by Fuyumi Ono
"Did somebody die again?"
Asked by Sunako, Seishin returned to his senses.
"... ... Why?"
"Because you were like this before, too. You said that some young girl had died. Muroi-san looks to be depressed the same as he had been at that time."
I see, Seishin forced a smile.
"A person of the parish?"
"Yes," Seishin nodded. "He hasn't died yet. But... ...he's on the verge of death."
Was it all right to say that? But, there was no hope at all of him recovering.
"He is a member of the parish but, if I had to label him, I should probably go with childhood friend."
"Heeh?"
Seishin took a small, short breath.
"When we were small we played together often. Or rather, he came over asking to play often, might be more precise. He is four years younger."
"He was like your child." Sunako wore a moderate smile.
"That might have been how it was. I was more of a reserved child, afflicted with a terrible shyness, and there weren't any children besides Toshio that I was very close with."
"Toshio-san?"
"The director of the Ozaki Hospital. I got along well with Toshio myself but Toshio was very competitive. He wasn't the type to know his place with the older children, he was vigorous, so Toshio and I ended up stuck playing alone together. Toshio didn't get along well with the older kids but he got along well with younger ones. He could say some very outrageous things, and when he was in the mood he could be very cruel and hard hearted but you could say they looked up to that."
"A stereotypical child bully, wasn't he?" Sunako smiled. "But, somehow I simply can't picture Muroi-san playing together with a child bully. Somehow, I have the impression that as a child you did nothing but read books by yourself."
"It wasn't like that. I got up to a lot of mischief," Seishin smiled. "Though usually the one who brought it up was Toshio. He'd plan some terrible prank, or plan some incredibly reckless way to play. He liked to defy taboos. I tried to be an outside force of resistance but Toshio would absolutely never listen to what I said. So I'd end up stuck going along with him. I probably thought it was my job to be the break to make sure Toshio wasn't too reckless."
"...Somehow, that does seem like you."
Seishin turned his eyes towards the light of the lamp.
"In the village we have a festival called the mushiokuri. I've followed after that.... ..."
Seishin somehow remembered the night of this year's mushiokuri. He had the feeling it was long ago, and yet that it had just happened.
"The truth is, you musn't do that kind of thing. It was a religious ritual, so to the villagers there are proper religious reasons why you shouldn't. It's in the middle of the night for one thing, so children following along after it is unheard of. But each year, there would always be children who would follow along after. That's what kind of creatures children are."
"That may be."
"I wonder how old we were? Toshio was the one who said we should try following them. I, of course, was against it. Mikiyasu was---any time it might have been dangerous, he would be caught between Toshio and me, all shook up. ... ... Mikiyasu was easily scared. He was a very scared, timid child. So, for him following after the procession was probably terrifying to him. If we were found by the adults we'd be yelled at. That wasn't all, it's a festival with a kind of scary atmosphere too. I opposed it, and with a relieved face he agreed with me; but, Toshio said 'if that's the case, fine' and said he'd go by himself, and he wanted to go with him so much he couldn't stand it."
"I think I understand," Sunako smiled. Seishin also smiled faintly.
"It was always like that. Mikiyasu in the end gingerly stuck with Toshio. I couldn't help it and tagged along to keep Toshio from making too much of a mess. It's always been like that... ..."
When was it that they stopped playing together? It wasn't just Seishin who, upon entering that pubescent threshold between childhood and adulthood, slipped out of the child only groups and made groups up of those the same age. Somewhere along the line they stopped playing purely stupid pranks and reckless games, and spent more time talking than doing things. Around that time Toshio too found the way to compromise with those older than him, and Seishin remembered borrowing quite a few books and records from the book store's Tashiro and the Murasako rice shop's older brother. And then Seishin didn't see much of Mikiyasu. Mikiyasu himself found other friends---and then became an adult, married, succeeded the family business, and became a father. But, certainly for a time, he and Mikiyasu had joint ownership over a certain time between them.
Seishin held his tongue thinking of Mikiyasu, outside of the village, in a hospital room somewhere. He lost his wife, he lost his child, and he was going to lose himself---.
Say, Sunako's voice suddenly chimed. "If Muroi-san had somebody dear to him, and if you thought that you wanted to let them live, do you know what you should do?"
"Become a doctor?"
"You're wrong," Sunako laughed. "You kill them."
Seishin was flabbergasted.
"To let someone live---if it means to be the master of their time of death, then it means to kill them of your own will. If you don't do it then someone else will kill that person. They will snatch them out of your hands, Muroi-san." Sunako said with a lightly voiced laugh. "Isn't it funny? It is hard having people near to you die. Even though you think it unforgivable, having them snatched out of your life, it's a terrible thing and yet if you want to avoid that, then there's nothing but to kill them yourself. That's what kind of creatures we are."
