Pathway to Japanese Literature

Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.

Two or Three—Twelve or Thirteen SparrowsAuthor: Izumi Kyoka

Original Title	二、三羽――十二、三羽
Author	泉鏡花
Genre	Modern Short Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In a quiet household shaped by generations, an elderly grandmother’s whispered question—“What of the sparrows?”—lingers like a refrain through years of change. Her tender ritual of scattering rice for backyard sparrows becomes a thread connecting past and present, even as her descendants navigate life’s transience. When a fledgling sparrow stumbles into their garden, its fragile existence sparks a delicate dance between human curiosity and nature’s rhythms: parents flutter anxiously to feed their trapped chick, while observers grapple with guilt and wonder. Over decades, these small birds—neither increasing nor dwindling in number—mirror the family’s own quiet joys and losses. Seasons blur into cycles of fledglings learning to fly, playful aerial ballets among flowers, and fleeting encounters with strangers whose eccentricities blur reality. Through earthquakes, sweltering summers, and snow-dusted winters, the sparrows persist—a mystery as constant as Grandmother’s question. What binds their unchanging numbers? What unseen forces guide their comings and goings? In this lyrical meditation on memory and impermanence, even the mundane becomes luminous, inviting readers to listen closely for whispers of life’s fragile, enduring magic.