「A Hundred Year Flower And A Hundred and One Year Swallow」

作者：さだはる

It was a season like a hurricane.

Dark and thick clouds covered the island completely and cold rain never stop pouring down.

Maybe I shouldn’t call it “a season” because it was common for the island to be. The rain

falls a day, a year.

Only a flower－Red flower, blooms quietly except for plants on the dim precipice of the island.

Nevertheless she blooms, it’s dark and rains so she cannot show her beautiful figure to others.

It let her hidden into the bulb in the eternal rain.

To get something ready for－Spring which comes every other hundred years.

On some days, it was being done at last at the moment.

The thick cloud which the sun light doesn't come in was fading, and the sun shone on an

island first time in 100 years. Plants awake from a long long sleep and straighten their bodies

very much, and it's wrapped in a warm season, and an island faces in the whole body in the

sun. A rainbow appeared in the sky. Kind wind blew through.

This merrymaking isn't only for plants, the flower too. She counted One second a second in

the tuber, and it's ready ? whether it's unready ? because she was waiting.

Flower "it's spring, that spring came from oh. It's after a long time that it's so pleasant. Will it

bloom very beautifully today? Anyhow it took 100 years at last"

A flower made a beautiful red flower bloom.

But because it's in the back of the island, no plants see her.

A flower was repeating such lonely spring many times many times.

Flower "How long am I here? I have already been forgot."

There isn't a partner who speaks, either, so she talks alone.

It didn't find out the meaning to live to a flower so.

Flower "(sniffs)...strange... (sniffs) at... more than usual, it's strong-smelling of...... tide..."

So!! There was summer in this island actually.

The summer comes once per 101 years.

Flower "Oh will be quite accidental. Spring and summer came simultaneously. It's nice."

Swallow "Yes, it's nice."

Suddenly, one swallow came.

Swallow "You have a lot of speaking."

A flower has hardened by a sudden thing.

Swallow "Even if, I may be able to get a bird's-eye view of water from here. It'll be the sunset,

must be the beautiful direction where the sun sets."

A flower still hardens.

Swallow "... It’s ok to start talking...."

Flower "...... coff... coff coff"

Swallow "... Are you possibly tense?"

Flower "...Not at all."

Swallow "Look, just as you are."

Fortunately because her cheek was red so can be hidden well, and....

Swallow "A face becomes red."

Flower "......!!"

This was an encounter of a flower and a swallow.

They do talkativeness, speak about mutual various things and ask throughout the day on the

day, and so.

Swallow "Wow...you are in this island all the while? Aren't you much lonely by yourself?"

Flower "Already accustomed so it’s not painful."

Swallow "It’s strange. It's we, if summer comes to this island, comes certainly. Anyhow once

per 101 yeas so it’s called phantom island. While I could live, I didn't think I could come. It's

nice place. Clean scenery is seen so that you may be not become sad."

Flower "Sometimes becomes too beautiful to be sore."

Swallow "... Look, sad you."

Flower "Sad isn’t sore."

Swallow "It's same."

Flower "It's different."

Swallow "same"

Flower "You're faultfinding."

Then after a swallow raises its one leg.

Swallow "Look, upward momentum bird"

Flower "You look like an... silly bird."

Swallow "You laughed at well."

Flower "I'm not laughing, because I have not laughed."

Swallow "It's false."

Flower "It's true."

Swallow "well. But it's strange, that it's the flower of which never die"

Flower "Isn't it ordinary?"

Swallow "No was heard for the first time. Because ordinariness is to lose the vigor instantly."

Flower "Said?"

Swallow "You know nothing it's an... flower, a seed leaves and is growing again. That's being

repeated and the life is being spun. And be also in each flower for flower language."

Flower "Flower language?"

Swallow "Yes, love, pure, hope and so. It's nice. You don't have that?"

Flower "I don't have that, because I knew for the first time."

Swallow "Said? Then, shall I put it?"

Flower "No isn't needed."

Swallow "It's put."

Flower "No reservation."

Swallow "You're quite businesslike."

