prepared. This costs a bit of money, and in order to apply to a different school, a different test is required and a different fee needs to be paid. If you fail this exam, there's usually a second or third exam along with additional fees.

In addition to these two types of entrance exams, there are numerous ways for students to apply for universities. High-school grades, recommendations, tests aimed specifically at exchange/foreign students, interviews etc. It really is up to each and every applicant to decide what best suits them / what they can afford.

My option sounds really easy when you consider one of the subjects on the testing-schedule is English, my first language. That's one subject I will without question be able to score 100/100 points on. But not without knowing Japanese - because the whole test is in Japanese, including, of course, all the other subjects. Luckily, I have enormous amounts of confidence in my Japanese, so technically, there really should be nothing hindering me from passing this exam.

When I say the day dictating whether my dreams come true or not is nearing, I really mean this weekend will be fatal in deciding what direction my life heads these following four years. And inevitably the years to follow. The tests are in two days, and I get to know whether I passed or not in about eight. The following week or two, I will wire money to the school (kind of sucks that school costs money in Japan), get scholarship-related paperwork done, visa-related paperwork done and matriculation-related paperwork done. If all goes well and according to plan, there will be time for me to join the family reunion in summer. If all goes well and according to plan, I will meet my niece for the first time, I will meet my brothers, my sister, my mom and dad, my cousins and uncles and aunts for the first time in a long time. If all goes well and according to plan, I will move into one of the school dorms, have access to all the information and friendship and love and happiness a Japanese institution of higher-education hosts, for four years. And those four years are going to be key in my grand strategy to change the world. Rid it of all this shit.

If things do not go according to plan, however, I'll have to go with plan B. I really do not want to go with plan B. And if, I was forced to go with plan B and plan B also failed - strictly speaking in hypotheticals here - I would have no choice but to go back to Sweden because just being in Japan would at that time become a financial waste. And my dreams would just slowly wither away alongside any reason for me to live (part of my strategy involves going to university right now, because considering the credits I have in Stockholm University and the fact that I was younger than my peers in Sweden and Japan when I graduated high school, my record "technically" only adds up to one sabbatical year... and that can be passed off as time learning Japanese... or at least it would be cool if that was the case). So yeah, I want to live for now, so I'm probably going to make sure there's no need for plan B or any other life/future-threatening option.

Remember how when you were completely new to something, there were only a few aspects of that thing you could say you completely understood. Like, mathematics for instance. I recall having so much trouble visualising what fractions were and how to use them in addition/subtraction/multiplication/division. I recall staring at that page in my textbook until tears were streaming out of my eyes. It was a frustration I had not felt up until that point in time.

But frustration is not and never has been enough to actually stop us from trying. Sometimes trying is the only actual way to reach the level of understanding you are craving for. So what I recall doing when I couldn't quite imagine a fraction divided by a number is I did the calculations. One half divided by two is a quarter. It's like multiplication of the denominator! No need for tears, we'll just apply this newfound rule to all fraction-problems and... problem solved... ?

Not quite. But it works, and I can solve the problems... or do the calculations, more like.

Now, however, I'm a decade-and-a-half away from that frustration, wondering how I could possibly make it through those calculations without a proper understanding of what it is I was doing.

Just the same way, actually, I have those moments of nostalgia regarding anime I watched right when I started studying Japanese, or a few weeks before that. I watched a lot of anime. But I didn't know any Japanese. My viewing experience was limited to what information I could gather from subtitles in English. But being able to read English, I was able to understand what was being said in the series. Not fully, but to make a comparison here, I was doing calculations based off the information in English, bringing me to the correct assumptions of what they were saying in the original Japanese.

Now, however, Japanese is like a first language to me (don't let my Japanese entries fool you, they are experiments). I watch anime without subtitles whatsoever. I actually fully understand what is being said in the raw, original language.

That makes me really curious to know how much of a difference it is to watch those episodes with full understanding, compared to the "mere calculations" I was doing in the past. I haven't actually watched the same series/episode more than once, so I can't really imagine the difference. But nostalgia from hearing a few opening themes of anime I watched back in the day brought me to thinking of this phenomenon. Measuring growth through a perceptible difference of application and understanding.

