2003-04 – 人を轢いた – Hito wo hiita

We Ran Over Someone
Translation by mike_s_6

The taxi I was riding in hit someone.

I was about to go to a recording at 10 in the morning. It was a day when the snow fell horizontally, and while warming myself in the car, I thought that walking outside would be difficult.

To avoiding traffic, the taxi tried to cut through a residential area. Then suddenly, a bicycle with a diagonal umbrella suddenly jumped out in front of the car. I thought the driver threw the brakes way ahead, but the car glided on the snow, and on top of that, we were on a mildly downhill road. Because of this, the taxi wouldn’t stop, and we hit him.

The man and his bicycle was slowly dragged underneath the car. In an instant, for some reason, I was reminded of music sheets sucked into a copy machine.

I heard the taxi driver silently moan, “yeah…” Why? This person who just caused an accident, has this happened to him before? I thought about it a lot. A black umbrella, white snow, a yellow taxi, yeah… yeah…

As I leapt out of the car, I dialled 110, and was told that the ambulance is number 119. Aaah, I must be confused. I heard, “What’s the current value?” I heard those words, but I didn’t understand what they meant. I listened harder. On that same location, there were addresses written on the telephone pole. In front of me was “Watanabe”, and beside that “Sato”.

The seemingly expensive, specifically chosen bike was bent and was lying around. We carried the man to a place at the road side untouched by the show. His shoe has slipped off, and his leg was bent. He can’t be in his 50’s, and I had a good impression of him. His lips were trembling. On his foot where the shoe has slipped off, he wore a sock that has just been washed, and upon seeing this, I oddly felt that he was hygeinic. When you see such an appearance…

I noticed that my left hand held restrained the knee of his leg that was bent. Even I didn’t know why I somehow wanted to touch it. Nevertheless, I wanted to. I understoood that I greatly calmed down while putting pressure to his knee.

Suddenly in my head, the southern bird’s warm sea came to my mind, in a manner which reminds me of a comic strip’s speech balloons. There is a sandy beach, a wide shallow beach where waves slowly breaks into. The water is completely lukewarm.

In the snow-blown cold Tokyo residential area, a dog that seemed like it had to pee crouched on a hallow spot, and inside my head, I thought, “Pa-radise!” I have no idea why I thought that way.

And then a bit embarrassingly, I had become completely relaxed. I felt like air. You can also say that I felt glamorous. And then the man’s trembling also stopped. I looked at him and saw that he was calm.

After this, the ambulance came and immediately brought him to a nearby orthopedic hospital. I excused myself to go to work, but the whole time, I felt like the cells inside my body were jumping up and down. Is this Qigong[1]?

I thought that choosing the taxi that caused the accident was bad luck. But along with the interesting feeling that I experienced, the driver afterwards came with an apology gave me cookies. And because I was surprised that they were delicious, I forgave him.

[1] Qigong is an internal Chinese meditative practice that often uses slow graceful movements and controlled breathing techniques to promote the circulation of qi within the human body, and enhance a practitioner’s overall health.