ウマ娘の寿命が現実の馬と同じ世界線の恋愛事情 作：daidains
【マチカネフクキタルの訪問】に関して、読み返していて純文学みたいだなと思い、こんな想像が膨らみました。
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死ぬ間際のサイレンススズカは、自分の生きた証を何らかの形で残しておこうと考え、自分の経験をもとに小説を書くことを決意する。【お見舞いですよ、スズカさん！】と題されたその作品は、出版されるとたちまち話題を呼び、ついには海外で翻訳版を出さないか、と声がかかった。
英語版の売上の一部を寄付することを条件に、サイレンススズカは英訳版の出版を許可するが、問題は翻訳者を誰にするかということであった。
始めは同年代のタイキシャトルに依頼するが、彼女は日本語の細かいニュアンスを読み取ることまではできなかった。そこで、アメリカ出身で日本語・日本文化に精通した後輩のウマ娘、グラスワンダーに翻訳を依頼する――
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なんか自分の作品に狂わされていて、おかしくなってる自覚がありますが、もうこうなったら止められれないと、上の設定で英訳してみました。
この話に誤字報告きたりしたら絶対笑っちゃうと思う。
自分の英語力はネイティブレベルだなどとは口が裂けても言えないレベルなので、変なところは絶対あります。翻訳ソフトで適語を探したり、ChatGPTに添削してもらったりしたのですが、本当にぴったりなのかすらわかりません。その辺をご了承ください。
ところでウマ娘の世界で英語圏の人たちは「ウマ娘」をどう呼んでいるんですかね？
そのままHorse Girlとだけしておきましたけど。
Colorful Silence: Translated by Grass Wonder
Someone once joked that there are 200 kinds of white, but being surrounded by nothing but white, I’ve begun to feel like I can truly discern the differences among them.
Walls, ceiling, clothes, bed... strictly speaking, not everything is white, but perhaps because the expansive color white asserts itself so dominantly, the room feels oppressive, almost as if it's making me physically smaller. I doubt anyone would choose to stay here for long.
At least, the fruits brought in as get-well gifts – apples, melons – do their best to absorb the pervasive monochrome, preserving a semblance of color around them. Kajii Motojirō might have found solace in a single lemon, but for me, these modest efforts in color cannot alter the room's stark, cold impression.
In this room, I was nothing but an existence waiting for death.
During the Emperor's Cup in autumn, I was rounding the big zelkova at an unprecedented speed, approaching the fourth corner.
Just as I reached this corner, with only the final straight ahead, I fractured my left leg.
Not just any fracture, but an open compound fracture – a severe kind where the bone pierces through the skin, notoriously difficult to treat.
Given I was running at speeds over 60 km/h, it's a miracle I didn't die from falling. Dodging a fall by desperately protecting my broken leg somehow worked, allowing me to escape to the outside of the corner.
Under normal circumstances, I might have died – but then, that chilling sensation – not exactly race intuition, but something similar – I trusted it. That decision saved my life.
However, the fracture was severe. The scene of my blood red on the green turf, with my ribboned shoe thrown aside, looked almost festive, like a Christmas tree decoration.
The prognosis for an open fracture of the leg is poor; even if treatment goes well, running as before is nearly impossible. It was a gift from Santa, both out of season and malign.
"You can no longer run."
Hearing the doctor say this, my world turned dark.
My existence was defined by running. To not be able to meant my life had lost its meaning.
Moreover, the doctor's declaration wasn't just symbolic of death.
For us Horse Girls, our legs are literally our second heart. Blood pumped by the heart is carried to the extremities by the legs, and their muscle contractions send it back. Not being able to run meant our circulatory system couldn't function properly, disrupting the smooth flow of oxygenated blood.
More muscle means more to lose. In the worst case, circulatory failure could lead to multiple organ failure and death.
And now, I was living through this worst-case scenario.
"It's... over..."
I muttered to myself in bed, looking out the window at bare trees under a gloomy sky – a perfect metaphor for my tragic, unreasonable end.
I did try to fight my fate. Ignoring the doctor's words that "it's useless," I once threw myself into rehabilitation. But those efforts did nothing but hasten my approach to death, offering no real resistance.
My left leg was almost completely numb, and putting weight on it during rehab felt like floating in air – a form of nothingness. With no progress, reality seemed to slip away further, and I realized that true death lay just beyond this void.
I wished for someone to pull me back to reality as I lay in bed, when suddenly, I heard the flutter of footsteps and a voice saying, "Excuse me," as the door to my hospital room opened, revealing a nurse I'd become all too familiar with.
