[Note] Watching the same play

I spent my life until the third grade of elementary school in Tokyo.

In the spring when I was to become a fourth grader, I moved to a rural town in Fukuoka. It was a small town in a county that had once flourished due to coal mining. It was a small town with a terminal station where a single-track diesel train barely kept life connected.

The specific swaying of that diesel train, and the smells coming in through the windows, were completely different from the trains I used to ride in Tokyo, which surprised me.

When I first moved, I was confused because I couldn't understand the dialect at all.

At the end of cleaning time, I was handed a broom with the words, "Put this away (naoshitotte)." When I looked at it, confused because it wasn't broken, giggles erupted from somewhere.

Not realizing my shoelaces were untied, a teacher told me, "Tie them properly (chanto kibire)!" Thinking it meant to be quick and sharp, I stood at attention, and those around me burst into laughter.

I didn't understand the meaning of "katete" or "kurasuzo" for about half a year.

I was also exposed to the malice of children, which lacks any sugarcoating. When I spoke in standard Japanese, laughter would rise somewhere in the classroom, and during breaks, there were those who would gather around me and speak ill of me in a thick dialect. Eventually, some even started getting physical.

Thinking about it now, it's a funny story. I just shouldn't have hung out with people like that, and as they grew up, they developed their own sense of shame that wouldn't allow such behavior. I just had to watch the flow of the river and wait for the color of the water to change.

A child's world is small. School and home make up the majority of the world, and if you have anything else, it's just club activities and lessons. Losing my place at school felt like half of my young world was covered in darkness.

Well, after a few years, being a big kid, I gained a superficial peace. But that's another story.

A rural town. A junior high school where I advanced with almost the same group of people. I spent the four years until I became a second-year student living in the darkness, holding my breath. My personality of thoroughly hating the "murder of the heart" called bullying, and the fact that I was involved in anti-bullying activities in high school, were not just out of a sense of chivalry.

Chaplin said:

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

Back then, every day was certainly a tragedy. Now, I haven't quite digested it into a comedy, but it is a topic of conversation. I've carried these memories in my pocket this far, but those raw emotions were left behind in that monochrome town, along with the diesel smoke. I'm glad I left them there.

Well, that's something I can only say because I'm alive.

With the passage of time, there comes a time when tragedy turns into comedy. At the very least, it seems to gradually become that way.

I wonder how it is for the people on the other side.

For those who directed malice at me and laughed together, every day must have been a comedy. I wonder what kind of memories that comedy has become now that they are adults. I'd like to ask them sometime over a drink.

We must have been watching the same play.