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The Meager Daily RecordAuthor: Makino Shinichi
| Original Title | 貧しき日録 |
|---|---|
| Author | 牧野 信一 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a quiet suburb of the capital, Takino drifts through days stripped of purpose. Once a restless soul fleeing familial expectations, he now inhabits a numb routine: rising past noon, bathing, eating, and drinking himself into oblivion. His wife watches with weary resignation as he mutters fragments of self-reproach, haunted by memories of a domineering mother, a failed father, and a youth spent fabricating diaries to appease authority. Letters from home—a brother’s scrawl about distant fires, a mother’s pleas—stir only fleeting guilt. Friends have settled into roles as bureaucrats or craftsmen, but Takino remains adrift, clinging to literary pretensions while avoiding mirrors that reflect his father’s ghost. Nights blur into drunken soliloquies; days repeat like broken records. When an old friend plans a visit, Takino grasps at the hope of connection, yet even this flicker threatens to dissolve into the void of his existence. Shadows of madness loom as his wife braces for collapse, trapped in a life echoing generations of dissolution. |
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