Worth a try once I get these tests out of the way, anyways. Man, I should not be writing this now.

Ok, so there's officially less than seven days to go before my grand examination. If I look at this realistically, I have an almost nonexsistant chance of failing the exam. But, you know, there's always a but somewhere in there. And, there's always an and there to remind you of all the possibilities. What I'm getting at, is, of course, Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

So today, when I ran into that cute girl I totally want to throw away all my time on, I couldn't help but invite myself to go wherever she was going. I couldn't help but remind myself of the whole life I led up until late Autumn last year when I decided I would stop drinking and get some studying done. I couldn't help but want to remember what it is like to regret you poisoned yourself for a whole night, and lost a month's rent worth of money (willingly). And my heart was beating so fast, craving for or preparing for the chemicals to enter my system. I thought for a second the only thing I could do to calm myself and release all the stress I had bottled up inside of me was to forget everything and get completely wasted.

But... before my eyeballs exploded out of their sockets, I doused my head in cold water, turned up the volume on my mp3-player and let Antonio Vivaldi tell it like it is with the force of a thousand angry gods. That's right; six mere days, I am not going to lose myself to temptations when the stakes are this high. I feel like I should; you know, high stakes make a win or a loss so much greater in all respects, but winning over the temptation is on its own a boost to bring me that final edge required to break the law. Murphy's Law.

My god, am I rambling... anyways, last weekend of any semblance of freedom spent. Since I last posted, I have finished going over the Physics, put all equations in neat order, gone over them a couple of times to minimalise any chance of misusing them or forgetting them. I also managed to go over a pretty significant bulk of the past exam-papers. Bear in mind this is not the night or morning before the actual test. I'm doing this several days ahead of time, which goes completely against my character.

My character... I want to read novels again. I want to study French and Spanish, maybe also a little Latin on the side. I want to appreciate the English language again. I want to appreciate nature and beauty. I want to give this world something to fear. A reason to run and hide. A reason to cry themselves to sleep. I want to dictate this world with ruthless force and unreasonable measures of control.

Just kidding. All I want right now, is DAT ASS.

So up until two days ago, I was studying really hard. I wanted to get all of the Physics revision out of the way before new-year, but that didn't work as smoothly as I hoped because there was some maths in the Physics books that I had to revise to get through all the proofs in Physics. And in high-school, I never really mastered Trigonometry, so that kind of came like a kick in the balls when I started going over (electromagnetic) Waves and Optics. So I'm still not done with all of Physics, to this day. But never fear, there's just a little more to go. I'm actually only a little over 100 pages to go. 100 pages I could read today.

But as I was saying, two days ago, I was invited to go ice-skating. Something I probably haven't done in 10 years, half my life, really. And I love ice-skating. I may suck at it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's awesome. Speed and momentum. Entrifugal force and shit. It's just that awesome.

So we manage to gather up 13 people from the dorm. All eager to twist an ankle or freeze a toe off or just good ol' get a concussion. We go to the local outdoor pool that has now been covered in a sheet of ice and skate alongside these probably 6-7 year old kids who can already do pirouettes. I try my best not to lose to these prodigies and I could probably partake in the Olympics now that I mastered all these figure-skating techniques. Damn right, I don't even mean the Special Olympics.

We stop by a family-restaurant, eat, and seeing as I wasn't going to be doing any studying after that, I grab a beer with everyone else. And then we watch some movies. Yay, great fun. No studying though. Too tired for that.

The next morning, I have the DOMS to end all DOMS. My thighs, my lower back, my arms, my abs a little, and to my greater surprise, my goddamn neck. Fucking shit. How am I supposed to study Waves if I have a fucking sore neck. So I end up wasting the entire day on chats and games and watching speedruns / starcraft matches. Oh and getting rid of a virus on my computer because of some real suspicious looking website. But only after trying for over 9000 hours. That helped me realise I had so much trojans and spyware on the computer since before, so it wasn't all a waste of my time. Or actually, it was, seeing as I'm wasting my time right now writing about it in a blog that isn't going to help me master Physics.

