Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Sato Haruo

Charity Day

Lower society—the very bottom of the world.
Such words were no longer mere abstract expressions.
They had been realized as concrete entities exactly as the words described.
It was the lowest residential district (?) of human society located three hundred meters underground (if one could even call this a residential area!).

He awoke on what must have been the morning of however many days it had been since arriving there. The first thing he found strange was how he could even tell it was morning in this world. The radio ceaselessly blared with clarity. However, such things held no necessity whatsoever for survival. What he wanted was air. Next was sunlight. Compared to that, edible gas could wait much longer. (About ten centuries prior—though the exact contents remained unknown—there had been a literary figure who prophesied these miseries of human existence under the title "Premature Burial." It is also said that around the same time, there was a poet who died while crying, "More light!" They were undoubtedly pioneers among plebeian literati.) Though sunlight remained utterly unattainable here, both air and edible gas could be purchased by tossing even a single one of the smallest silver coins into automatic meters. But he didn't even have a single copper coin—let alone silver coins. He didn't even know how he could possibly obtain one. He hadn't managed to grasp even the basics of this society's way of life. Not that many days had passed since he had been thrown here. And no matter how much he tried to raise his voice, his sound never produced the slightest echo. (Despite the radio resonating so clearly, this was yet another inexplicable phenomenon.) And he had no means to ask anyone about anything. Written characters probably wouldn’t work here. It was certain that no one knew how to read. Even if everyone knew, first and foremost there was no light with which to write or read.

What he wanted was air and light.
If he had been raised here until now, he might have naturally grown accustomed to this place, but for him it was an abrupt change.
He realized that if he continued this kind of life for thirty more hours, he would naturally die.
He could not help feeling keenly now how much happier that secret world where he had lived was compared to this social life—yet when it came to that person who had created this happy secret world, that old man who was likely his only acquaintance throughout his entire life—what had become of him after all?
This weighed on his mind.
He was listening to the radio not only because there was nothing else for him to do, but also because he thought that perhaps he might hear some news of what had become of the old man.

The fact that his own voice had lost its resonance made the sound reverberating through this space all the more infuriating, but the Radio continued blaring without pause.
It seemed intent on continuing to recount every single thing that had transpired in the human world over the past day.
No one had specifically set up that system intending for people to listen, yet this sound seeped into even this class like darkness itself.
To be sure, they were daily news broadcasts deemed essential for social education; all entertainment-related transmissions were gradually erased starting from below the tenth underground level, ensuring absolutely nothing leaked through to these lowest-tier dwellings.
The reason for this was that while social morality constituted an essential matter everyone had to comprehend, entertainment was by no means necessary—or rather, the fact that all humans equally experienced it simultaneously would dilute both entertainment’s qualitative and quantitative appeal; thus extraordinary efforts had been made to completely prevent any entertainment-related broadcasts from reaching lower society.
For this reason, the Radio he was listening to held nothing of interest at all.
For instance: A certain city council member had been indicted for refusing bribes—this man’s defense being that voting for resolutions harmful to citizens while personally profiting caused him moral anguish—but according to accusers, this violated societal customs and disrespected council privileges; meanwhile defendant sympathizers insisted on preliminary psychiatric evaluation... Such reports concerned matters of no interest whatsoever to him.
With such reports concluding the broadcast, he heard nothing regarding his acquaintance’s punishment that he had been anxiously awaiting.

However, at the Radio’s conclusion, he encountered words that made him want to doubt his own ears.
The Radio resounded—

“Today, in commemoration of the first anniversary of ××××’s celebration (he couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of this), we are holding Charity Day.”
The members of upper society would be generously forgoing their half-day strolls to provide a circular motor promenade for those in lower society who chronically lacked air and sunlight.
“All land transportation systems will cease operation this afternoon, so the class of people without vehicles may traverse the streets without sensing any danger...”

It was only upon reaching this juncture that he involuntarily let out a groan.
No—it wasn’t just him.
Cries of joy erupted from all around him—shouts let out by those so overwhelmed with elation they lost themselves.
It was the voices of men living in the adjacent compartment (it couldn’t be called a house or even a room).
And drowned out by those shouts, the crucial radio became inaudible thereafter.

He immediately resolved and crawled up (he couldn't stand up—this residential district considered any height beyond that a luxury, with ceilings reaching only one meter). All around him surged the vigorous commotion of people righting themselves to crawl upward until he found himself pressed into a swarming stream of humanity crawling along.

To the Surface

It was an extremely massive cylinder jutting upward.
The base of its upper section formed a circle of dazzling light.
Yet that illumination never reached the lower depths, leaving the bottom shrouded in absolute darkness.
That radiance above constituted the surface world.
To attain it, at the cylinder's core—as if some colossal plaything—there coiled upward a single immense spiral staircase, twisting round and round toward that luminous circle above.
(This served as the sole passage from this underworld to the surface.
(That three-dimensional rail system—the transport network where identical units functioned as surface automobiles, building elevators, and orbital vehicles—had not been deemed worthy of extension below the fifteenth subterranean level, leaving those of lower stations no alternative but this spiral ascent.)

When he looked up at it, his head began to spin.
Indeed, countless people must have collapsed at that ascent point and been appropriately disposed of for traffic control purposes.
(Appropriate measures—a euphemism for corpses being swiftly disposed of—but these facilities, according to historians, evolved from the architecture of medieval Monaco Kingdom’s gambling halls.)
People chronically deprived of sunlight, air, edible gas, potable gas, and all nutrients—when thrust into such a densely packed, jostling crowd and then made to look up at such a vertigo-inducing structure—would naturally faint.

Despite feeling tempted, he kept striving not to look upward again while focusing attention on the people jostling around him until his turn to climb the staircase arrived.
Whether everyone from his same society was equally incapable of speech like him or whether it came from extreme tension, not a single person uttered a word.
The crowd's deathly silence felt monstrous.
His turn came.
He received permission to ascend from the staircase guard.
When he set foot on the steps and climbed two or three levels, he heard someone ascending behind him mutter.