Flower "I doesn't want to get along so much well."

Swallow "Because it's a special encounter whether you wouldn't like particularly."

Flower "Farewell doesn't become deserted. I'm fed up."

Swallow "Who you are, it has been separated?"

Flower "...... No has no...."

Swallow "You know why to do become lonely."

Flower "...... so strange."

Swallow "strange you"

A flower didn’t understand really. Why do I have such feeling?

10,000 and 100 years ago weren't remembered any longer in a flower. It was unusual and fun

to come for the flower which lives through eternity, and she was here with that, and it was

very bitter.

Swallow "You can bloom only in spring?"

Flower "It's so, all except for spring is useless. Summer can't also bloom."

Swallow "Then we could meet is miracle."

Flower "It may be so."

Because it's this season when spring and summer mixed, it led to an encounter.

Swallow "I'll bring you somewhere in commemoration of such miracle."

Flower "I can't move from here."

Swallow "I miss, it's grasped by a bill and it's carried."

Flower "I'm afraid."

Swallow "It's OK. Because it's done well."

Flower "Oh!"

When he said so, he held a flower forcibly but gently and it flew out.

Swallow "this is the scenery from the sky."? How is it

Flower "............"

That was first experience for a flower.

Flower "see! An island is so small! And there are many birds there!"

Swallow "My companies. I lay egg at this island, and it's brought up until it becomes big.

Anyhow it's phantom island. The child who grew up here is being talked about to live long

vigorously."

Flower "I didn't know, such thing"

Swallow "If you wanna go, I’ll show you around."

Flower "Then......there!"

Swallow "It's ok."

In this way, a flower and a swallow explored an island throughout the day.

Flower "It's for the first time that it was so fun."

Swallow "good. I take you anytime again."

Flower "Thanks!! ...... wrong............ Well."

A flower take her eyes to the ground. But after it'll come unsewn immediately.

Flower "I don’t care."

The next day, the, the next day was also with a flower and a swallow.

I go to a cave in an island, and you introduce a company of a swallow.

The relationship has already become completely good.

Swallow "There is one suggestion."

Flower "Suggestion?"

Swallow "Yes. I think it's better to live at other places more than dark precipice.

Flower "The fact which moves from here?"

Swallow "yes"

Flower "That is... overstrain. Because I have to be here."

Swallow "Why?"

Flower "Please try a little. Carry me to the hilltop."

A swallow carried a flower to a hilltop and put it quietly.

Then it'll be that what happened. The beautiful red color becomes blue in a moment.

Flower "......be taken out early..."

A swallow take her back to the precipice immediately.

Flower "I become painful. If it isn't here, I think that I can't live."

Swallow "such..."

Flower "I have tried before in the same way. It became a trauma."

Swallow "for that...... sorry."

A swallow faces to the bottom as season.

Swallow "... Please wait for... a moment. Even if you try, how?"

Flower "what......?"

The flower was at a loss for a word.

Why do I know that it'll be for certain in blue? Did I try? When?

Flower "... I can’t remember"

The floral destiny which lives through eternity is cruel. Because it is impossible to remember

everything.

Swallow "A friend isn't besides me?"

Flower "No."

Swallow "It’s not just remembered?"

Flower "What I remember nothing is that I have no friends."

A swallow became intolerably regrettable at the moment.

Someday...she will forget....

Flower "Why are you regretting?"

Swallow "I get... and it is...... truth, why is......?"

Flower "strange you"

Swallow "strangely,"

Flower "It's strange."

A flower blossomed out.

Spring and summer passed and also grew into the swallow by which fun time was passing and

was egg big, and tried to end.

It was that a flower and a swallow knew that it's near at farewell.

Flower "I want you to be able to live all the while, too."

Swallow "then I'd like to bring... to the various places deserts full of aspect sand and the

volcano where he breathe the fire all night."

Flower "It seems fun."

A swallow didn't do talk of farewell.

But a flower begins to talk and says

Flower "I have to be one all the while."

The voice by which suddenness seems regrettable was astonishing to a swallow.

