Cigarette Case
How dare you say, “Did you have a good time last night?”, though you know it.
――It wasn’t as if you had done anything to be ashamed of, lady?
I hate you.
*** ***
A radio was making a noise to fill up a blank.
In a small room of an apartment, one woman lay on a sofa using a tablet computer and the other woman brought two cups of coffee. Two women looked same, having same colour of hairs, same hairstyles, same faces, same sexy beach bodies in bathrobes and same voices.
So to say, they were twins.
However, just one point was different. A woman lay on the sofa looked fine in relaxed, while the other woman looked tired with annoyed face.
“Hey,” a woman bringing two cups of coffee said onto the other woman, “could you make some space?”.
“How?” She replied.
“Come on.”
“Just kidding, you know?”
“Not for me now.” She spoke gradually slower and slower, “I’m so exhausted that you'll make me crazy and do some fuckin...”
“Hey, please. I am sorry for it. But...what made you so irritated?”
“What...what!?”
She sat on the sofa next to the other woman who turned off the tablet computer, put cups on the low table besides the sofa, and said.
“Today, our fucking manager...”
They could not speak without saying something disagreeable. As usual, two women was laughing at someone behind someone’s back. Ordinally, it was about bad attitudes of guys.
“Disgusting.”
“It’s true.”
Time had passed, somehow a white wine, cheeses, crackers, some fruits and cigarettes were on the low table. A woman leaned on the shoulder and the other leaned on the head. Bringing those stuffs to each mouth other, two women were chuckling as if they forgot a disgusting guy.
One cigarette was too long, so once a woman pick one and started smoking after making sound of S.T.Dupont and a sparkle, the other woman stole it.
Sooner, she put out the cigarette.
“Bitter.”
“You stole my cigarette.”
“It’s not a complaint.”
“OK... So, pick one fruit.”
“You’re right.”
So, a woman reached out her hand.
“Hey,” she stopped her hand as if there were too much stuffs to pick one up and asked, “would you also like some...wine, cheese, fruit...or some sweets?”
“A sweet?”
“Yes, a kind of sweet that makes you pleased.”
“Sounds special.”
A woman increased the radio volume to drown out the noise.
～fin～
問. 文頭の部分は、文末の部分よりも後の出来事だと考えられるのは何故か。文末の「A woman increased the radio volume to drown out the noise.」で、ラジオの音量を上げた理由として考えられることと、「the noise」が何か（a）～（c）に答えなさい。
解答.
「the noise」は双子姉妹が、この後（a）した際の音を示唆している。そもそもアパートに関して、（b）ということから壁は（c）と考えられるため、（a）した際の音が周囲の住人に気付かれにくくするため、前もってラジオの音量を上げたのは明白である。それ以外ありえないし、実際、冒頭で「昨晩は、お楽しみでしたね？」なんて聞いてくるのも、知ってるでしょ？ とか思ってたのに「おやおや、言えないことをしていたとでも言うのかい？」なんて、大っ嫌いなんだからもう。
（a）自由記述です。事細かに内容を書くのも良いでしょう。私は待ってます。
（b）文章中の語句を抜き出しなさい。
（c）厚い・薄い 正しい方に丸を付けなさい。