“Ah, if only among my memories of being alive there had been just one instance of experiencing sunlight to the fullest…”

He found it unusual that someone was speaking and turned to look downward. Those had been the words of the person climbing right behind him. Yet at the very instant he understood this, that pitiable soul—without having experienced even a single ray of sunlight—had already slipped from the staircase and been disposed of through proper measures. The man had likely misstepped in his overwhelming elation. He gave a faint shudder, tightened his grip on the handrail anew, and planted his feet with meticulous caution.

A person fell with terrifying force, whipping up wind as they plummeted.
They must have exhausted their strength while climbing the staircase.
That scream echoed within this cylinder.
These falling victims continued one after another, whistling as they plummeted down outside the staircase.
Fortunately, through some mechanism, those who fell never tumbled down onto the staircase itself, plummeting instead along its outer edge.
When he looked down, it became apparent that such incidents were everyday occurrences—the staircase’s surroundings seemed designed to swiftly and automatically dispose of falling victims.
(As he had realized.
And the number of falling individuals was, as expected, clearly indicated by automatic gauges.
For a civilized nation's government must not neglect maintaining complete statistics in all matters.)

At first, every time he saw someone fall, his legs would tremble and he himself nearly fell as well, but before long he grew accustomed to such sights.
He thought he must have climbed quite a bit by now and looked up at the upper part.
When he discovered that his ascent had not yet even reached one-third of the way, he involuntarily let out a sigh; the thought of whether he could possibly reach the surface safely under such intense fatigue nearly caused him to fall...

His Upbringing

(With oily sweat streaming down his forehead as he climbed the spiral staircase, whether he would indeed reach the surface safely remained uncertain.
No—I must make it.
[Otherwise this story could not progress any further.] While he continued this monotonous yet intensely tense life-or-death task, let us acquaint ourselves with his past.) His upbringing—at least more than half of it—even he himself had never known.
This was by no means unreasonable.
The custom of individuals respecting and preserving personal experiences did not exist there; moreover, he had been far too young at the time.

One day, he opened his eyes within a truly dazzling light.
Everything was in a state of comfort he had never experienced before.
And around him, five or six adults lay sleeping.
Beyond them sat an unfamiliar old man awake at his bedside, crouching low.

What brought him this profound comfort seemed chiefly caused by something entirely new flowing into his mouth.
(Having only known potable gas until that day, he'd never encountered water.)
Light saturated every corner of his surroundings.
There, through conversation with this strange old man, he gradually pieced together why such sudden changes had occurred.
The old man explained how he'd committed suicide on the road—though they collectively termed any collision with transportation systems as suicide—and how as such a suicide victim, he'd undoubtedly undergone proper processing: transported via traffic control vehicles and dumped into some underground passage.

“I am one of them as well,” said the old man. “In today’s society, anyone who walks without using vehicles outside paid walkways gets labeled a suicide candidate.”
“Only natural.”
“No matter how careful you are on those roads, you can’t walk three meters without getting hit.”
“Knowing that yet still going out there makes you a suicide aspirant—whether you meant it or not.”
“Countless so-called suicide completers get hauled here daily.”
“Plenty like you just fainted, of course.”
“I carefully collect them and try reviving them.”
“But none ever fully recover.”
“They’re all completely spent by the time they arrive.”
“Even those I rescued here—all hopeless cases now.”

As he spoke, the old man picked him up, repositioned him in a corner, then pressed against his mouth this pipe of edible gas—what seemed like the same substance he had tasted before.
And then the old man picked up the others and threw them downward one by one.
Each time, a thunderous roar—like something being sucked in—resounded from below.
The people he had thought were sleeping all appeared to be dead.

This old man was utterly mysterious.
Why he was living alone in such a place—that was the first thing he didn't understand.
Moreover, this man knew everything.

They conducted the following exchange——

“Was the place you lived in pitch-dark?”

“No. It was a little bright—dimly.”

“Have you ever seen what’s called a lady?”

“What’s a lady? Old man.”

“You don’t know?”
“Then you’ve never seen one before, have you?”
“Your mother naturally doesn’t know either, does she?”
“Ladies—no matter who they are—never live below the 10th underground floor. —They have particularly good professions, you see.”
“So then… you. What?”
“Did you inhale air from the tube every day?”

“No… Only sometimes—but it was really tasty.”

“Hmm.”
“Taking all that into account, where you lived was likely around the 30th underground floor.”
“I don’t know about the first to nineteenth floors above ground, but beyond that, there’s nowhere I haven’t been.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

For some reason unknown, the old man laughed loudly by himself for a long time.
And then—

“Even so, you must have been born into quite a good family.”
“In reality, the birth tax is exorbitantly high.”
“Those who can properly pay it are at best up to the 20th underground floor.”
“In other classes beyond that, it’s a world where people have no choice but to pay social taxes and abandon children.”
“Even the social tax paid to abandon children on the 30th underground floor is no trivial matter.”
“If we suppose your mother was someone capable of that… then it can be understood that you are of quite a good birth.”

The old man talked about various other things.
To him, everything was beyond comprehension.
For several years after that, this old man became his foster parent.
The old man lovingly raised him.
As he grew, it gradually became clear what kind of person this old man was.
This old man—who had single-handedly opened a secret world in this hidden corner adjoining the entrance where corpses of wayfarers fallen ill or those who had committed suicide on the streets were transported underground—was, by his own account, a man dreaming of a new world among the dead.
This exiled satyr was pitifully playing his flute alone in such a place.
To put it simply, this old man held the belief that humans possessed spirits.
However, this spirit he believed in was something that no great anatomist had ever discovered within the human body, and his belief in such an invisible entity appears to have been the fundamental reason why he could not survive in any class of today’s society.
He was driven out step by step from hundreds of varied social classes.
Because in today's society there were no people in any class who understood his actions, he was acknowledged by none.
And he thought that ideas like his might hold true in worlds beyond this planet—perhaps on Mars—and that societies there might be built upon such different civilizations.
He was still earnestly planning communication with Mars.

