741: this name is already in use : 2010/04/13(Tue) 23:00:35 ID:J3ClYQWc
This happened at a certain hospital in the middle of the night.
I was handling paperwork in the records room when I felt someone peeking in: ○-san1.
“What’s wrong, ○-san?”
He had undergone a surgery where he lost his voice, so he just stood there looking unhappy.
“A call home? Did something happen? If it’s about the paperwork, I’m working on it right now.”
He lifted his pinky finger and then smacked his forehead, shaking his head.
Pinky… Woman… Wife? Is everything alright?
Just then, I remembered that ○-san’s wife was with him.
“Is your wife alright? Should I go check?”
○-san nodded his head. I quickly made my way to the room ○-san was in.
As the room came into view, ○-san’s son ran out calling for help. “Help! My mom-”
The wife indeed appeared sick, and I moved her to the ward with the help of her son. It seemed she was overextended and anemic, so we gave her an IV drip and let her rest.
After a while, she felt better and had calmed down, so I went and finished ○-san’s medical paperwork so the wife and son could go home. I also conveyed that ○-san told me about the wife’s illness. For some reason this made the wife cry, and the son looked like he might cry, too.
Once the car came to pick them up, I whispered: “goodbye, ○-san.”
741 ：既にその名前は使われています：2010/04/13(火) 23:00:35 ID:J3ClYQWc
とある病院での夜中の出来事。
記録室で書き物をしていたら、ひょっこりと部屋を覗く気配がした。○さん。
「どうしたの？○さん」
声を失う手術をした○さん、困ったように立っている。
「家に電話？何かあった？書類なら今書いてるよ？」
小指を立てたあと、額に手を当てて頭をゆらゆらさせている。
小指・・・女・・・女房。・・・・気分悪い？
いま、○さんに奥さんが付き添ってる事を思い出した。
「奥さん、気分悪い？見に行った方がいい？」
○さんがうなずいた。急いで○さんのいる部屋に走る。
部屋が見えたとき、部屋から息子さんが出てきて「すいませんお袋が！」と叫んだ。
具合の悪そうな奥さんを、息子さんと２人で病棟に移し、
疲れによる貧血だろうということで、点滴をしてしばらく様子を見ることにした。
しばらくして様子が落ち着いたのを見て、
家に帰れるように、奥さんと息子さんに○さんの診断書を渡した。
同時に、○さんが奥さんの不調を教えてくれた事も。
なんだか奥さんは泣いていて、息子さんは泣きそうだった。
迎えに来た車を見送って、つぶやいた。
「さよなら、○さん」
- In Japanese, the character ”○” is used as a blank, so ”○-san” could also be translated to Mr. Blank or Mr. ___. I decided to keep ”○-san” in this case as a cultural marker since matters involving hospitalization and death work quite differently in Japan than they do, for example, in the US. I feel the story makes the most sense when grounded within the context of Japanese hospital culture. ↩︎
This story may not count as ”scary,” even with the twist. The twist, of course, is that ○-san was dead the whole time. Small hints are scattered throughout the story: from the beginning, ○-san’s presence is felt rather than seen or heard; moving the wife to the ward means ○-san’s room was somewhere else, implied in this case to be the morgue; the family waiting for the ”medical paperwork,” or the death certificate, before they could leave; and, finally, the family’s reaction to learning ○-san was still looking out for his wife. The story is melancholy, a ghost story for sure, but whether it is a scary story may be up to the reader.
Project Kowai 
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