"Yes.... ... That is true."
Sunako stood from the bench and peered into the darkness of the sanctuary. "... ... Aren't 'precious' and 'piteous' rather alike?"
"Mm?"
Sunako laughed and turned to look back. "For example, suppose you were to keep a baby bird? You would want to hold it often, love it warmly, and it would be very precious to you."
Seishin vaguely nodded.
"But, however dearly you think of it, the little bird will someday die. No matter how much and how much you cherish it and take care of it, it cannot not die. If you don't want it to be taken by somebody else, if you want to have it live as you wish, so much that the only one to kill it ever could be you, then there's no difference in doing it yourself. That is why, yes? If something is precious, it isn't just precious, it's piteous. ...Don't you feel that way?"
"... ... I see."
"That's why if something dies and we think piteously on them, you would say it was precious. You don't want to lose them; losing them is pitiful, oshii, I think that is why we say they are dear, itooshii. Preciously piteous, ito oshii."
"....Mm."
Seishin smiled thinly. It was because Sunako was so argumentative, and because it was a reasoning that could be seen as charming from a certain broken vantage point, and also because it was funny that he was being convinced by a little girl of such a young age.
"Is this the kind of thing you always think about?"
At Seishin's question, Sunako looked to Seishin fleetingly, then as if averting her gaze looked up at the stained glass windows.
"I guess so. Living and dying---I often think of these things. I can't not think of them."
Her somewhat pensive tone of voice pricked at Seishin's chest. Sunako bore a grave burden on her health. You could even say that she was always in the ravine between life and death. Flustered with himself for such a foolish question, he suddenly remembered. SLE left one compromised. There were problems with one's immune system. Thus it was easy to catch an infectious disease, her body's ability to resist lacking due to having so many problems all over her body. And now in the village a dangerous plague was spreading out.
"Uhm...." Seishin again tonight was uncertain what to call Sunako, his words muddied. "I think it might be better not to come here too much, don't you?"
Sunako turned to face him. "As I thought, I'm a bother?"
"That isn't what I mean. It's just... there are wild dogs and such."
"Or talk of them. But, I have yet to catch sight of one."
"It's dangerous at night, even out in the country like this."
Sunako stared fiexedly at Seishin, then gave a begrudging nod mixed with a sigh. "I understand. I will behave myself in the house. I will be sure not to invade Muroi-san's territory."
"That isn't what I mean, really."
"You may say it to me frankly. I am used to not having things go my way."
"It isn't that," Seishin hesitated to say. "I'd like you to keep this a secret, but."
Sunako tilted her head.
"It will be fine to tell your parents. I think it is necessary to let your mother know especially. Your family's doctor as well. But, I don't want the people of the village to know. I'd like you not to let it leak outside of your house."
"Could it be that it is such an important secret?"
"That's right. For now, still."
"All right, I will promise."
And so Seishin explained to the girl who nodded with a serious expression.
"In the village right now, an unidentified disease is spreading."
Sunako blinked. "... ... An epidemic?"
"That's the question troubling us. Toshio is thinking that the wild dogs and small animals---and the ticks and fleas attached to them may be the intermediate carriers."
"And that is dangerous?"
"It's dangerous. At least, all of the patients that we have seen to this point have had the worst possible progression and outcome. ---It's ironic, isn't it? You all had come here seeking safer living conditions."
"That's so. I wonder if it isn't more dangerous than being in town. But, these things happen. And, what kind of sickness it is?"
Seishin shook his head. "I don't very well know yet. Toshio is saying that it doesn't conform to any existing epidemic."
"A new strain?"
"I don't know. There's the possibility that it's a new strain or a variation, he's saying, but. Since it becomes dramatically worse, there's no time to analyze it in detail. Unlike people from the city, the people of the village are against pathological autopsies. We also don't have a fully equipped hospital. That's why as far as specifics go, we are completely in the mists."
"I see... ..."
"So, it'd be better not to go out walking carelessly. Particularly with the possibility that the carrier animals are loitering in this area."
"I understand," Sunako tilted her head lightly to the side looking doubtful. "And I'd finally met Muroi-san, really it is too bad. I wonder if once in a while it would still be all right?"
"I don't know... ... To tell the truth, since we don't know what it is, we don't know how to defend against it. You might not be safe just because you're holed up in the house. I can't say any single thing for certain, though."
