2019年7月2日
A Dosage of Medicine(20-final) by Akihisa Ogino, translated by J.Kageyama
Genzo remembered an article he had read somewhere in a newspaper or magazine. A man, in a fit of passion, had choked the woman he was sleeping with-.Too late, he realized he had killed her. The recalled episode sent vivid pictorial images within the father's mind. On top of the images, he splattered the paints of his own fantasy.
“That Kinsaku! That's something he’d do!"
He heard a scream that began thickly and ended feebly. He was sure he had heard it. There was no mistake.
"She's being strangled! Murdered!" He got up. He went to the shadow of the steps. He held his breath. He waited.
There was another crash.
"In her last breath, her struggling arms flopped from the air to the floor!" He could control himself no longer.
"I'll kill that Kinsaku!" He rushed up the steps. In the mirk, he grabbed thought was his son’s head. He threw him, sailing, head first, down the ladder.
"Now, I have to save her." Not wasting the time to put on the light, he groped inside his son's bed. She was not there.
Crouched, he stretched his hands, searching for her corpse. It was not in Kinsaku's bed. He put on the light. The girl, in a separate bed, slightly away from Kinsaku's, was hiding beneath the covers.
“Oh---you poor dear---" Genzo ran to her. Roughly, he pulled the covers.
The girl had been shivering with fear. When she saw her father-in-law, she ran away from him, downstairs.
That moment, Genzo heard the same crash behind him. When he turned around, he saw two mating cats fall from the edge of the ceiling. From another corner of the room, another pair of cats, which had finished mating, scurried off.
Downstairs, the son was lying, covered in blood, and did not move.
With a stunned stupefied expression, Genzo gazed after the cats, running off.
* * * * * *
Ten days later, Genzo was committed to a mental asylum.