“Originally, I was a scholar of history. And I had an interest in those bygone eras called the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, you see— That was truly a fascinating age. At that time, a new alchemy came into vogue. The idea was that if you flipped this three-dimensional world we call society upside down and reset it, life everywhere would turn into something radiant—become gold itself. So the world began trembling violently, you understand? After becoming horribly tangled and chaotic, they somehow managed to flip it over and replace everything. When they finally settled down and built this splendid new world after all that effort—it became today’s society. The reason I took interest in the twentieth century is because that era’s highly developed world bore an uncanny resemblance to our own. I published such research when I was still young, living on the twentieth floor above ground. That’s why they expelled me from academic circles. Ever since then, whenever I speak, people pretend not to hear me and turn away. I had to forsake the twentieth underground floor too. Then when I published my theory—after explaining how sunlight and air are essential for human health regardless of class, pointing out how ancient people nearly shared these equally—declaring modern civilization ought to be condemned for this... they cast me out from the twenty-first floor society too. Seems I was branded as some exceptional individual who defied common sense and held peculiar opinions about every fact—so people started shunning me.” The old man laughed loudly. “You’re still a child—you wouldn’t understand even if I explained. In time, I’ll have you hear all my ideas bit by bit.”

In this way, the old man would occasionally talk about his circumstances and attempt to educate the boy.
At night, the old man would assemble a small machine.
The radio that was supposed to connect to Mars would have certainly been useful if there had been sufficient height or space here to install an antenna; however, since this secret underground cave lacked such room, the old man devoted himself to his research while sighing repeatedly.

In the small world where the two lived, sunlight shone abundantly, and there was no shortage of air, food, or drink.
It was kept at an adequate temperature.
The old man did not say a word about those matters.
At first, the boy too had found it both strange and something to be grateful for, but before long—without realizing when—he ceased questioning it and came to accept it as a natural human right.

Suddenly, one day, several humans—not the usual corpses but rare living ones—invaded this unknown place.
They were police officers.
Over a dozen long years, sunlight, air, food gas, and even the most precious drinking water had been leaking somewhere—a fact that manifested on meters; upon investigation, it was found that this precisely matched one person’s necessary consumption, and moreover, for several years now, consumption equivalent to two people’s share had been detected.
After dividing those resource usage zones into small sections for scrutiny, the government finally enabled police officers to breach this location.
While declaring them unprecedented and brazen criminals, these officers arrested both old man and boy.
(The person whom the boy had revered as a divine sage was in fact a thief.)
This crime—executed through scientifically elaborate methods—lay beyond the boy’s capability; since the old man naturally assumed sole guilt, arrangements were made for his immediate release.
Before discharge, a judge posed him an ultimatum: lose his past memories or forfeit his voice.
The recipient of this dilemma deliberated briefly before choosing voice loss.
His reason? He refused to forget that old man’s admirable character and owed gratitude.
The judge handed him a cup of flavorless, colorless liquid.
Upon draining it, he lost all capacity for speech.
Thus escorted by officers, he was delivered to society’s deepest underground stratum.

The subsequent fate of that old man who might be called his foster father remained utterly unknown.

Street Spectacle

The extremely tall buildings on both sides appeared as though they might collapse inward at any moment, converging toward a single vanishing point when viewed from below in accordance with the principles of perspective.
These straight lines stretched upward while simultaneously extending horizontally forward, the left and right parallels growing more urgent in their attempt to converge at a distant vanishing point as they stretched away.
These rigid, merciless three-dimensional utilitarian structures were everywhere recklessly partitioned into irregular shapes of varying sizes with garish reds and blues, then drenched in them.
It resembled intensely vivid lightning bolts of every color colliding with the buildings' vast wall surfaces, scattering fragments of their hues across the impact points.
Upon each headache-inducing color—corresponding to each—various characters were written in another color that amplified the most unpleasant effects.
They were phrases that defied rational understanding, not even allowing conjecture.
In one corner,

“Thousands of yen for merely one!”

A bizarre calculation was inscribed.
In an even larger section than that—though what it concerned remained unclear—there existed the following outrageous declaration.

“To purchase the most inferior products from one’s own store and thereby make oneself a nouveau riche is a duty that must never be forgotten by citizens who value social justice.”
“For our products are compounds appropriately blended from ignorant happiness and unreflective virtue.”
“How glorious is the grand spirit of ‘Vulgarity’!”
“Ministers as well as generals and doctors praise and guarantee this blend’s exquisite perfection.”

Not one of these phrases that met his eyes fell short of being utterly mystifying and incomprehensible.

After finally crawling up to the surface, he glimpsed these street spectacles—first came physical terror from crisscrossing lines and splitting colors that assailed him—but when he read the mysterious characters on the walls, anxiety struck him that he himself might be going mad.
He looked up wanting at least to see the color of what passed for sky, but between houses that stood towering yet seemingly about to collapse—their walls' garishness having leached all hue from the narrow space—there remained only a dull gleam.
And gazing upward so intently made him dizzy enough to nearly collapse.

He had blended into the crowd before he knew it and begun moving on its own toward some unknowable place. The crowd moved through this street—resembling the bottom of a deep ditch—like mud and debris floating in a canal at low tide, all flowing steadily in one direction. They believed they were running desperately to bask in the benefits of that precious sunlight they had heard about from others. However, sapped of strength, they could barely manage to walk. Among them were those who had already died yet kept moving precisely because they were wedged between living humans. Our protagonist, amidst this crowd, had lost all capacity to fully grasp his circumstances; he could only shut his eyes to block out those walls' most irrational phrases—though by what mechanism they kept invading his vision remained unclear—and let his head hang limp. He had forgotten his destination. He didn't know how much longer he would keep walking like this, but thought he would likely end up dying while trudging along this street.

