久しぶりに実家に帰って、夜の静けさの中ベッドに潜っていると、隣の父の部屋から爪を切るパチン、パチン、という音が聞こえてきた。子どものころ、父から何度も「夜中に爪を切ると親の死に目に会えないよ」と迷信を伝えられてきたことを思い出す。でも、そうだね、今の父にとっては、お母さんも、お父さんもこの世にいないのだから、もう関係のないことだ。
Back at my parents’ house for the first time in a long while, I burrow into bed in the stillness of night. From the next room comes the snap, snap of nail clippers—my father trimming his nails. It takes me back to childhood, to all the times he warned me: “If you cut your nails at night, you won’t be there when your parents die.” An old Japanese superstition, passed down like a cautionary whisper. But now… his mother and father are both gone. So I suppose—it no longer matters.