Anyways, there's two more days before school starts again. I'll have to go to this shit Japanese language school, meet these unmotivated part-timers teaching a crowd of unmotivated Koreans and like, Chinese how not to make the same mistake over again for the 9000^th time. Great fun. And that's going to make my delayed revision of maths even more half-assed. So I was thinking, instead of going over the remaining 2000+ pages of mathematics in Japanese page-by-page, I could just do the 2006-2009 old exam-papers and look up the stuff I'm not too sure about. And after passing the goddamn exam, I could go over the 2000+ pages at a reasonable pace, say, over the span of three months or something.

Sounds like a plan, doesn't it? Well, it should work out just fine; the requirements to pass this entrance exam are a lot lower than what I previously expected. But that's assuming I can hold my shit together when push comes to shove.

Also hope I can get a room in the school dorms, that would be like having the cake and eating it. Or like, there actually being cake. Because we all know, fundamentally;



Ok, that's enough blogging. Time to get back to studying.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of revision of Mathematics and Physics. I'm planning to take some entrance exams to universities here in Japan. Engineering universities, of course, raising the bar for what Maths you have to know and pull out of your ass in Japanese in less than or equal to one second.

It's a pain. Good thing, I'm a masochist, and I have a huge craving for pain all the time, so it really isn't as bad as it sounds when I say I get raped in the ass with a textbook on a daily basis. Figuratively speaking.

So I have like, half a metre more of textbooks (measuring the thickness) to make it through by the end of January. Now, I have confidence I can do it, only if I put my mind to it. And I was doing really well about a week ago, but shit started getting in the way.[/sodomy]

Japan is a blast. Life is high-paced and there's always shit to do. If you haven't fully mastered Japanese, you're either going to be studying it regularly or feeling heat and pressure because of language barriers all over the place. Now, I don't feel a lot of pressure from that. My Japanese is good. And I made my life less high-paced by not drinking alcohol at all for like, the past two months.

I do however live in a dorm. I have five room-mates. It's the cheapest shit ever. But being a room of six people, other dumbasses from the dorm feel they have the right to come visit and be friendly whenever the hell they please. Say this dumbass comes and talks to me, being all friendly and talking about how he wants me to teach him how to open a bra with one hand. Say I give him a clear vibe he's being a fucking nuisance and I am trying to get my maths on. All he has to do is take a few steps in the other direction and say some stupid annoying shit to another guy trying to quietly watch porn, in his bunk. He may not be breathing down my neck, but he's just as much a presence and a nuisance.

It's times like that I wish I was less of a cheapskate and moved into my own room.

Although, there's still people outside the dorm who manage to get in my way. I always believed I had it in me to just cut people out of my life whenever the time called for it, but I think I found someone who made a pretty good impression. Someone I might not afford to cut out.

What's worse? The time and effort of maintaining a relationship or the frustration of not enjoying every second of time granted to you?

If only I hadn't met this girl... yet.

I finally got to watching the American remake of The Ring, and to my great surprise, I actually am not entirely disappointed with it.

The style of the film is different from the original, the story has its own colour scheme, own soundtrack, own sound effects, and unlike how I remembered it, it actually doesn't do too much of the turn-up-the-volume-a-hundred-notches-trick to get scares. It even has a couple of nice special effects for being made 2002.

I'm probably going to insist until the day I die the original is over 9000 times better than the remake, but to be completely honest, the remake is good.

Pigs flew. Hell froze over. etc.

I'm doing this project in school. What the teacher asked of us is that we make questionnaires and have at least 50 people answer them. We then analyse the data of course and make an interesting presentation. Having absolutely no idea what to write/talk about, I just took two things close to my heart. Horror and psychology.