Suddenly startled by the crowd's screams, he opened his eyes.
Before him spread a large square whose center had changed color.
It was unmistakably where direct sunlight struck.
The moment he saw it, he—strangely enough—felt an appetite to devour it.
This square connected to many roads from all directions (likely arranged radially around it), and from each road—from the small deep gaps at building foundations—a dark crowd came surging all at once toward the sunlit area.
(Are they all feeling this hunger too?)

The square was instantly filled with countless people.

Before he knew it, sunlight came to shine on his body as well.
The noon sun stood at the sky's exact center.
He scooped sunlight with his hands and tried to eat it.
Sunlight had a fragrance.
His entire body grew hot.
He felt intoxicated.
There again, numerous deaths were witnessed.
They were dazzled and appeared intoxicated by this unprecedented pleasure.
However, they died while praising the sun in their intoxication.

A single airplane shaped like a beetle appeared, and the crowd buzzed.
The aircraft descended low and appeared to be landing.
The crowd, even amidst their anxiety, made no move to leave this precious place.
The aircraft, however, slowly circled over the heads of the crowd while scattering countless paper fragments, then vanished again to parts unknown.
He picked up a fragment that had fluttered down onto his shoulder, glistening, and took it in his hand.
It was,

“Gentlemen, are you truly happy?”

was the headline.
It appeared to be a propaganda leaflet.

Gospel of Salvation

What he had read was undoubtedly a truly astonishing piece of propaganda.

It began by vehemently extolling the happiness of plants.
It thoroughly and truthfully explained that this was a race which never wanted for air, sunlight, or any manner of sustenance.
Then next came an explanation of what plants were.
(This was because plants—a sacred race—had shown this inclination since centuries past, and by two or three centuries ago had completely abandoned this earth, vanishing from it without a trace.)
According to the explanation, there were merely three differences between plants and humans.
The first was their form.
The second was the presence or absence of speech ability.
The third was whether movement through one’s own will was possible or impossible.
These were merely the differences and nothing more.
If one were to debate lifespan, humanity could not begin to compare with plants’ near-infinite longevity.
Moreover, plant morphology’s excellence stood as an incontrovertible fact verified by ancient texts.
Thus, only two issues remained: speech ability and capacity for autonomous movement through free will.

“This point is something that requires your careful deliberation.”

“And so it states—” It was rather comical how the propaganda’s author imagined the lowly rejoicing in exercising free will within those one-meter-tall, two-thirds-of-a-meter-wide, one-and-a-half-meter-long spaces of the lowest residential district.

And yet, as he wondered why they extolled plant happiness while comparing it to humans’, the text abruptly concluded as follows:—

“Sufficient sunlight! Fresh air! Abundant nutrient intake!”
“And infinite longevity!”
“Let those who desire this come forth and wish to become plants!”
“This is truly your happiness; through your becoming plants, you will regulate today’s excessive human population, and your rebirth as producers of the gas essential to human respiration—compared to your meaningless present existence—far surpasses it in contributing to human society...”

The final section of this propaganda leaflet contained a detailed addendum: according to it, a certain medical scholar had invented a simple and absolutely painless surgical method to transform humans into plants, and the government, as part of this year's Charity Day's second initiative, had ordered this scholar to transform volunteers into plants.
And in the final item of this detailed explanation, it was written as follows:

"Furthermore, as numerous noblewomen will be honorably attending the surgical venue on the day, those undergoing surgery shall have the privilege of being observed by said noblewomen."

The crowd, which had all been reading in unison, finally seemed to finish and began whispering among themselves. A sigh of admiration escaped them. Though he couldn’t grasp what exactly had moved him, he reread the propaganda leaflet, then read it a third time. With a resolve that barely qualified as resolve, he decided to volunteer to become a plant. He was by no means someone who had wanted to become a plant. But he did not want to die. And if he tried to keep his human form as he was now, he would have no choice but to die within ten hours. Was movement possible for a dead person? Didn’t he already completely lack even the capacity for speech?

"I guess I'll become one of those so-called plants too."
"I don't know if it's truly as blissful as they've written here."
"But given there's nothing more wretched than us today—there's no mistaking it, this must be true."

“That’s right.”

Around him, there were also those engaged in such conversations.

The clock struck four in the afternoon.
This marked the hour when only those humans unwilling to become plants had to leave the premises.
Yet nearly all present made no move to depart.
A hundred policemen arrived to marshal the teeming crowd.
They herded them into several massive vehicles.
The convoy traveled briefly through streets where electric lamps had begun flickering to life before abruptly ascending into aerial transit.
Inside the vehicle's compartment, an official addressed everyone with these instructions:—

“You will now be transported to the laboratory, but before that, I must give you a warning.”
“Generally speaking, this research is ninety percent successful, though it cannot yet be called entirely complete.”
“It often produces things that are difficult to determine as either animal or plant.”
“Still, they are not as wretched and meaningless as you are today.”
“In other words, you will certainly become happier than you are today, so you can rest assured on this point as declared.”
“Now, regarding the shortcomings of the research—despite employing the same surgical method, the results never quite become identical plants.”
“This appears to have a close relationship with something about the subjects undergoing surgery—that is, with your inherent qualities.”
“First, we need to ascertain that information, and furthermore, we wish to transform each of you into plants that correspond as closely as possible to your individual desires.”
“Due to these necessities, we will now distribute a card to each of you one by one.”
“Since none of you will have such luxuries as names, your card numbers shall serve as your names in the laboratory—remember this well.”
“And fill in each item on that card appropriately.”

He was NO. 1928.

At last, into plants—

They went up and down through various levels within the large building's interior.
Finally, they were tightly sealed inside a pitch-black small room.
Their mental states had grown increasingly hazy.
(They had already been placed under preparatory procedures for the transformation surgery.)

For some reason, NO.1928 was summoned first.
Then he was led out into daylight.
Around where he stood stretched rows of seats forming a horseshoe shape, rising in tiers that towered higher toward the rear.
That space was packed with people.

(Evocative of the Colosseum,) When he was led there, a dignified figure on the podium ahead was delivering an address.