"It's like a roulette, isn't it? If my luck is poor, I shall be caught. But, that it would be better to lower my chances of a dangerous encounter is a truth, isn't it."
"That's what I think."
"Thank you. I will tell this to my mother and Ebuchi-san. But, I will say, not to talk about it outside of the house. If a panic breaks out, it will be troublesome. That is how it is, yes?"
Seishin nodded.
"I will take care to be careful, and it will only be once in a while. So, may I come again sometime?"
"It isn't something you need to seek my permission for. But, you really should take care."
Chapter Four
1
It was the morning of September 10th, when the morning examinations had begun and he was just thinking of taking a break that Toshio received the call from the National Hospital in the town of Mizobe.
"Doctor, the phone. It is from the National Hospital's Dr. Taniguchi."
Ritsuko turned the phone over to Toshio who excused himself from his patient to return to the waiting room. There, he took the call.
Taniguchi from the national hospital was an older physician than Toshio. His upperclassman by seven years from the same university, of course they knew each other from the university itself but being the connection between a senior and a junior afforded him certain accommodations. That said, Taniguchi himself wasn't born in Mizobe, nor did he live in the vicinity of Mizobe. Taniguchi came to the national hospital twice a week as a side job to lecturing at the university. He came from the city on an express train for two days a week, then went back.
The national hospital was a hospital large enough to rival the mutual aide hospital of the JA but the truth was that size was all there was to it. The doctors employed there full time were young with no career. They came rushing in from their bases to make a career there in order to then return to their home towns and serve as private physicians. Those who didn't were old fogeys who lost their place to call home to go back to. There were doctors with experience who, while having established suitable social standing in the city, would come in so many times a week for consultation.
"I've switched lines." Toshio took the receiver.
"Ah, Toshio-kun. This is about the patient you had turned over to us the other day, yes?"
Because of the relations between juniors and their upperclassmen, Toshio often relied on Taniguchi in order to turn over obstreperous treatment cases---that is, patients who would require hospitalization for any long period--to the national hospital. If they required surgery, they went there, if they required brain surgery, they'd be there, there were plenty of routes. Toshio himself didn't turn much of a profit from this but in exchange he received information. There was also the benefit of being able to ask about their progression easily.
"Do you mean Yasumori Mikiyasu?"
"Mm, yes. About him, this morning he died of renal failure at 5:16 AM."
Is that so, Toshio murmured. When overseeing him as he was taken away by ambulance, Toshio had resolved within himself that that may have been the last time he saw his childhood friend.
"What was the progression like?"
"When he was carried in, he had quite severe anemia, as you know. I wasn't present so I don't know, but. His creatinine levels were high so we were vigilant regarding renal failure but MODS developed into DIC, resulting in MOF. Do you need detailed progression notes?"
"It may put you through great pains, but by all means, please. Quickly, if you could."
"A thorough student aren't you, as always."
Toshio smiled bitterly. "Mikiyasu is a childhood friend. ---It is a small village."
Ah, said Taniguchi, his voice awkward. "That's, I'm very sorry to hear that. It was a bit of a strange progression, wasn't it? At least from looking at his medical records, I wouldn't think he'd had such severe renal impairment, but. If only I could have seen him when he first came in, but it wasn't my consultation day."
"It is a shame. ---Was it aplastic anemia, or was there a white blood cell disorder?"
"There wasn't, actually."
"None? You are sure?"
"Mm. You said as much. For the record, we ran thorough tests here ourselves, though. It seems it was not aplastic anemia. There was nothing unusual with his bone marrow. He had high neutrophil counts but his white blood cell count and hematopoietic figures weren't abnormal."
"Is that so," Toshio answered while thinking 'I knew it.'
"Will a fax do?"
"It will do nicely."
Toshio conveyed his gratitude to Taniguchi and hung up the phone.
(Toshio-san)
Mikiyasu's voice lingering in his ears sounded naive---he guiltily strove to forget that voice that had been relying on him. There was no use in holding it in his heart forever. This wasn't so special of a tragedy, not compared to what it meant for the village as a whole.
Before notice of Mikiyasu's death came in, he had just received notification from Ishida that a man in Shimo-Sotoba had died. yesterday Seishin had reported that an old woman in Naka-Sotoba died. The day before yesterday Ishida, again, conveyed that an office work
er living in Mizuguchi died. At this rate, the situation was quickly becoming more urgent.
(It's contagious.)
There was no proof but he was already certain. The first infected person became the contagion and a secondary infection occurred. Those patients who were the victims of the secondary infection were many. And from those secondary infection patients as a source of contamination came third wave infections. ---This indicated how the situation, the infection was expanding.
