Salvation equals death

Oda Saku wrote a book.

The book tells about a girl who likes to collect stars. She carries a small bag and a butterfly net, and crosses thousands of rivers and mountains, just to meet some people and things, and then take a bright or brilliant star from different people. stars.She will put the collected stars into her back pocket with great care, mark them, and write their names. Each star represents a person she misses and an unforgettable story.

However, the process of chasing stars is very difficult, she will often get hurt, will be rejected, will suffer malice and slander.

In the stories of reunion and separation, she always stumbles forward without stopping, and those stories may have a sad ending, but they are always warm in retrospect.

——Like the bright and shining stars.

It is very rare for Oda Saku to write a dreamy and almost unreal story in his usual calm and almost sharp style.

He has always been good at creating a contradictory and highly substituting atmosphere from the trivial details of life, using bits and pieces of ordinary people's lives to exaggerate the unstoppable beauty of mourning and solitude.

But this time, he gave up writing sorrow with joy, but chose to write joy with sorrow.

To fall, to be hurt, to be scolded, to run away, to betray—

All misfortunes and sufferings in Oda Saku's works will eventually be resolved in a nonsensical way. Even if the protagonist dies once, he will surely come back to life at night, and then jump around in the coffin while yelling that he is afraid of the dark.

He wrote about a lonely and happy child who dances in her own world and plays the script she wrote herself, like a nightingale bird that always makes people happy, knowing no sorrow, innocent and pure.

Yes, even in stories, she is always entertaining, like the stars in her arms.

Until the end of the story, the seriously ill girl opened her eyes in the hospital ward. It turned out that those stories were just the infinitely extended somatosensory time when the girl was dying, and the memories of her short life.

The omniscient god told her that she was about to die, but the god could give her a long dream that would never wake up, and she could live in the dream for a long time.

——The price is that she must abandon all the stars.

"Let me die with the stars in my arms." The girl made a grimace and made a wish. On a starry night, she smiled and stopped breathing on the hospital bed, as if falling into a sweet dream.

Oda Saku has never written a fairy tale, but he created a pure and beautiful picture like a fairy tale in this book. He named the little girl in the story "Butterfly", and this book is called "Immortal butterfly".

Because the girl can come back from the dead, everyone, including the girl herself, is used to asking her to go out to defend against arrows in critical moments. The girl continues to perform the poignant way of falling to the ground and then gets up and runs under the horrified gaze of the enemy. It's a small joke, because this gorgeous butterfly cannot be destroyed anyway, so the partners affectionately call her "Immortal Butterfly".

Undead Butterfly died in the end, but Oda Saku said that she fell into a sweet dream.

The story is warm and soft from the beginning to the end, and it can even be said to be humorous, but if you read it carefully, it will inevitably be a bit unpleasant.

"It's an incredible horror story told with an innocent but realistic and straightforward description." Osamu Dazai commented after watching it with great interest.

When the little girl was pushed to block arrows by her companions again, she also put her waist in and said angrily: "Hey, don't do this! I will hurt too."

When she was buried in the coffin and couldn't get out, she jumped up and down and sang loudly, and spent the cold and lonely night alone, until the next day she cried and begged others like a sprouting carrot Pull yourself out.

When facing life and death, she also cried like a child, because she had so much reluctance and nostalgia, and so much love and longing from others.

"Well, give this book to Saku Le." Oda Saku felt that it was difficult to publish this book, so he decided to keep it private, "Saku Le will like it, right?"

"Do you like a horror story?" Dazai, who was eating curry rice with the same flavor as Oda, was so hot that he couldn't stop shaking his tongue. His eye circles were red from the spicy smell, and finally helped Oda to send the manuscript. go out.

"I can't be scared alone, I want everyone to eat Oda's sword."

Oda Saku didn't stop him, because Osamu Dazai was still a child in his eyes anyway, but what no one expected was that "The Immortal Butterfly" was finally published, and the sales volume was very impressive.

"Because Xiaodie is a child with a miserable fate and is lovable." Dazai bought a white rose with the only two steel coins left in his pocket after inviting the young lady in the flower shop to die in love. It is admirable but often seems not real enough, the innocuous incompleteness is the humane beauty in the complex human nature, and what is more beautiful than the beauty of sorrow after struggling hard but still having to follow fate?"

"Dazai." Odasaku glanced at his friend disapprovingly, and blocked the black mud that was about to flow out, "Don't do this, at least Xiaoqian left you what he wanted to convey."

--hope.

Only Oda Saku and Nakajima Atsushi knew that when the girl passed away, she entrusted her last hope to Osamu Dazai, the most hopeless person.

A "book" that can change everything.

"It's so cruel, isn't this forcing me to live?" Dazai lay on Odasaku's shoulder pretendingly wiping tears.

"Don't make trouble, she just divided the meaning of her existence in half with you." Odasaku curled his lips helplessly, because he remembered the elder who once showed him a book.

It was a wonderful book called "Light and Darkness". In it, there was a killer who was very similar to him in life experience, but the ending was torn out a few pages. In the last few pages, there was a sentence from the killer, that sentence Maybe it will sublimate the killer's bloody life.The elder told him, "The only way to make the story complete is for you to write the ending." So Oda Saku put down his gun, vowed not to kill anyone again, and awkwardly picked up the pen.

——All the way to today.

"Dazai, you once said that 'people long for everything of value, and the moment they get it, they are doomed to lose it one day, so there is no such thing as anything that prolongs the pain to pursue'." Oda Sakubo Holding a bouquet of white roses, walking steadily on the path in the mountains with Dazai, who is bouncing around, "Do you still think so?"

"Yes." Dazai looked back lightly, his curly black hair was blown by the wind, and his kite-colored eyes were as clear as a day for ten years, just like the pupils of a newborn baby, "Life is pain, I still think so of."