“...this procedure proves remarkably beneficial from sociopolitical perspectives while simultaneously offering immense value as a thaumaturgical spectacle. It is precisely for these dual merits that we have elected to publicly stage this event and extend our invitation to you all.”
“Moreover, specimens deemed sufficiently admirable among the cultivated plants will be offered at auction.”
“We humbly ask for your continued patronage.”

People seemed to be applauding vigorously, but to his ears, it felt as if it came from very far away.
When the first person descended from the podium, another man appeared.
This second man was introducing him—NO.1928, who was about to undergo surgery—to the attendees.

"The card entries are as you can see," said the explainer as he turned to look behind him.
When he looked, there his handwriting had been perfectly enlarged and projected distinctly into the daylight space.
The explainer continued: "This entry is the most distinctive among this round of applicants, which is why we have selected him as the first surgical subject.
"I imagine this entry may prove difficult to comprehend even upon reading."
"First, as is typical in lower society, NO.1928 naturally has no name or awareness of his age; therefore, we have estimated him to be around fifteen years old."
"Under the 'Desired Traits' section, there is the most incomprehensible phrase: 'aisaretai' (archaic form of 愛されたい)."
"In truth, even we do not fully comprehend this single word; from a linguistic perspective, it appears to have been used up until around the twentieth century, but thereafter it became completely obsolete."
"The question remains as to why this boy knew such a word."
"However, in the lower classes, there are often outlandish and vulgar words that defy our imagination."
"In any case, the study of vulgar terms revived from obsolete language lies outside our field of expertise."
"Now, the original meaning of the word 'love' appears to have been a psychological subject up until around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it later became a theme handled by us in the medical field. To put it simply, it is a pathological anesthesia arising from cardiac weakness, wherein patients seem to experience a degree of intoxicated euphoria—and in severe cases, this naturally carries the risk of endangering life."
"This epidemic disease was abnormally prevalent in human society during the previous era, and there was even a tendency to artificially induce this condition at times."
"What kind of plant someone harboring such outlandish hopes will become must surely spark some interest in both us and you all."
"Under the item for 'most enjoyable experience to date,' it states: 'Having dreamed of being embraced by a warm, fragrant white human-like being.'"
"Even this we cannot fully comprehend, but given that those in lower society have virtually no opportunity to actually see women, this likely suggests a woman—it seems he may have dreamed of being embraced by someone of the opposite sex."

Noblewomen’s affected laughter spilled from every direction.
As NO.1928 listened to these artificial sounds, what felt like humanity’s final emotional spark briefly flared within him.
He turned toward the source of the mirth and scanned his surroundings.
The seats held crowds of people he’d never noticed before—or perhaps never truly seen.
These were exactly the kind of beings—women—he’d only glimpsed in dreams until now.
He flushed with discomfort and looked away, but the surgeon showed no such compunction, methodically stripping him bare.
After an injection stung his lower back, they forced him onto an elevated platform.
From the seats came the synchronized click of noblewomen raising opera glasses.
He hunched deeper into himself.
The circular platform beneath him began spinning.
It accelerated steadily—then jerked to a halt.
They lowered him back down.
When his feet met solid ground, the earth abruptly swallowed him whole while his bowed head seemed to collapse inward through his chest.

“Am I being tricked by these showmen and killed?”

But in the next instant, he felt refreshing air and breathed deeply. The sensations of shame and pain dissipated completely; when he looked down at himself, his arms had stiffened into rigid forms tinged with fresh blue hues while his fingers flattened into thin membranous sheets.
It wasn’t just his arms.
His entire body turned cobalt blue as finger-like deformities sprouted from every surface.
In reality over half his frame had been dragged underground—his height shrunk to a third of its former measure—but what shocked him most wasn’t just feeling his neck disappear but knowing it had truly vanished.
Yet despite this absence of eyes or head, his vision pierced clearer than ever before—the world now sharp where once it blurred.
“Doctor—a magnificent success!”
The assistant’s words drew a silent nod from the Doctor.
Hearing this verdict brought him unexpected relief.
Another professor drew near.
After scrutinizing him intently came the pronouncement: “Belongs to Rosaceae.”
Though he couldn’t grasp what this meant—though roots now bound him to earth—he felt unmistakable happiness.

At this moment, the second surgical subject appeared.
It was designated a non-numbered case.
When Rose saw this exception, he screamed with all his vocal capacity.
For this unnumbered specimen proved to be none other than his underground guardian—the old man who had reared him in that subterranean realm.
Though his own ears registered the cry clearly, no human soul acknowledged it.
He comprehended that plant speech could not penetrate human perception.
Abandoning vocal protest, he sank into silent profundity.
This elder faced metamorphosis in lieu of capital punishment.
Thus prohibited from voicing aspirations, he received not standard serum but some peculiar concoction.
Destiny compelled him to join lichens—those wretched microbeings of flora's lowest caste—sun-deprived mosses eternally rooted in blighted earth.
Thus was decreed botany's most debased social stratum.
The pathetic elder neither resisted nor despaired, surrendering wholly to surgical will.
Stripped bare, rotated on platform, then deposited earthward.
Then—
Rose suddenly reeled from violent disquiet.
The soil sustaining his lower half had begun swelling upward.
Yet shock gripped more than floral consciousness.
Spectators shrieked en masse; surgeons collapsed dignity-forgotten into stupefied sitting.
Amid chaos grew the quaking-rooted anomaly—twin limbs heavenward thrusting, each arm sprouting newer pairs at multiple joints until thousandfold appendages writhed flame-green magnificence from fingertip drippings while endlessly expanding skyward.
The leviathanic entity conjured winds.

And so its fresh leaves rustled resoundingly.
In the language of plants, this was nothing less than roaring laughter.
(Rose heard his foster father's cheerful laughter for the first time in ages.
And so the terror subsided.)

He didn't know what became of this great incident afterward.
The reason was that Rose had soon been moved to another location.