"What is it? It's not time for changing the sheets, is it?"
"Yes, actually, there's a visitor for you."
"I've refused all visitors."
People pity me, and that pity strips away the last of my strength. Despite making it clear I wanted no visitors, the nurse brought up the topic, prompting a cold glance from me as I responded.
"Yes, but she insisted on seeing you."
"And who might that be?"
"A Ms. Machikane Fukukitaru."
Machikane Fukukitaru – a Horse Girl of my generation, a winner of the Kikka Sho*1, a GI race. We've competed in the same races many times, perceived as rivals by the public.
But in truth, our racing styles were so different – I ran without much thought to others, she seemed driven by some unfathomable spiritual force – that we never truly considered each other rivals. We were acquaintances at best, likely to drift apart now that we'd left the training center.
"Fukukitaru..."
Murmuring her name, I considered the nurse's question of whether to let her in.
Normally, I would have refused immediately. Fukukitaru couldn't heal my leg, and seeing her would solve nothing. Yet, I was exhausted by the encroaching suffocation and the air thick as soot.
Perhaps someone as unconventional as her could distract me from this oppressive atmosphere. It would be mere procrastination, but right now, I needed relief from this agony more than direct treatment.
After a moment of hesitation, I nodded slightly.
The nurse understood and left to fetch Fukukitaru.
Soon, the door swung open again, and Fukukitaru entered.
"It's been a while, Suzuka-san."
She sat beside my bed, surprising me not with her presence but her attire.
She wore her usual 'Nya-san' – a cat backpack – adorned with Daruma and four-leaf clover hair accessories, several prayer beads around her wrist, and various charms and great luck ema *2 hanging from her waist.
That wasn't the shock.
She struggled through the door with a bag so large it nearly hid her, its straps cutting into her arm, making it as red as the Daruma in her hair. I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight.
As she set the bag down with a thud, a clinking noise filled the room, breaking the monotony. I asked her, my ears ringing, "What brings you here all of a sudden?"
Chuckling, she replied, "Well, Suzuka-san. I came to visit you, as a friend."
"Thank you. But we're not that close, are we?"
"You could have refused me."
"I was going to, but then I just felt like it."
"Ah! Just as Shiraoki-sama foretold. 'Today, she will see you,' I was told in a dream."
Shiraoki-sama, a deity she's worshipped since childhood, appears only in her dreams, offering guidance. Her family runs a shrine, but this deity isn't enshrined there. Despite not understanding the need to race, she believes "the path opens as you run," as Shiraoki-sama says.
"And what's in the bag?"
Pointing to the oversized bag, I awaited her explanation.
With a grin, she announced, "Ah, you've asked the right question! This is a gift for you, to ensure your longevity. I've brought something that grants 'eternal' energy!"
Diving into the bag, I half expected her to pull out another dubious talisman. But what she presented was far more bewildering.
She handed me a slender glass tube, its insides a mystery of metal components. The clinking sound was these tubes clashing.
The intricate metal within the glass seemed to serve an unknown purpose. I was clueless about its function or how to use it. It appeared as an incomprehensible relic of ancient technology.
Holding it, I could only ask, "What is this?"
"A vacuum tube," she replied, surprised at my ignorance.
"A vacuum tube? How does this grant 'eternal energy'?"
She waved off my skepticism, citing Dostoevsky from "Crime and Punishment," "We always imagine eternity as something vast. But why must it be large?"
"I've never heard that before."
Her baffling reference only deepened my skepticism, prompting me to hand the tube back. If it were truly a source of energy, surely it would have been discovered and utilized by now. Yet, as she reassured me with a smile and pushed the tube back into my hands, her belief in its power seemed unshakeable.
"Suzuka-san, it's about the 'vacuum' inside."
"Isn't that obvious?"
"Right. There's no air inside. If you were inside, you'd suffocate."
"Isn't this supposed to be a get-well gift? Sounds more like you're trying to kill me."
"Of course not! It's different from Earth – a completely different realm."
Holding another tube, she demonstrated, "Imagine this: space, the vacuum of the universe, encapsulated in glass. The Earth is just a thin glass away from this vastness. Fragile, isn't it? Just thinking about it depresses me, haha."
Her laughter betrayed a descent into madness. She'd become fixated on overcoming the lifespan of Horse Girls, delving into the world of lucky charms. Seeing her now, I felt a mix of pity and alarm.
As she continued to pull tubes from her bag, I bluntly told her to leave. Yet, she persisted, "This 'eternal' space will benefit you. I have plenty, take as many as you want."
"One is enough, thank you."
