A Lantern Slide in a Diaper (Absurdist Short Story 6)

My first birthday.
My parents and my sister, who is two years older, celebrated for me.
“Happy Birthday to You.”

I could have actually said “thank you,” but I thought I shouldn't startle my elders too much, so I played the part and cutely said, “Ba-bu.”
I played the part and cutely said, “Ba-bu.”

Elementary school entrance ceremony.
While carrying an absurdly heavy school bag, I pondered the burden known as life.
On top of that, my mind was racing with how to resist the peer pressure of group conformity.

In middle school, the girls were making a fuss about whose second button they would get.
I was thinking about the expansion of the universe instead.
My sister saw right through me, saying, “You know, sometimes you have a face like an old man,” which gave me a bit of a jolt.
which gave me a bit of a jolt.

High school cultural festival.
When I formed an impromptu comedy duo with a classmate for the talent show, we got such a laugh that the gymnasium shook.

When I was a university student, I formed a comedy duo with my sister.
When we won the M2 Grand Prix, people swarmed around us like champagne bubbles.
But when we broke up the duo, the crowd vanished like smoke.

After that, my sister passed away young due to illness.

Color drained from the world, and I was left all alone in a monochrome landscape.
Without love or marriage, I simply grew old by myself.

When I was 60, I wrote a novel about my life of solitude, and it won the City Bookstore Award.
Then, acquaintances I should have forgotten and distant relatives I had never even seen sprouted up like bamboo shoots after the rain.

At 75, I started writing my end-of-life diary.
As I moved my pen, I felt a strange chill, as if a cold autumn wind were blowing around my waist, but it must have been my imagination.

…And today,
I reached my 100th birthday.
My end-of-life diaries were piled up all over the room.

The reason I had such a dream
was that it was my first birthday.

I had wet the bed, much to my chagrin.
My mother changed my diaper.

The discomfort of the soaked diaper and the warmth of my mother's arms as she lifted me up.

After all, playing the part of a normal baby isn't so bad.
Ba-bu.

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