The Blissful Window

Rose instinctively knew that it was a woman of at least middle-class standing. And though he rejoiced, she bundled up Rose, pot and all. His field of vision was completely blocked. He was lifted up. Then he was held in her arms. (Though he couldn't see, he could perceive everything through sensation.) He glided, flew, and ascended together with her. Everything felt like a dream, save for one vexing matter—the ceaseless, unpleasant sound of undulating pitch emanating from this vehicle. It was only after becoming a rose that he realized how deafeningly noisy the so-called human world truly was. (If one couldn’t perceive the beauty in screeching sounds, the music of this era would surely be incomprehensible.) Nothing cuts deeper than the pleasure of teeth-on-edge! Rose had no idea that the vehicle carrying him was producing music.

The movement stopped.
Rose was placed on the desk.
The covering was removed.
He was exposed to excessively bright lamplight.
When Rose was stripped naked for transformation, he recalled the opera glasses that noblewomen had trained on him from all directions and blushed.
Apart from the young woman who had brought him here, there was a man, and they were conversing while looking down at him.

“You managed to get it—how did the auction go?”

“The auction? I was the only buyer.”

“That unpopular? Then buying it won’t serve as good advertising.”

“Don’t worry about that—it’s fine.”
“People are interested—they’re certainly curious about this oddity.”
“But since it has no practical use, they didn’t bid.”
“What’s more, keeping this requires real luxury—it needs at least thirty minutes of sunlight daily.”

This dialogue wounded Rose's self-respect.

That night, Rose was placed outside the window.
He didn't know whether this was the tenth or twentieth floor above ground, but when he looked down, his body trembled.
The window connected to the young woman's room.
Late at night, an exceptionally handsome young man visited her.
It was strange.
He had slipped in from somewhere unknown.
They spoke of various matters without lowering their voices and engaged in various actions.
Rose felt too embarrassed to look properly.
Therefore, to speak of that here is something I simply cannot do.
The young man stayed about an hour before leaving as if vanishing.
The ceaseless creaking sounds of varying pitch leaked through, and the night shone brighter than direct sunlight.
In the sky stretched a vast Saachiraito-style luminous zone, above which was written "Nonsharan City."
(It must be a marker for the spatial railway.
The letters periodically turned red and blue, signaling.) Rose found it utterly impossible to sleep amid the glare and commotion.
When the clamor somewhat subsided and the surrounding glare faded, he began to doze—only for morning sunlight to pour over him, ending his first torturous night as a rose.
The sunlight, however, wasn't direct.
It seemed to have reached this window after refracting through several mirrors.
Even this faint light helped nourish his red bud.
After shining about thirty minutes, it stopped reaching him.
(Only much later would Rose learn this sunlight had been specially purchased for him.) On the sun-deprived window ledge, he pondered his past and changing circumstances—though told he'd become a signboard, faint unease struck him about what shop this could be—and found sleepless nights unbearable.

However, when he thought back to his time as a human, this happiness was as different as heaven and earth.
That's right—as he thought this, he couldn't help realizing how ungrateful his complaints seemed.
Yet though Rose himself remained unaware, in just one night he had already undergone this class's atmospheric baptism and grown quite accustomed to luxury.

Rose was carried from the window and placed inside a large glass box. Around him lay various flowers similar to his own kind, their heads torn off and scattered across plates. He thought it might be a flower shop window. The words "Man shall not live by gas alone" were written on the glass, readable from the back as mirrored text. Outside the window, people passing by stopped curiously, and they all pointed at him. They seemed to be saying something, but he couldn’t hear a thing through the glass. He was satisfied that people stopped to look. The shop owner seemed even more satisfied than he was. The rose, out of sheer boredom, observed his own spectators. He was closely observing what it meant to be people of this class for the first time, but they all had faces so similar as to be indistinguishable. When it came to clothing, aside from the two distinctions of male and female, all were uniform. They seemed to have some sort of uniform decided upon. However, it became clear within two or three days that his observations were mistaken. (He suddenly recalled stories the old man had told him in that unknown subterranean world.) Indeed, people were uniformly dressed. Moreover, it was changing uniformly every day. They followed the fashion trends, and those trends changed day by day. The next day’s fashion trends were reported on the radio the evening before. Trends that were one day late soon became the next social class’s trends. People sold their one-day-worn used clothes to the next social class, and each day donned new—that is to say, used clothes that had come from a class one step higher in the social hierarchy. The government levied a fashion tax, and the Ministry of Fashion operated the Used Clothing Monopoly Bureau.

This system was supposedly devised from a socioeconomic perspective, with its stated purpose being that the lower down one's social class, the cheaper clothing one could obtain. But above all else, the daily profits of the government-operated Used Clothing Monopoly Bureau were enormous. People could not help but be governed by the trends. Those who did not follow trends—or rather, those lacking the capacity to comply—were deemed disruptors of public morals and had to be expelled from society. Therefore, while cursing this fashion system, the tragedies of people who accompanied their worn clothes down to the lower strata were countless every day.

Speaking of tragedy, this shop where Rose had been placed in its window seemed not to be a flower shop after all, but rather a confectionery.
There were a fair number of customers.
However, what was strange here was that whenever customers came, the woman in the shop would always first,

“Would you prefer the tragedy selection?”
“Would you prefer the comedy selection?”

she would ask.
Then, in response to the customers’ orders, she would bring out respective boxes, and the customers would make their selections from them.
This was utterly incomprehensible to Rose.
However, in his daily observations, the things that ultimately caused him difficulty in understanding were by no means limited to one or two instances.
As for the two women and one man in this shop, no matter how carefully he observed them, he could not understand what their relationship was.
Finally, he tentatively concluded that the man was the master of the house, one of the women was his daughter, and the other woman was likely a salesgirl.
Another thing he couldn’t understand was the man who visited the daughter secretly every single week without fail at night—though this one came furtively, he seemed to be her publicly acknowledged husband.
(This was an illusion combining video, audio, and even tactile sensations transmitted electronically—a method recently promoted by the government as the most reliable form of birth control—though Rose had yet to learn of this.) And since Rose had an aversion to married women, he decided to love not this woman but instead the salesgirl’s daughter.
He likely came to harbor such feelings naturally through this woman’s attentions—being placed in windows or on display—for he was an exceedingly lonely soul.