Of course, talking about the intricacies of horror would be interesting, seeing as I'm doing it in Japanese. However, I have to do something based on the data, which in turn has to give structure to some type of comparison. Seeing as not everyone reads horror, let alone books, I decided I would take the more easily compared films these books have given birth to. So Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge, whatever; I'm going to take these films and their remakes and make a case for the differences in psychology between Asians and westerners.

Now, the actual project hasn't taken any shape yet, really. I just decided I would watch some remakes for the sake of the analysis, and thus, I had to write something here now that I finally watched the American "The Grudge".

I'm just pissed. So pissed. They just keep doing the same stupid shit over and over again. I can't believe people allow remakes to be made all the time.

What really pushed me over the edge was the scene they practically ripped from Ring 2. It's not even the film they're remaking, but they had to steal a scene from it. Jesus christ.

On the other hand, instead of just making the same film over again with new actors playing identical roles as in the original, they mix shit up and have the chief of police try and torch the mansion, they have a boy-friend in place of a girl-friend, etc. etc. I guess the director wanted to have a say or some stupid shit like that.

Fucking shit.

寒ーい

最近、「雑音ばっかり」とか思うようになった。起きて、シャワーを浴びてからいつもiPodの音楽を聞いている。でも、最近その３年間ほど持ってきたiPodが壊れかけているような気がする。再生ボタンを押して、音楽を流しても数秒ですぐポーズに勝手に返ってしまう。何回も何回も同じパターンを繰り返した上、iPodをポケットに入れたそばから同じじれったいと思わせた上、もう音楽を聞かないことにした。

しかし聞きたい。フレデリック・ショパンの天才を表す夜想曲が常に聞きたい。任天堂のF-ZEROというレースゲームのスピード感を蘇らせる傑作なサウンドトラックが常に聞きたい。代わりに何があるだろう。教室で教師が休憩時間を告げるが早いか同級生たちがすでにそれぞれの母国語で勢いよく喋っている。別にそれぞれの言葉、イタリア語であれ、韓国語であれ、中国語でも好きじゃないわけではない。ただ、それぞれの人が聞くに堪えることを喋っているのだろうかと思ってしまう。iPodの中に傑作が溢れるほど詰まっているじゃないかと思ってしまう。より値する聞くものが聞かれるのを待っているじゃないかと思ってしまう。

いい加減ふざけてないで、私を偉そうに雑音に浴びさせないでくれといわんばかりに、私はiPodに詰まっている溢れるほどの傑作を聞く。アントニオ・ヴィヴァルディの優れた協奏曲に耽って、空想の世界に陥ったら、この世より素晴らしい所が待っている。愚かなものが一人もいないという一秒も雑音で無駄にされていない完璧な世界がある。そこに行きたい。常に行きたい。

どうしよっ。新しいmp3買おっか。

たまに、帰りの電車で眠くて、あまり読めないときがある。しかし、降りたら、やはりもうちょっと読みたいと思って、改札口の前にあるベンチに座って、結構長くそこで読んでいたときがある。ちょっと動くことで目が覚めて、通っている人の目線が自分のほうにいっているのが分かることで集中が何とかできるようになる。そして、時間が経つと一緒にスーツ姿の人が波のようにゆらゆらと行き交うのを見ている。言葉を読んでいくと同時に周りの風景も徹底的に味わっている。読書というのは読む場所によって大きく変わるということが分かってきた。

『人間処刑台』には恐いと思ったところがたくさんあった。でも、最後に恐いと思われるような結末が来なかった。自分の中の「生き物」に負けて、力任せになって、辛うじて倒せた相手を徹底的にぶち壊すことが最後に主人公は出来なかった。

アンダーグラウンドの世界では力を持っている人が帝王になり、法でもある。今までの法はどういうものかというと殺すか殺されるという簡明直截なものだった。『人間処刑台』の主人公はその世界の一番優れたファイターを倒し、法に逆らうかのように相手を殺さなかった。つまり、今回の主人公はアンダーグラウンドの世界に「正義」の新たな定義を紹介した。そのように分析してしまうと、残念ながらまったく恐くないのではないか。

