[summary] “Ore-sama no Iu Toori” / “As The Great Me Wishes”
Published in Yasei Jidai #153, August 2016.
Describing the story, Kato-sensei said that it’s bizarre and sprinkled with dark humor. It totally is :) Which makes writing a summary even scarier (the responsibility!), but I tried to do my best.
I had to write in 3rd person; the actual text is in 1st person, the POV keeps switching from one “I” (ore) to the other as they interact.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An apartment on the 8th floor; the time is around 4 a.m. A fourteen-year-old boy is playing Final Fantasy X, when all of a sudden a shabby-looking 30-something guy barges into the room from the balcony.
“Er, excuse me, but w-who are you? Wait, and how did you get here?! Er-r… I’m panicking!”
“I can see that much. Don’t you recognize me?”
“N-no. Please, don’t kill me!”
The older guy suddenly roars: “Ra-argh!”, and the boy screams, his fear reaching its peak.
“Come on, it’s not “Looper” or something, I’m not going to kill myself. Or should I say, I’m not going to be killed by myself?”
The mention of the movie that’s not out yet in 2001 makes the teen even more confused, and the man is annoyed at his young self being so slow. He explains that he came from the future, 20 years from that day, and that they were the same person. The teen is suspicious about how exactly the time slip worked - he’s familiar with “Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo” novel, and it’s written there that two ‘versions’ of one person can’t exist in the same world at the same time. “Tsutsui Yasutaka-sensei can’t have made a mistake, this guy is a liar!”
The 34-year-old keeps being grumpy and bossy. He scolds the younger self for playing video games till ungodly hours and not doing the summer vacation homework (mentioning, though, that it was going to be torn anyway, by two other boys who would beat 'him' up).
Finally, to dispel the remaining doubts, the older guy pulls out the ‘nobody-else-knows’ trump card: only the two of them know that he used Miki-chan’s (a girl he liked and had just been rejected by) name for a character in Dragon Quest!
The younger “I” takes a closer look at the older “I” and notices a certain resemblance (although the man has more moles and looks quite unappealing in general).
“Um… So, how am I doing in the future?”
“Are you serious, what’s with this question? Don’t you want to ask first: “What brought the “me” from the future here?” Unbelievable, I didn’t know I was so lame!”
Of course, the teenager asks again how all that is possible. The 34 y.o. tries to explain. When he came home from his part-time job, he saw a small ladybug in the room. He picked the insect up and released it outside, but the next moment the bug was back. After the 20th attempt to get rid of the creature, it suddenly turned into a butterfly, and onion grew out of its head.
(He waved away the boy’s suspicion that he was a hallucinating junkie, saying that he didn’t even have the money to buy drugs in the first place.)
The weird ‘butterfly’ said that the human could choose if he wants to visit the future or the past. The details were too complicated for him; the only thing was clear: whatever he does, it won’t directly affect his own life in the 'present'. Most people travel to the future, because it’s a chance to see what happens and, upon coming back, use the info for the reference (to avoid wrong decisions, etc.) Our guy, however, thinks that it’s boring, like playing an RPG consulting a strategy guide. So he chose the past.
The teen tries to protest: “But I don’t want to know too much about my future, either”, which earns him a slap. “Shut up, I’m doing you a favor!”
That summer, the man continues, screwed everything up. He was scouted in Shibuya, entered show-business, got a role in a dorama that became a hit, got carried away, didn’t go to high school or college, indulged in drinking, his career went downhill, but he couldn’t give up desperate attempts to become famous again. So, now he’s working part-time at a karaoke bar, and there is no sign his life is going to improve any time soon.
That’s why he wants the teen self to do as he says: no going to Shibuya that morning; he must enter a certain high school and a certain university [Akagawa, “red river”, which can’t not remind the reader of Shige’s “blue mountain” alma mater], etc.
When his ‘mission’ is complete, the older “I” grabs a mechanical pencil and PlayStation 2 and jumps down from the balcony (no dead body on the ground, of course).
The boy is stubbornly set on going to Shibuya and becoming famous anyway, but he oversleeps. Then, when the new school term begins, he does get beaten up by Sasaki and Endou, just like the 34 y.o. 'he' predicted. The boy decides to follow the advice of his older self, from now on referring to him as 'god' (kami-sama).
He chooses the ‘approved’ high school, loses his virginity at 17 [Kato-sensei doesn’t skip any detail :D], enjoys his youth, graduates from the aforementioned Akagawa university, aims for the successful career at a prestigious company, gets married at 28… Everything is great.
Now he is 34. One evening he returns home and sees a ladybug in the hall. Tries to get rid of it. After the 20th ‘round’, the creature turns into a butterfly, and… celery grows out of his head. Not onion, he notes.