The Pinnacle of Art

Sitting at the desk by the window, the two women of this house peered into a book together. “Isn’t it lovely?”
He saw them frequently exclaiming things like, “Oh, it’s not just lovely—”
Rose intuitively thought they were reading a poetry collection.
And so he felt a sense of delight upon realizing that even in such an incomprehensible society, art existed.
So when he peered into that horizontally bound booklet, it turned out to be—(!)—a collection of counterfeit banknote designs.
Moreover, when they closed the book after having perused it from cover to cover, the title on the front read Complete Collection of Modern Literature: Volume 8.
They closed it and spent some time discussing literary theory.
Their cheeks were flushed, their eyes sparkling.
One seemed to favor realistic art, the other romantic works.
While one argued that things around 100 yen at most appealed more to tangible reality, the other vehemently insisted how amounts like 10,000 yen could enrich imagination and invigorate vitality.
The realist devotee did not object to the favorable notion of using enormous sums as themes, but retorted that works handling them somehow failed to express the solemn authority accompanying concepts like a million yen, leaving one with an empty feeling.

By that time, literature had abandoned over a century prior any method of expressing through written characters modern culture's sole life themes like "How to Make Money" or "If I Were a Millionaire." Today, nearly all periodicals, standalone books, and even one-yen complete editions (including the one the two women were now poring over—indeed serving as the source of the "Millions of Yen for Just One Yen!" promotional slogan) had recently transformed almost entirely into counterfeit banknote design collections as a more direct technique appealing to these same themes.
Among them, some faced sales bans for public morals due to their excessive realism allegedly unsettling popular sentiment.
People scrutinized them and keenly sensed their lives growing enriched.
They understood life's purpose and felt their existence held meaning.
Provoked by manifold fantasies, they perceived their lives bathed in radiance.
Thus people came to call this category of art spiritual art, distinguishing it from the other type—sensory art.

Rose soon learned that this shop where he was displayed was neither a florist nor a confectionery but in fact a gallery of sensory school artists.
Moreover, this master was undoubtedly an artist of considerable authority in this society.
It was he who had opened a new frontier in sensory school art—which had once teetered on the brink of extinction due to the development of spiritual school art.
Rose heard him often say this to the juniors who visited him—

“No matter how intensely you enhance things like color or scent, no one feels anything anymore.”
“Being satisfied with such trifles belongs to ancient history.”
“Take this Rose here—” (the Rose, being indicated, felt scorn) “—the fact that primitive humans delighted in such absurdities makes for a comical tale.”
“Now, engineering ways to consume flowers like this was indeed the work of past-era geniuses.”
“In truth, humans cannot satisfy true taste through gaseous substances alone.”
“The craving to bite into solid matter runs bone-deep.”
“Discovering this truth and devising flavors naturally suggested by hues and fragrances in solid forms—this marked genuine progress.”
“Yet even so, this amounts to nothing beyond what they called ‘sweets’ in antiquity—art fit for women and children, but inadequate for serious connoisseurs.”
“Who could endure endless revelry in such puerilities?”
“Precisely why people turned to that vapid spiritualist art—utterly baseless yet paradoxically deemed profound—shifting artistic trends entirely.”
“Moreover, that faction’s techniques did achieve temporary advancement.”
“Their method—visually manifesting banknotes’ inherent emotional essence while leaving application to free will—perfectly captured contemporary sensibilities.”
“That brutal simplicity holds merit.”
“Now regarding my contribution to modern art—” (he nodded at his juniors) “—as you gentlemen have graciously acknowledged, it lies in crafting visceral physical stimuli.”
“Consume my works—some provoke ceaseless laughter, others unleash torrents of tears.”
“The more potent pieces evoke sensations bordering on mortal agony.”
“Though battered by these near-death experiences, patrons never forfeit their reassurance—‘This being art’s effect, actual peril remains impossible.’”
“Thus through me, mankind may freely conjure infinite corporeal sensations matching their every whim.”
“Stimulating sympathetic nerves or vagus nerves constitutes our most pedestrian creations.”
“In essence—I’ve infused literary substance into chromatic, formal, and gustatory arts.”

“My art naturally differs from such shallow things as banknote designs.”
“In other words, I have applied a grand synthesis to various traditional arts.”
“I find it utterly mysterious that all previous artists refused to incorporate pharmacology into art.”
“And yet, since ancient times, the artistic value of alcohol was known—even in the superstitious nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they knew of opium’s and cocaine’s artistic applications.”
“And this during pharmacology’s full enlightenment era.”
“Moreover, they failed to recognize it.”
“That’s precisely because they superstitiously believed art to be something metaphysical.”
“Therefore, I wish to assign you a theme: How about devising a method to momentarily make people experience the rare sensations of having become plebeians like us?”
“If we let upper-class people taste this extravagant voyeuristic desire, it’s bound to become a trend.”

Having eavesdropped, Rose could not comprehend its meaning in the slightest.
And yet, he found himself growing strangely and intensely angry.
No matter what he saw or heard, nothing made sense anymore, and his initial happiness seemed to be gradually fading away.
He had grown accustomed to the noise and glare; sleeping was now his only reliable skill.
Moreover, each morning's sun grew warmer than the last.
Dozing in sunlight had become his sole happiness.
Yet within those dreams, an extraordinarily lush specimen of his kind would appear and address him.

“Do you know of the thing called the moon?”

“Do you know of things called stars?”
“Do you know of rainbows?”
“Small birds—do you know of nightingales?”
“The rich fragrance of black soil?”
“Do you know the murmur of a spring?”
“Do you know of night dew?”
“Do you know of a girl’s kiss?”
He could not answer a single one of those questions.
And when he retorted, asking who it was that posed such difficult questions, the other party spoke.