それでも、正直に言うと恐いと思ったときがたくさんあった。最初のほうに主人公が初めての喧嘩を語っていくときに確かに私の顔がわずかでも強ばっていたのだと思う。太ももの筋肉も強ばって、自分が戦いに遭わされるかのように体が妙に熱くなった。なんかわくわくした。それがおそらく恐いという気持ちが発生するときと関連している反応だ。恐さを覚えるときに普通は反射的にいろいろと起きるけど、今、私が本を読んでいるとその恐さが直接に感じられないのだから、一番最初の反射的反応をスキップして、恐さを覚えたことを思い込ませてしまう。そして、想像によって、恐さを覚えるときの次の段階に達する。状況に応じて逃げるか戦うかという段階。勿論、逃げる必要なんかないから、私は主人公と一緒になって闘うのだ。

なんか、組織的に分析してしまったけど、私もホラーを読むと恐さを覚えるときがあるのが分かった。覚え方や意識の程度が皆とズレてるかもしれないけど、確かに、私も恐いと思った。

他に、やはり対戦のときに私からの反応が一番多かった。ジョン・ラムアが相手の頭に手を絡み付けて、その下に向けた顔を無理やり真上に向けたというところにちょっと鳥肌が立ったと感じた。「極東倶楽部の真珠」と呼ばれる三浦美紗が相手に殺されそうなときにも、相手を倒して殺したときにも私の体は結構強ばっていただろう。

ゆえに『人間処刑台』が今までに一番恐くて、これからこの作品でより恐い小説に会うことが出来るのだろう？

大石圭も年上が好みかなぁ～

『殺人勤務医』にも『人間処刑台』にも主人公が上司と性交し、その人を愛するからそう思うようになったけど…

今日はまた電車で『人間処刑台』を読んでいた。本当にすごい。最初は相手を殺すことも許されるという格闘技がありえないと思ってちょっと面白くなくなりそうだったけど、作家が説明していくと理解ができて、話が楽しめるようになった。でも、また「恐い」という言葉をめぐって疑問がある。この小説は恐いだろうか。人が恐いと思っていない立場から見て、ボクシングを説明しているから、読んでいる自分も恐いと思う分けがない。

確かに、自分は主人公と同格なファイターを向かってリングに上がると恐いと思う。ファイターじゃない素人であれ、自分はその場でとても歯が立たないはずだ。しかし、主人公はまるで無敵なファイターなので、恐いというより、逆にわくわくする気持ちほかない。

まだまだ１５０ページしかないけれども、暴力・虐待・殺人・恐怖というテーマが中心で、この前読んだ『殺人勤務医』と似ている部分が多い。

意外な発見

今日は本当は帰りの電車で眠くて、何も読む力がなかった。ただ目をつぶって、iPodから流れる９千を超える曲の何かを選ばずに聞くだけだった。いくつか聞いて、驚いたのは『スーパーメトロイド』のサウンドトラックが流れてきた。でも、『スーパーメトロイド』のサウンドトラックを聞くだけでいられなかった。ゲームをちゃんと力を尽くしてクリアしたのだから、ゲームの映像とゲームをやるときに覚えることが思い浮かんだ。

そして、その時点で分かったのは、『スーパーメトロイド』はホラーだということだ。そればかりか、『スーパーメトロイド』より恐い話が探ろうとしても思い浮かばない。任天堂のホームページでのスーパーメトロイドの紹介を見たら、最後にキレイにまとめてあるが、「今孤独な戦いが始まる」と書いてある^[1]。その言葉どおりだ。孤独な戦いを背負わなければならない。巨大怪獣リドリー・クレイド・マザーブレインなどと闘わなければならない。『スーパーメトロイド』というのは、未来を想像したホラー作品なので、勿論銀河連邦の宇宙科学アカデミーという研究施設があって、無残に殺害された研究所員たちをみてから始まるという話だ。生きている人間はいない。残るものは緊急事態の連絡のみだ。独りで宇宙の未来を抱えていくしかないという話だ。

