Silence
It is said that Omiya Akifusa will never say a word again. It is said that
he will never again write a character—though he is a novelist, and only
sixty-six years old. What is meant by this is not simply that he will no
longer write novels, but that he will no longer write even a single letter or
character.
Akifusa’s right hand is paralyzed, is as useless as his tongue. But I have
heard that he can move his left hand a little, so I find it reasonable to
assume that he could write if he wanted to. Even granting that he would
find it impossible to write passages of any length, still it seems likely that
he could write words in large katakana when he wanted to ask that
something be done for him. And since he is now unable to speak—since he
can neither signal nor gesture freely—writing even the most crooked
katakana would allow him to communicate his thoughts and emotions in a
way not otherwise possible. Certainly misunderstandings would be less
common.
However ambiguous words may be, they are certainly much easier to
understand than clumsy body language or awkward gestures. Even
supposing that old Akifusa managed to show that he wanted something to
drink—by pinching his lips into a shape that suggested sucking, for
example, or by miming the act of lifting a cup to his mouth—just making it
clear whether it was water or tea or milk or medicine that he wanted, which
of just these four—even that would prove difficult. How would he
distinguish between water and tea? It would be perfectly clear which he
meant if he wrote “water” or “tea.” Even the single letter “w” or “t” would
get the message across.
It is strange, isn’t it, that a man who has made his living for forty years
using letters and characters to write words should, now that he has almost
