The Blue Bird (Twitter)
Here's the Twitter Moment.
An ordinary local city, an ordinary man who could be found anywhere.
Let's call him "E" for now.
Although he was an ordinary man, he had a certain amount of ambition, so on his days off, he studied something that might be useful.
He studied for qualifications, studied languages, read books, gathered information on the Internet, and so on.
One day, he was gathering information on the Internet, but he was so sleepy that he was dozing off.
Various memories of the past came back to him like a revolving lantern.
He couldn't tell if he was dreaming or if he was still in his thoughts before falling asleep.
Suddenly, a large blue bird swooped down from above him.
The bird mumbled something as it swooped down gracefully.
To his surprise, the bird seemed to be speaking a human language.
At first he couldn't understand what language it was, but gradually it started to sound like clear Japanese.
E was surprised, but he could calmly think that maybe he was in a dream right now.
He decided to enjoy the dream anyway, so he tried talking to the strange bird.
"Hello, bird, your Japanese is very good."
The bird was gracefully adjusting its own feathers with its beak for a while.
Then, as if remembering, it turned to E and said.
"Oh, you can see me, can't you?
It's been a long time since I've seen someone who can see me in this world."
It was a strangely realistic dream.
The presence, breath, and smell of the bird.
He couldn't believe he was dreaming.
"Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?"
E asked the bird in a loud voice.
The bird stared at him without blinking.
"If this is a dream, I will become God, Buddha, a demon, or the god of death.
What the hell do you want?"
E was a little surprised to hear the answer.
But he was convinced that if this was indeed a dream, then the bird was right.
Both E and the bird fell silent, and time passed quietly for a while.
E was silent and thoughtful.
He continued to feel as if his thought processes were whirring around in his brain.
E decided to ask the bird a question.
He was sure that the bird would answer his question.
"If I think you are God, do you become God?
If I think you are the devil, do you become the devil?"
The bird listened to E's question, staring at E with a seemingly expressionless face.
Then the bird answered E's question with a teasing look.
"If I become God, what do you want?
If I become a demon, what do you want?
What do I look like in your eyes in the first place?"
E was a little confused by the questions from the bird, and only answered the last one reflexively.
"In my eyes... you are a bird, a little big blue bird.
You are speaking a language, Japanese..."
The bird smiled and said.
"You're a funny guy, you know that? Well, do I look like a blue bird in your eyes?
So, what should the blue bird do now?
What do you want the blue bird in your eyes to do?"
E replied, a little mystified.
"The bird... what can you do?
If I ask you for money, will you give it to me?
If I ask you for something special, like a supernatural power, will you give it to me?"
The bird replied with a slightly puzzled look on its face.
"If this is a dream, then anything is possible.
What is it that you really want?
Is it really money? Or supernatural power?"
Then the bird smiled again and said.
"Either way, when you wake up from this dream, there will be nothing left."
E thought.
"Even if this is a dream, I want something to remain real after I wake up, anyway."
He was a rationalist. He thought rationally and asked the bird another question.
"The blue bird is a symbol of happiness.
If you can be the blue bird of happiness, can you make someone else happy?
Unfortunately, I am not the kind of person who can be made happy by such a dream."
The bird said with a slightly surprised look on its face.
"I see, that's an interesting thought.
In this wide world, there are many people who can be happy with this kind of dream.
I could find them easily."
E asked the bird one last question.
"When you fly away to someone else's dream and I wake up from it, I won't remember anything.
It's just a dream anyway.
I will ask you one last time, to what kind of person will you go next time, and in what kind of shape?"
The bird calmly answered.
"What kind of shape or form is up to the dreamer to decide.
To what kind of person... I'll just choose someone older than you next time."
"In life, the only thing that lasts are the memories, and I'll go to an old person who understands that.
You're not ready yet."
That was the bird's last words.
No sooner had the bird said this than it flapped its wings and flew away.
E looked up at the ceiling of his room in surprise, but the bird was nowhere to be seen.
The only thing he could hear was a caw, a little more elegant than a crow's, coming from far away.
It was almost dawn, and morning was coming.
E woke up.
He seemed to have dozed off in his chair.
He looked at the clock and saw that only a few hours had passed.
There was still some time before dawn.
E tweeted.
"I wonder what would have happened if I had asked that bird to remove restriction of my Twitter account...
No, it doesn't matter if he remove restriction in my dream, because it will still be restricted when I wake up..."
E decided to crawl into bed and have another sleep.
When he woke up from his sleep, he wouldn't remember the bird anymore.
The end.
- To read this article in Japanese