I accepted one tube, stopping her from offering more. She smiled wryly, packing the rest away.
"Just keep this in your room," she said, preparing to leave.
With a bow, she added, "Let's meet again... Thank you, Shiraoki-sama, for this meeting...,"
Fukukitaru chanted a strange spell that sounded like "hun-nyaka han-nyaka" as she left the hospital room. I glanced at her retreating figure, silently wishing to the 'Nya-san' on her back that this would be our last meeting.
Once she was gone, the room became surprisingly quiet, and as I lay back down in bed, I was alone again. Her departure left me feeling as though I'd been through a storm, briefly escaping from the oppressive, indescribable darkness that seemed to crush me before her arrival.
But, after all, it was nothing more than a temporary reprieve, a palliative. Soon, I was overwhelmed by an unbearable sense of fatigue and emptiness.
It was as if nothing had changed—I was back to where I started. I tried to relax, to let go of the tension in my body and mind, but it wasn't so easy.
Resisting the sense of void, I picked up the vacuum tube given to me by Fukukitaru, examining it closely as I mulled over her words.
Eternity.
Such a concept felt distant and unreal to me. Yet, holding the tube, a whimsical thought crossed my mind—what if I tasted it？What would happen if I ingested this miniature cosmos filled with "eternity," as Fukukitaru put it?
This outlandish idea clung to my thoughts, rendering me unable to look away from the tube.
My reflection on the glass surface resembled a fledgling bird yearning for food, mouth agape. Slowly, I brought the end of the glass tube to my lips.
The cool surface touched my lips, causing them to reflexively pucker and suck on the glass.
As my lips sealed tightly around the tube, our connection became seamless. I tentatively touched my tongue to the glass, linking my mouth to the tube with a thin line.
In that moment—I felt something indescribable flow into me along with the crisp taste of glass. It was as if a viscous liquid, condensed with life or perhaps melted flesh, was being poured abundantly into the vessel that was me.
This enigmatic liquid coursed through my entire being, enveloping my insignificant existence until it seemed to dissolve completely within me.
I removed the tube from my lips, wiping off my saliva on my sleeve.
And I remembered Fukukitaru's mad words.
This is eternity.
Thinking so, I nearly allowed myself to be consumed once again by the feelings that filled me. It was sheer ecstasy.
Of course, my leg hadn't healed, and physically, I remained unchanged.
Yet, I had somehow managed to forget the indescribable fatigue and listlessness that tormented me.
The apples and melons that had been desperately absorbing the monotone world around them now seemed to burst with color, transforming into vibrant fruits before me. My mood, too, felt as if it had been lifted from the depths of a lightless ocean to breathe fresh, clear air.
Unable to contain the burgeoning emotion, I sat up in bed and pressed the nurse call button.
When the nurse entered the room shortly after, I conveyed my new wish.
"Excuse me. About the visitors—I'd like to welcome anyone from now on. Please arrange that."
Translator's Afterword
In the process of translating "Colorful Silence" by my senior, Suzuka-senpai, into English, I found myself delving deep into the nuances of her narrative, a task both daunting and enlightening. Suzuka-senpai's prose, rich with metaphors and imbued with a poignant reflection on existence and perseverance, posed a significant challenge in ensuring the emotional resonance was as palpable in English as it was in the original Japanese.
This novel, at its core, explores the fragility of life and the quest for meaning within it, set against the backdrop of a protagonist grappling with a life-altering injury. Suzuka-senpai's meticulous attention to detail and her ability to weave despair and hope into a single thread allowed me to appreciate the depths of her storytelling. As I navigated the translation, I aimed to retain the purity and intensity of the emotions, ensuring that readers across cultures could connect with the protagonist's journey.
"Colorful Silence" speaks volumes about the strength found in vulnerability and the unexpected avenues through which one can rediscover purpose and joy. The protagonist's interaction with Fukukitaru, in particular, underscores the theme of serendipitous connections that transcend conventional pathways to healing.
As a translator, my goal was not only to bridge languages but also to connect hearts. I hope that this English rendition of Suzuka-san's masterpiece allows it to resonate with a broader audience, offering solace and inspiration to those who find themselves in the silence of their own colorful struggles.
In translating this work, I was reminded of the profound impact storytelling can have on our lives, serving as a beacon of hope in times of darkness. It is my honor to present "Colorful Silence" to the English-speaking world, and I extend my deepest gratitude to Suzuka-senpai for entrusting me with her creation. May this story inspire you to find beauty in the bleakest of moments and strength in the most unexpected places.
With warmth and respect,
Grass Wonder