Tokyo Year Zero

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For an explanation of Japanese words and phrases used in the text, please refer to the Glossary.

The hand taking up the pen had started to tremble.

He drooled.

Only after a 0.8 dose of Veronal did his head have any clarity.

But even then, only for half an hour or an hour.

Day by day he lived in this half-light.

The blade nicked, a slim sword for a stick.

A Fool’s Life, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 1927

I lie among the corpses. One Calmotin, two. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Dead leaves, floating in the autumn breeze. I try to raise my head but I cannot. Flies and mosquitoes swarm over me. I want to brush them away but I cannot. Low dark clouds shift across the sky. It is time to reveal the true essence of the nation. Last night, sometime between midnight and dawn, between retreat and defeat, rain drenched this place and, though the storm has now passed, fresh torrents of rain still fall upon the corpses and onto my face. My head is numb, my thoughts the fleeting shadows of delirium. Images of my wife and my children float before my eyes, among the corpses. Ten Calmotin, eleven. Beneath the eaves of the Black Gate of Zōjōji Temple. Oh so bravely, off to Victory. My son has a little flag in his hand. My daughter has a little flag in hers. Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind. My parents are here. Friends from school, teammates from my high school baseball club, colleagues with whom I graduated. Who can die without first having shown his true mettle? Each holds aloft a big banner, each banner bearing my name, each before the Black Gate. Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army, I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags cheering us into battle. There are sight-seeing buses full of girls on school excursions.

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