It turns out that the universe has an infinite number of ‘time axes’. The 'you' from 1 second ago or 1 second into the future are both 'you' and completely different people, each of their worlds revolves around a separate ‘time axis’. So, you can meddle with their lives, but it won’t affect your own.
“Why was the explanation too complicated for kami-sama? Well, he only finished junior high school, so I guess it can’t be helped…”
Anyway, the guy wants to meet the 'god' and thank him, so he asks for a visit to the future.
The mysterious creature instructs him on how to come back. Unsurprisingly, he will have to jump down from a height. He will also need to be holding a number of things: a printed circuit board, something that’s called by a Japanese-adapted foreign word, also “courage, hope, love, affection, envy, pain, irony and wildness.”
The man is flabbergasted, but has no time to recover from all the weird stuff. The next moment he is transported on a river bank, into the night, to meet his other 'self'.
The older “I” looks even worse than before. His hair has grown long, eyes are bleary. The 'successful' man tries to talk to him and thank him for everything. However, the 'loser', driven by jealousy and rage, attacks the other self, with hands on the man’s neck, in an attempt to strangle him.
The 'successful' guy manages to grab a stone and hit the 'loser' on the head. “So I killed myself after all, just like in “Looper”…”
He’s shocked and can’t think straight, but certainly wants to go home. The problem is he’s forgotten the celery-butterfly’s list almost completely. “Some abstract notions, a printed circuit board, a thing called by a word of foreign origin…” By the way, that means that 'kami-sama' didn’t want to make the teen’s life better by taking PlayStation 2 with him, he only needed the printed circuit board. What a selfish bastard, the ex-teen thinks absent-mindedly.
He manages to find a key-holder (ki horudaa) and some unfamiliar futuristic device that will have to suffice. Holding them, he jumps into the river.
It doesn’t seem to work. The man is floating on the surface, “like an otter”, gazing into the starry sky. The universe is immensely wide. Somewhere out there, in numerous parallel worlds, there are numerous other versions of him.
The last sentences are chaotic, as if somebody is flipping through channels or trying to tune the radio, making it possible for the main character and/or the reader to hear what other “I”s are saying (or thinking). Like this:
“Hey, don’t eat my ice-cream”
“You know, that time I went to Hawaii”
“Hello? It’s me, it’s me” [the infamous phone scam]
“My grandchild has learnt how to say ‘gran’pa’”
There’s an even more bizarre phrase:
And then, the very last one:
“Ah, a shooting star”
Describing the story, Kato-sensei said that it’s bizarre and sprinkled with dark humor. It totally is :) Which makes writing a summary even scarier (the responsibility!), but I tried to do my best.
I had to write in 3rd person; the actual text is in 1st person, the POV keeps switching from one “I” (ore) to the other as they interact.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An apartment on the 8th floor; the time is around 4 a.m. A fourteen-year-old boy is playing Final Fantasy X, when all of a sudden a shabby-looking 30-something guy barges into the room from the balcony.
“Er, excuse me, but w-who are you? Wait, and how did you get here?! Er-r… I’m panicking!”
“I can see that much. Don’t you recognize me?”
“N-no. Please, don’t kill me!”
The older guy suddenly roars: “Ra-argh!”, and the boy screams, his fear reaching its peak.
“Come on, it’s not “Looper” or something, I’m not going to kill myself. Or should I say, I’m not going to be killed by myself?”
The mention of the movie that’s not out yet in 2001 makes the teen even more confused, and the man is annoyed at his young self being so slow. He explains that he came from the future, 20 years from that day, and that they were the same person. The teen is suspicious about how exactly the time slip worked - he’s familiar with “Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo” novel, and it’s written there that two ‘versions’ of one person can’t exist in the same world at the same time. “Tsutsui Yasutaka-sensei can’t have made a mistake, this guy is a liar!”
The 34-year-old keeps being grumpy and bossy. He scolds the younger self for playing video games till ungodly hours and not doing the summer vacation homework (mentioning, though, that it was going to be torn anyway, by two other boys who would beat 'him' up).
Finally, to dispel the remaining doubts, the older guy pulls out the ‘nobody-else-knows’ trump card: only the two of them know that he used Miki-chan’s (a girl he liked and had just been rejected by) name for a character in Dragon Quest!
The younger “I” takes a closer look at the older “I” and notices a certain resemblance (although the man has more moles and looks quite unappealing in general).
“Um… So, how am I doing in the future?”
“Are you serious, what’s with this question? Don’t you want to ask first: “What brought the “me” from the future here?” Unbelievable, I didn’t know I was so lame!”
Of course, the teenager asks again how all that is possible. The 34 y.o. tries to explain. When he came home from his part-time job, he saw a small ladybug in the room. He picked the insect up and released it outside, but the next moment the bug was back. After the 20th attempt to get rid of the creature, it suddenly turned into a butterfly, and onion grew out of its head.