Swallow "...... why"

Flower "Because no one remembers me."

Swallow "... that......I remember. "

Flower "it's impossible, for that"

Swallow "continue to remember. You could be in this way, I never forget."

Flower "But I find out that you remember."

Swallow "I should come to meet again."

Flower "it’s impossible."

Swallow "I live long."

Flower "Even when are spring and summer piled again?"

A swallow, " well. Even when I can meet you again."

He knew that he can't live through itself lengthily so much of course. But a face of a swallow

brimmed over with some confidences, and the too dazzling sun in summer shone on a swallow

sturdily.

A swallow flew out of an island at the end of a season. Its form that he’s flapping to the far sky

where voice cannot carry, she looked at all the while. Whether she put back in the bottom at

the heart and are crowded old who, though the form is piled.

Without a limit, darkness, all over an island of it was wrapped. The alone which starts again.

The smell of the sun was poured into rain.

A flower knows this smell well. This cold and serious smell.

Flower "This is my world."

She begin to count again. One second a second, one day a day, one year a year.

When 100 years had passed finally, a flower was looking the direction where that swallow has

come in all the while.

Flower "Yet, He has not come."

Even if other 100 years had passed, sh was looking at the same place.

Flower "... is unready."

Even if more 100 years, 200 years had passed, she just do the same thing.

Flower "... unready... is unready."

Beyond unimaginable time passed in this way.

And one day

Flower "... oh, now's...... how many years......... that I... am doing what, is it......"

A flower has been forgot finally.

It was too long time to wait.

A flower has begun to consider the living meaning in the darkness. Why do I live through?

Who am I...?

She have begun to look for the response which doesn't go out.

Who in the far past that is, it was the same situation just as the front where someone had come.

With that time when I was one all the while. With that time when I met the real loneliness

when forgetting everything.

No of the memory heat a flower up.

Time passed.

One day, a flower saw the sky clearing up for the first time in 100 years.

It was spring after a long time. Plants danced and a wind took a superficial fragrance on and

blew through an island, and... noticed... and a flower being different from usual spring.

Flower "the smell of the tide"

Faintly, she thought the smell of the tide is mingled with a wind.

At the next moment, the sun blazed down hard and a wind was blowing out to the sky.

It was, summer.

Plants straightened their bodies and put a deep green leaf rapidly, and a face was opened to

the sun.

Flower "It's summer."

Voice is being heard from a far way. From that way which was being once looked in before all

the while.

A host of voice is approaching gradually.

At last, he gets off next to the flower and speaks to her

Swallow "I come to honor a pledge."

Appointment for the far past when that's eternal.

Swallow "I remember, don’t I?"

A flower remembered everything.

Flower "... truth"

Swallow "Yes, true."

Flower "really, he...remembers...me"

Swallow "What happened?"

Flower "I didn't expect..."

Swallow "Please don't cry. Because there is a present."

Then after a swallow looks up at the deep blue sky.

Swallow "My companies."

Flower "........."

Swallow "Of a grandfather of my grandfather, it's bet on grandfather's grandfather...,

hundreds and tens of thousands for thousands of years again, and it's a spun appointment. "I

want a beautiful flower which blooms on the cliff to meet her.". Could a......promise be

achieved?"

A flower inhales once.

Flower "Of course."

Swallow "... it was good for that."

A flower was looking up at the sky for a while.

Swallow "And this is a present."

When a swallow gave a signal to everyone, a seed was falling one after another from the sky.

Swallow "There is also “please take seeds” in the promise. It's a floral seed of all over the

world."

Flower "in the ...world."

She couldn't hold her tears any longer.

Feeling the one amassed with thousands and tens of thousands melted.

Swallow "And it's last. A will is received. Let me say, please."

Flower "... Yes."

A swallow begins to draw in breath and speak gently.

Swallow "for flower language, "eternal friend""

Next spring, the flowers with the vivid color were in bloom around the cliff. A seed was born

from there also the color also bloomed vividly in the same way in the next spring.

While looking at the far blue sky

Flower "eternal friend"

She said so and laughed gently.