Pathway to Japanese Literature
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| Original Title | 捨吉 |
|---|---|
| Author | 三好 十郎 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A solitary man stands on a desolate train platform at dusk, swallowed by a vast, shadowed plateau. The air thins at three thousand *shaku*, his breath shallow, his purpose unclear even to himself. He abandons the station’s lone light, following rusted tracks into darkness—a fugitive from his own life. Tokyo’s ghosts cling to him: hollow friendships, a loveless marriage, and the crushing absurdity of existence. He carries poison, intent on erasing himself from a world he finds equally meaningless and suffocating. Yet the night has other plans. A flute’s mournful cry leads him to Sutegichi, a blind, orphaned boy hauling firewood through the wilderness. The child’s laughter rings girlish and unburdened as he recounts being rescued from horse dung, named after abandonment, and navigating blindness with eerie resilience. Together, they traverse forests where larch scent mingles with dew, their footsteps etching secrets into margins unseen by gods or men. As dawn bleeds faintly eastward, the man’s nihilism wavers—not in epiphany, but in the quiet shock of being led through oblivion by one who has never truly seen. |
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