"But ah, suffering can make you feel alive—is there actually no problem with this explanation?"

"It's too much. I thought she was grateful for my infatuation and accepted my death, but she said something like 'Since I am not the savior of this world, then Dazai can be the savior instead of me'." "

"Why must she be a trustworthy person? She still remembers what she said at my funeral until the end."

— If life is pain, then I will be with him.

"Once upon a time, a man named Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment. A cat was stuffed into a box with hidden organs that could isolate all detection from the outside world. Without opening the box, no one would know what the cat was. Dead or alive—and Chi-chan, she’s now Schrödinger’s cat in my heart, right?”

Dazai still doesn't know, in the end, did Vera break free from the control of the system?Is she dead, or is she still living in another world in pain?And what he did was right or wrong?

For that girl, is the dream of eternal life more happiest, or those bright stars that are more difficult to let go of?

Dazai couldn't figure it out, if the hero in her heart could really be so omnipotent, then she would be happy just as the invisible cat.

He can cover his eyes without looking or thinking, without opening the evil box, even if Oda Saku wrote the most obvious answer, he will only be a girl and start chasing the next dream again.

——After all, it is an immortal butterfly that will live forever in thoughts.

Dazai and Oda Saku came to a cemetery in the suburbs, and found the girl's resting place under a tree.

The tombstone has already been piled up with tender and tender white roses, and the dewy petals are sprinkled with light gold powder, wrapping the tombstone in colorful flowers, rich and powerful, full of heart, one can tell who made it at a glance.

"Ah! Look at my super high-speed tap dancing spot! I'm stepping on it—!"

"Dazai, don't step on the flowers Mr. Chuya planted, Chisang will be angry."

A year ago, Dazai held an extremely joyful funeral for his deceased friends. Facing the silent and depressed Akutagawa and Nakajima, he told them that she probably wanted to see them dance Cha-Cha rather than apologizing and crying.

Atsushi Nakajima, who had an ivy-brained brain and believed what others said, left the stage in tears. Akutagawa struggled with a stiff face for several minutes, until finally he gave up on himself with the idea of ​​"Even if you can't lose to Tiger". off the field.Even if the two slender and thin teenagers danced inexperienced dances, they would not appear to be out of harmony. On the contrary, they instantly killed the piles of films of Higuchi Ichiyo and Izumi Kyoka. At the end of the dance, Akutagawa's face was almost green.

It was really the most lively funeral that Oda Saku had ever seen in his life. If Dazai tried to climb into the coffin to die and was punched away by Chuya, it would probably be more harmonious and beautiful.

"Death is not something to be sad about, it's just a book that finally has an ending—whether it's a comedy or a tragedy, it doesn't prevent it from being a fascinating work no matter how many times you read it."

Dazai lay down on the lawn biting the dog's tail grass, the warm sunlight poured on his body, making people want to take a nap.

Oda Saku placed the flowers brought by himself and Dazai in front of the grave, and tidied them up, only to find that there were not only the white roses sent by Chuya, but also the mourning gifts sent by others.

"Do you think Nakajima is Chi-chan's long-lost younger brother? You see, they all have silver hair and yellow eyes, and one has turned into a cat and the other has turned into a tiger. They also have such innocent personalities no matter their age—"

"Dazai, Mr. Nakaya will really beat you to death if he hears about it."

——If it wasn't for the fact that Atsushi saw something similar to himself, how could Dazai treat people so differently?

Atsushi Nakajima hated himself, Dazai hated himself too, and the girl who stood opposite Dazai but stood at the other extreme—Yomo also did the same.

Possessing a powerful but annoying empathy ability, they have been chasing the illusory meaning of existence all their lives. They have insight into the world and high standards that constantly criticize themselves, which creates a tragedy that they cannot get rid of.

"Because they always take everything about others too seriously, and take themselves too lightly, they will constantly blame themselves, punish themselves, and live in trembling and pain."

Natsume Soseki raised his hand and gently stroked the name on the stone tablet, and the child lay quietly on the ground, gaining the tranquility he longed for.

Fukuzawa Yukichi, who was wearing a grand kimono, stood quietly not far from the tombstone, looking at it quietly.

"Yuji, you don't have to regard this child's death as a sin that you should bear. She actually knows how to walk her own way. You have to know that if a person wraps himself in despair, it may be because despair can become a protection." Her armor or a weapon." Natsume Soseki put down a bag of dried fish in front of the girl's photo, "Actually, I have not done a good job as an elder than you, because for her, I can't think of a happier life than death." ending."

"She's tired, Yukichi."

"It's an extremely cruel thing to be so tired that forcing her to continue living."

"She has no choice but to ask you to help her. Otherwise, a person like her would rather rot than die by your hands."

"I understand, teacher." The wind blowing on the face messed up the middle-aged man's messy forehead hair, blocking his eyes, "I just feel very sad, because I obviously have the opportunity to give her a hand—— "

On that evening when the sun was setting, by the side of the river that was rendered maple red by the setting sun—or, earlier, earlier, at least he could make this child's life a little happier.

"I want to become an insignificant cat, and I don't want to leave too deep memories for others, but she is so afraid of being alone, she is so afraid that she wants to die..."

——Abandoning those past people and things in the past is equivalent to abandoning all of herself from the past to the present, so she is unwilling to compromise.

"We're all mud-covered wild dogs chasing the meaning of existence."

But, but—whether Osamu Dazai or Atsushi Nakajima, those lives who constantly criticize themselves and live cautiously are actually very, very beautiful.

"However, even if their lives are short and absurd, they are all good children like gods."

A drop of dew dripped from the drooping white rose on the tombstone, passing across the girl's smiling face.

[Extra episode. God-like good boy ends]