A Song For The End Of Everything

Fiction by G. S. Arnold. ". . . our bodies are mere instruments for something we’re trying to learn, our lives loosening within us moment by moment to bring us to this final point . . ."

Art by Glenn Shaw

Five-and-a-half weeks before Toshihide Nakagawa dies, his son Yusaku takes him to see a rerun of the film Rocky at the Paradise Repertory Theatre in Burakuricho, Wakayama, a theater known for its continuous state of disrepair. Toshihide has reservations about going. He’s seventy-seven years old, after all, too advanced in years to be mousetrapped in some dirty, air-conditioned theatre for a prolonged period when at any moment his assortment of ailments—duodenal ulcer, myocardial ischemia, polyuria, hyperthyroidism, arthritic back, not to mention his recent flirtation with an enlarged prostate—might all implode in a cacophony of bodily malfunctions. And then there’s the matter of the subtitles. Toshihide’s eyes and subtitles have been at odds with each other for the past six years, ever since the 1993 Jurassic Park fiasco when, halfway through the movie, the subtitles grew hair, fused into a furry ball, and oscillated in front of the screen like a bloated cat. But Toshihide’s wife Momoko insisted he go, chiding him for not spending enough time with their son. How much longer does Toshihide think he’ll be around at his age anyway, she said. Life is short, and Yusaku is their only child—isn’t it time Toshihide got out of his armchair and away from his game shows and did something useful? This is family, after all. What more does he want out of life?