sol.ace_r

I was terminally ill.
The doctor spoke very carefully, yet with a manner far too familiar.
“I think you’re looking at about six months.”

That voice was strange.
It wasn’t heavy, and it wasn’t light.
It sounded like the voice of someone who hadn’t said this just today…
but someone who had repeated it countless times.

I lowered my head for a moment.
I stared blankly at the numbers written on the paper.
Then, suddenly, I looked up at the doctor’s face.

“…Then I’ll make it past spring.”

The doctor didn’t avert his gaze.
“Most likely.”

I smiled a little at that.
Making it past spring.
Strangely enough, that felt like comfort.
Spring had always… come a little late anyway.

The day I left the hospital, I didn’t take the bus.
I just walked, slowly.
Standing at a crosswalk where the traffic light was blinking, it felt as though the whole world was passing by beside me.

In my pocket, I heard the diagnostic report fold and crease.
Inside it were all kinds of numbers.
Blood test values, CT results, the doctor’s name,
and, written in small letters, “estimated survival period.”

I didn’t take it out again.
There was no need to look.
That time was already moving, little by little, somewhere inside my body…
and I knew that better than anyone.

That night, I turned off the light and lay down.
I stared blankly at the dark ceiling when—suddenly, tears fell.

I didn’t cry loudly.
It was as if the water that had pooled at the corners of my eyes was simply pulled down by gravity.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

‘I’m still okay.’

I told myself that.
And then, a little later, I thought, ‘But… what does “okay” even mean?’

My body didn’t hurt that much yet.
I could still breathe well.
Coffee still tasted good, and the daytime breeze felt nice.
But… somewhere in my head, something felt like it was slowly freezing.
Am I really still feeling everything…?
Sometimes, even I wasn’t sure.

The next morning, I slept longer than usual.
Sunlight filled the room.

I opened the curtains.
Tiny dust particles floated quietly in the light.
I watched them for a long time.
They were truly beautiful.
There was no sound at all.
That silence felt as though it was filling everything.

I sometimes wrote short diary entries.

“Coffee tasted good today.”
“Sunlight came in, and it was warm.”
“I walked, and I didn’t run out of breath.”

They were nothing special.
Records that might not mean anything at all.
But I knew.
Those sentences were proof that I had lived through the day.

Someday, it would stop.
And that final sentence—what words would it be?

I walked through the neighborhood park.
It was quiet.
Since it was a weekday afternoon, there were hardly any people.
I sat on a bench and let the sunlight fall on me.

I closed my eyes.
It felt as if this place were the end of the world.
As if, just a little farther on, I would reach the boundary.
And if I crossed it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

But I stayed seated.
I still wanted to be on this side.
I still wanted to smell the trees in this park.

I went home, washed up, and prepared dinner as usual.
I sat at the table and picked up my spoon.

As I was doing so, a laugh slipped out.

‘I’m still eating.’

That thought made me want to cry.
I had always thought death was far away, but now its shadow had reached all the way to the dining table.

Still, I didn’t put the spoon down.
I chewed slowly—very slowly.
That… was no different from living.

At night, death felt closer.
During the day, things like the smell of coffee or the sound of the wind
had tricked me, just for a while.
But night was different.

When I turned off the light, it felt as though I could hear “time” moving somewhere inside my body.
I felt my heart beating.
That rhythm felt like the tempo of the little time I had left.

I sometimes looked in the mirror.
My face was still there.
I had eyes, a nose, a mouth.
I was breathing.

“It’s okay.”

I said that to the me in the mirror.
And the me in the mirror seemed to smile a little.
It was probably my imagination.
Still… I liked that illusion.

On the desk in my room, my pen and notebook were always just as they had been.
This room was still the room of someone who was alive.

I knew that someday, this room would be cleared out.
Someone would come in and clean off this desk completely.
When that happened, where would this pen go?
This notebook?
This blanket?

It felt a little lonely.
So I held on even tighter.

One night, I opened the window.
Cold air flowed into the room.

I inhaled deeply.
Then, very softly, I murmured,

“Not yet.
Not yet… just a little longer.
I still want to be here.”

The sound was so small that even I could barely hear it.
But it was enough.

I was terminally ill.
That fact didn’t change.

And yet, today I brewed coffee, I went for a walk, I read a little.
And I let the wind into the room.

That was… today.

A day that hadn’t come yet.
Until that day arrives, this is how I want to live.

Eventually, I was admitted to the hospital.

I hadn’t planned for it from the start.
I wanted to stay at home as long as possible.
My room, my desk, my curtains, the sound of water boiling in a pot—I still loved all of it.
It all felt like proof that my life was still here.

But one morning, when I woke up, my body felt unbearably heavy.
I couldn’t draw a deep breath.
Only then did I realize.
Ah… it’s really close now…

The hospital was strangely bright.
White, clean, unnecessarily kind.
While I lay on the bed, nurses came every day and inserted IV needles into my arm.
When the needle went in, when the IV drip slowly descended…
I just stayed still.

Outside the hospital window, leaves sprouted on the trees, and a few days later, they had grown even greener.
That speed… somehow matched the things diminishing inside me.
Each day, I grew a little weaker, while the trees grew a little fuller.
It felt like I was the only one moving in reverse.

I woke up more often at night.
During the day, people were around, so I could forget a little.
But at night, all I could hear was breathing.
My breathing, the breathing of someone in the next room, the footsteps of a nurse passing through the hallway.

And yet, strangely, I felt less afraid.
I simply took out old memories one by one.
Days when the sunlight was beautiful, a day I ate ramen with a friend, the moment my mother smiled and stroked my hair.

I knew none of it would ever return.
And yet, strangely enough, I was okay.

One dawn, I suddenly wanted to open the window.
I went close and breathed in.
Cold air reached the very ends of my lungs.

I murmured softly.

“Not yet…
just a little longer.”

The words were so quiet that even my own ears couldn’t catch them clearly.
Still, that was enough.

Then I could no longer walk.
The time I spent sitting grew shorter.
I lay down all day.

A nurse opened the window slightly.
The white curtain fluttered gently.
Watching it, I thought,
‘How long will that curtain keep swaying in the wind?’

And in a room without me, someday, someone else will look at that curtain too.

The last day—I could feel it.
It was hard to breathe in any more.
It felt as though the inside of my chest were becoming hollow.

I looked out the window one last time.
And in a small voice, I murmured,

“I’m a little scared…
but it’s okay…
just a little more… just a little…”

My insides felt light, as if everything had been emptied out.
Then my breathing stopped.

And then, I saw something very strange.

I was no longer in the hospital room.
The place was full of sunlight, and the wind was gentle.
On the grass, there was a small mound of earth where I had been buried, and on top of it, a single white butterfly rested lightly.

The butterfly took flight.
Softly, slowly—and without realizing it, I smiled.

Ah…
I was the white butterfly.

For a moment, I perched on my own grave.
Above the traces of the life I had lived, I stayed there just a little while longer.

Then the wind blew, and I flew a little higher, a little farther.

That was my end.
And yet… it felt as though, somewhere, a new life was beginning.

If you were given only a little time left, what would you do?

Or rather—
today is already such a precious day, so what are you doing right now?