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AUTHOR: 太宰治 (Dazai Osamu)
TITLE: 待つ (Waiting)
Translation: karmik (http://translations.hanabie.com/)
For the original Japanese, go here.
Waiting
On a small public railway station, I go out to meet people every day. People I don't know.
I go shopping at the marketplace, and upon returning, I always stop by the station and sit on the cool bench, I place the shopping basket on my lap, and watch the ticket gate absentmindedly. Trains come and go, and every time a train arrives at the station, many people spill out from the doorway, and they crowd into the ticket gate, each of them looking angry, they take out their passes and hand out their tickets, and single-mindedly hurry forward, passing the bench I'm sitting on, and they go out to the plaza in front of the station, and scatter each to their own directions. I sit absentmindedly. Someone says something to me, laughing. Oh, that's scary. Ah, I'm worried. My pulse races. Even thinking about that felt like cold water spilled down my spine, and shivering, I feel suffocated. But even so, I'm still waiting for someone. I wonder, who on earth am I waiting for, sitting here every day? What kind of a person are they? No, the one I'm waiting for might not be a person. I don't like people. No, I'm scared of them. When meeting people, carelessly saying greetings such as "How are you?" and "It's gotten cold" which I don't even want to say, makes me feel like I'm the biggest liar in the whole world, which is painful and makes me want to die. And so, again, the person I'm talking with becomes unnecessarily wary of me, and utters useless compliments and pompous untruthful thoughts, and listening to that the person's petty watchfulness makes me sad, and I grow to dislike the world even more. Living their life with stiff greetings, precautions, and weariness of each other, is that all humans are? I don't like meeting people. That's why I never went to my friends' places or anything like that unless it was a special occasion. I felt the most at ease when I was alone with my mother at home, both of us sewing silently. However, when the Great War begun and the situation around me became extremely tense, I felt it was very wrong of me to be the only one spending time idly at home, and I became anxious and couldn't calm down for a bit. I wanted to work hard and be useful up-front. I lost my self-confidence towards my life so far.
I feel I can't just sit silently at home, but that even if I go out, there is nowhere for me to go. I go shopping, and upon returning, I stop by the station, and absentmindedly sit on the station's cool bench. I expect someone to appear suddenly, but ah, I would be troubled if someone appeared, I'd be scared scared and wouldn't know what to do, but I'll have no choice if someone does appear, I'll offer my life to that person, my fortune will be decided that very moment; my preparedness is close to giving up, and that and other outrageous fantasies become bizarrely entangled in my chest, and I feel like I will suffocate. It's a somewhat helpless feeling, like I don't know if I'm alive or dead, like I'm daydreaming, and the people coming and going in front of the station look like I'm watching them through the wrong end of a telescope, they're small and distant, and the world becomes silent. Ah, what on earth am I waiting for? Perhaps I am a terribly impure woman. Becoming somewhat worried and wanting to work hard and be helpful after the Great War started seems like a lie, and in reality I'm just using such a seemingly praiseworthy excuse to seek a good opportunity to realise my own ludicrous fantasies. I'm sitting here like this, looking absentminded, but it also feels like inside me, vicious schemes are firing up.
Who on earth am I waiting for? Nothing seems clear to me. There's just haze. But I'm waiting. Ever since the Great War begun, every day, every day, upon returning from shopping I'm stopping by the station, sitting on this cool bench, waiting. Someone says something to me, laughing. Oh, that's scary. Ah, I'm worried. You are not the one I'm waiting for. Well then, who on earth am I waiting for? Husband? No. Lover? No. Friend? No thank you. Money? As if. Ghosts? Oh, please no.
Something more harmonious, brilliant, wonderful. I don't really know. For example, something like spring. No, not spring. Fresh leaves. May. Spring water flowing through fields. No, it's not that after all. Ah, but even so I'm waiting. I'm waiting with excitement. People pass me by in groups. It's not this, it's not that. I carry the shopping basket under my arms and, gently trembling, I'm fervently, intently waiting. Please don't forget me. Please don't laugh, and remember the 20-year-old girl who every single day goes out to meet you at the station in vain, and then goes back home. I will not tell tell you the name of the station. I don't need to tell you, because one day you will find me.
