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Winter FliesAuthor: Kajii Motojirō
| Original Title | 冬の蠅 |
|---|---|
| Author | 梶井 基次郎 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a secluded valley inn, winter unveils a haunting dance of survival. Frail flies, shadows of their summer selves, cling to faint warmth, their feeble movements mirroring the narrator’s own languor. Sunlight breathes fleeting life into them—they mate, stumble into milk bottles, cling to books—yet their existence is a fragile mimicry of vitality. The narrator, ailing and adrift, oscillates between sunlit resentment and twilight longing, despising the sun’s deceptive glow that mocks his fatigue. A restless journey through desolate mountains and a brooding port town amplifies his isolation, each step a battle against despair. Returning days later, he finds the flies vanished, victims of cold neglect. Their absence stirs a grim kinship: like them, his survival hinges on fragile, unseen conditions. Melancholy lingers—not for the flies, but for the ephemeral threads binding all life to borrowed time. In this stark winter tale, decay and endurance intertwine, whispering of beauty in desolation and the quiet cruelty of existence’s precarious balance. |
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