“I am your ancestor.”
“A Rose from the 1800s.”

Having answered thus， his ancestor began to speak of what flower life was like in those days.—When the dream ended，the Rose shuddered.
The sunlight vanished，and he was carried into a glass box.
The air lacked vitality.
People，disliking the enjoyable summer heat，took to blending several liters of air from the Alps’ mountaintops each day during this fine season.
The Rose recalled his ancestor’s words from the dream，surveyed his surroundings，and came to feel himself a prisoner.
That dream appeared each time he was placed in sunlight for thirty minutes daily—to mock his reality after awakening.
All flowers had opened only a third of their buds and withered.—Alas，they were diseased.

New Terror

One day, a group of women pushed past each other in excitement as they crowded into the store.
The owner and the two female staff members kept apologizing while repeating that they were out of stock, turning away the eager crowd of customers.
They hurriedly closed the shop in a fluster and put up a "Closed Today" sign.
The shop staff—especially the owner—were flustered and had withdrawn into gloom.
The Rose couldn’t fully comprehend the meaning of this bizarre spectacle, but by piecing together fragments of what he’d overheard, it went something like this.
In that world, a strange and terrifying disease had broken out in this city, and within half a day, over nine hundred young women had already died instantaneously with similar symptoms before the cause could be determined.
As this novel rumor spread, the women so clamorously swarmed into this artist’s shop because they wanted to experience that intense new form of dread as soon as possible.
However, even this shop’s owner—renowned as a creator of bodily sensations—naturally did not possess a creation that could faithfully express this abnormally novel feeling.
He had closed his shop to protect his reputation, but given that this strange disease was the first of its kind in the world, one had to say it was the demanders who were being unreasonable.

When night came, the Rose was sleeping outside the window.
Then he suddenly heard a human sigh somewhere nearby, followed by words in plant language—accented with a human lilt and slightly altered in tone—

“We have truly been deceived.”

He noticed something speaking.
The Rose opened his eyes and looked around.
The figure was nowhere to be found.

“Who are you—the one who spoke to me?”

Then, the voice answered from right by the wall.

“Just who are you?”

“I am a plant belonging to the rose family.”

“So you’re also one of those people recently transformed from humans, then.”

“That’s correct.”

“So then—are you happy?”

“…………”

The Rose started to say “No” but fell silent, then instead said, “Well, how about you?”

“You should speak first.”

“Me? Well, it’s not that I’m unhappy or anything,” the Rose replied in an evasive tone. When he realized that the other party was one of those who had been transformed in the same way long ago, for some reason he found himself unwilling to confess that he was unhappy.

“That—it’s not that we aren’t happy either. There’s air, and at least there’s sunlight. Plus, they say plants can’t talk, but look—we’re speaking perfectly well like this. Moreover, we can even fly.”

“Fly…?”
“Despite being a plant… you can fly?”

“That’s right.”
The other spat out, “I’m a failure.”

“Where on earth are you?”

“Clinging to the wall.”

There, for the first time, the Rose remembered the crowd from that circular plaza—completely forgotten until now—and gained the chance to learn what had become of the other humans from that time.
Those who had become true plants were apparently only himself and the great oak tree—his executed foster parent.
The countless others all seemed to have ended up as mere thick leaf-like objects!
And until yesterday, they had been parasitizing somewhere on the oak tree, nesting and feeding there.

“What has become of that oak tree? That’s someone I could call my father, but—”

“I’m afraid he’s been cut down. From the base.”

The Rose was shocked and grieved. “Why?!
Again—?”

“I don’t know.
He would complain daily—the air here on the surface is foul, the ground’s been hardened by human tinkering, the lights are too bright up here—even at night, you can’t see the stars.
Even so, he would sometimes laugh while saying he heard voices from the stars, but then humans suddenly came and dug out the soil around his roots.
When they realized they couldn’t dig it all out, they started cutting from the base this time.
Let it end however it will—I’ll sprout buds again, time and time again.
That person was cut down while saying those words.
What a terrifying electric saw.
We were the ones left in trouble.
Countless of us were sustained by being given what that person drew up.
Starting today, I’m unbearably thirsty.
I’ve resolved to drink human blood.
I’m thirsty.
Moreover, when I was being transformed, I got a good look at those so-called noblewomen’s skin—I want to touch it, even just a little.
Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee!”

This laughter’s eeriness and wretchedness resembled that of humans.

The night wore on.
The Rose could not sleep.
For some reason, he found himself persistently thinking about that old man of the underground cavern—the one who had become a great oak tree—whom he had been utterly unable to recall for so long.
Moreover, within this soil, the awareness that he was likely the only true plant made him feel utterly lonely.
Night turned to dawn.
The morning sun bathed him in light.
At that moment, a round leaf about one inch in diameter came fluttering from somewhere and settled against the side of his pot.

“Let me rest here for a moment!”

This strange plant fragment, apparently equipped with sucker-like appendages, was firmly attached to the flowerpot.
The Rose, in a half-asleep state, was seeing his usual sunlit dream.
……A flood of sunlight.
Youth.
Gentle breeze.
A nightingale came and sang.
The moon and stars were in the sky together with the sun.
A rainbow arched, and from within it a butterfly descended.
A spring whispered—let those who thirst drink there.
The girl—who was the daughter of the shop’s salesclerk—kissed him in full bloom.
The dream vanished.

The sun set, and as she did every day, she came to his window to place him into the glass prison that was the display window.
The Rose awoke clearly from sleep.
When he noticed the strange vampiric plant from last night and frantically tried to recall human speech to warn her, it was already too late.
She suddenly collapsed onto the floor.
And then, the right breast—completely exposed by that day’s fashion—was cleanly excised by someone, and her entire body rapidly turned purple.

From her hands, the pot containing The Rose—hurled out in shock—rolled out of the window.
Amidst the ferocious force of howling wind, The Rose plummeted downward, screamed, and in a flash realized there was no point in enduring life in such a world—then its consciousness faded away......