今回読み出したのはちょっと『殺人勤務医』より厚い『人間処刑台』で、まだ２５ページしか読んでいないのにこっちが好きかもしれない。

まだ話がどうなるかは分からないまま読み出すと題名から推測するしかない。推測してみても、私は話の内容が想像できなかった。そして、大石圭の語り方にまたびっくりした。まさか闘士の話だと分かってくる瞬間から目をそらさなくなってしまった。主人公と同様に、自分の中の「生き物」が観客の叫びに起こされ、目を覚まし、男であるが故の反応があったと思う。私も力を解放させ、殺したくなった。

ということだけど、この２５ページしか読んでいない段階で鑑賞が残念ながらこういう半端なものになるのだ。

私は不思議に年上が好みだ。といっても、本当は全然不思議じゃない。私は大人気ないクソガキが気にいらないタイプだ。でも難しい。好きになっても、年下だと分かられ、やむなくそこで付き合いが不可能になるという残念な話がいくつかある。なぜ知る前に全然平気だったのに、知るとどうしようもなくなるのだろう。

私が好きな人は今まで全員年上だった。でも別に年下の人が好きになれないわけじゃない。ただ、性格が合うし、一緒にいると何でも楽だし、楽しいと思ったことは年上の人といるときだけだ。さらに、年齢を知って、気が変わることはない。なぜかというと、年齢は数字でしかないからだ。それでも、年下の人が気に入ることはなかった。

振られても全然平気だけど、納得できない理由なら全然平気じゃない。そういう時が来るとむかつくだろう。この明らかに意味なく数字を重要視する傾向をやめようじゃないか。

さて、違うトピックに入ろう。

『殺人勤務医』

読み終わらせた。

本当は前にも日本語で小説を読んだことがあるが、自分で選んだものじゃないし、自力で読むんじゃなくて、辞書や教授や何かや誰かが支えてくれなければ読めないような読み方だった。今回、一回も辞書を引かずに読んだ。なぜかというと、要らなかったからだ。そして、簡単だったから要らなかったのじゃなくて、私は日本語が読めるからだ。

まあ、正直言って、『殺人勤務医』は医師の立場から描いたものだから、医師の言葉を聞いていられるなら、それが素人の立場だったより簡単かもしれない。私はすでに科学者の視線を用いて世界を見下ろしているから、全然平気だったというか、かえって簡単だったと思う。

主人公は人工妊娠中絶手術の専門家で、自分の仕事は法で許される殺人でしかないと思って、１０００件を超える手術を行う時点で、殺すことに慣れているという。だから題名。ついでに、家の地下室で女子高生など、怒らせてくれた人を出来るだけ残酷に殺していくという趣味がある。

『殺人勤務医』はホラーだ。でも、恐く覚えたことは一切ない。主人公が恐くない。主人公が殺された魚たちの敵を討ち、虐待される子供や犬を助け、それぞれの敵を討つ。『殺人勤務医』が恐いというより、自分はその子供などを虐待する悪い人が死んでほしいと気づくとちょっと恐いかもしれない。人の心の更生をいつの間にか信じなくなり、復讐しか信じなくなったのだろう。そう考えると、やはりちょっと恐い。

他に、この小説の一つの大きなテーマは生の意味。生まれようとする人の命を絶つ権利のある人があってもいいかとか、他人の苦痛を分からなくてすむだろうかとかという話が多めに出る。餓死や虐待で死ぬ人は本当は生まれることが出来なかった人より運がよかっただろうか。

そして、主人公は精神病かとおそらく疑問するだろう。子供のころに母に虐待され、捨てられ、結局弱いものに自分の怒りを映る悪人を拷問し殺す。自分が感じた虐待は他人に感じてほしくないし、弱い動物や法にかばわれていないものに感じてほしくない。だから、悪の掃除をしているだけなのではないだろうか。命に値するものに苦痛を負わせたくないだけなのではないだろうか。

そう推理してみても、高校生を殺す理由は挙げていない。まだ大人じゃないかもしれない人を殺すことは許せるだろうか。私は絶対許せない。