(He waved away the boy’s suspicion that he was a hallucinating junkie, saying that he didn’t even have the money to buy drugs in the first place.)
The weird ‘butterfly’ said that the human could choose if he wants to visit the future or the past. The details were too complicated for him; the only thing was clear: whatever he does, it won’t directly affect his own life in the 'present'. Most people travel to the future, because it’s a chance to see what happens and, upon coming back, use the info for the reference (to avoid wrong decisions, etc.) Our guy, however, thinks that it’s boring, like playing an RPG consulting a strategy guide. So he chose the past.
The teen tries to protest: “But I don’t want to know too much about my future, either”, which earns him a slap. “Shut up, I’m doing you a favor!”
That summer, the man continues, screwed everything up. He was scouted in Shibuya, entered show-business, got a role in a dorama that became a hit, got carried away, didn’t go to high school or college, indulged in drinking, his career went downhill, but he couldn’t give up desperate attempts to become famous again. So, now he’s working part-time at a karaoke bar, and there is no sign his life is going to improve any time soon.
That’s why he wants the teen self to do as he says: no going to Shibuya that morning; he must enter a certain high school and a certain university [Akagawa, “red river”, which can’t not remind the reader of Shige’s “blue mountain” alma mater], etc.
When his ‘mission’ is complete, the older “I” grabs a mechanical pencil and PlayStation 2 and jumps down from the balcony (no dead body on the ground, of course).
The boy is stubbornly set on going to Shibuya and becoming famous anyway, but he oversleeps. Then, when the new school term begins, he does get beaten up by Sasaki and Endou, just like the 34 y.o. 'he' predicted. The boy decides to follow the advice of his older self, from now on referring to him as 'god' (kami-sama).
He chooses the ‘approved’ high school, loses his virginity at 17 [Kato-sensei doesn’t skip any detail :D], enjoys his youth, graduates from the aforementioned Akagawa university, aims for the successful career at a prestigious company, gets married at 28… Everything is great.
Now he is 34. One evening he returns home and sees a ladybug in the hall. Tries to get rid of it. After the 20th ‘round’, the creature turns into a butterfly, and… celery grows out of his head. Not onion, he notes.
It turns out that the universe has an infinite number of ‘time axes’. The 'you' from 1 second ago or 1 second into the future are both 'you' and completely different people, each of their worlds revolves around a separate ‘time axis’. So, you can meddle with their lives, but it won’t affect your own.
“Why was the explanation too complicated for kami-sama? Well, he only finished junior high school, so I guess it can’t be helped…”
Anyway, the guy wants to meet the 'god' and thank him, so he asks for a visit to the future.
The mysterious creature instructs him on how to come back. Unsurprisingly, he will have to jump down from a height. He will also need to be holding a number of things: a printed circuit board, something that’s called by a Japanese-adapted foreign word, also “courage, hope, love, affection, envy, pain, irony and wildness.”
The man is flabbergasted, but has no time to recover from all the weird stuff. The next moment he is transported on a river bank, into the night, to meet his other 'self'.
The older “I” looks even worse than before. His hair has grown long, eyes are bleary. The 'successful' man tries to talk to him and thank him for everything. However, the 'loser', driven by jealousy and rage, attacks the other self, with hands on the man’s neck, in an attempt to strangle him.
The 'successful' guy manages to grab a stone and hit the 'loser' on the head. “So I killed myself after all, just like in “Looper”…”
He’s shocked and can’t think straight, but certainly wants to go home. The problem is he’s forgotten the celery-butterfly’s list almost completely. “Some abstract notions, a printed circuit board, a thing called by a word of foreign origin…” By the way, that means that 'kami-sama' didn’t want to make the teen’s life better by taking PlayStation 2 with him, he only needed the printed circuit board. What a selfish bastard, the ex-teen thinks absent-mindedly.
He manages to find a key-holder (ki horudaa) and some unfamiliar futuristic device that will have to suffice. Holding them, he jumps into the river.
It doesn’t seem to work. The man is floating on the surface, “like an otter”, gazing into the starry sky. The universe is immensely wide. Somewhere out there, in numerous parallel worlds, there are numerous other versions of him.
The last sentences are chaotic, as if somebody is flipping through channels or trying to tune the radio, making it possible for the main character and/or the reader to hear what other “I”s are saying (or thinking). Like this:
“Hey, don’t eat my ice-cream”
“You know, that time I went to Hawaii”
“Hello? It’s me, it’s me” [the infamous phone scam]
“My grandchild has learnt how to say ‘gran’pa’”
There’s an even more bizarre phrase:
And then, the very last one:
“Ah, a shooting star”