On a Night of Coughing | Naoyuki Agawa (Vice-President in charge of Shonan Fujisawa Campus)
2010.07.29
Around the end of June, I started to get an occasional cough. It wouldn't go away, so I went to see a doctor. I had no fever, and my phlegm was clear. Nothing to worry about, probably. We took an X-ray just in case, but there was nothing abnormal. "It will clear up on its own if you just leave it," the doctor said. I went home relieved, but that was two weeks ago, and I'm still not better. If anything, I feel like it's getting worse.
The coughing won't stop. Once a coughing fit starts, muscles all over my body twist and tense up, and it's surprisingly tiring. Lying down in bed at night is especially bad. Phlegm seems to build up while I sleep, and I wake up coughing. I force the phlegm out from the back of my throat and go back to sleep, but about an hour later, the cough wakes me up again. A frequent cough, not frequent urination. Toggling between sleeping and waking. Combined with the recent heatwave, it's utterly exhausting.
Since the cough was lasting so long, I consulted with my doctor again and started taking medication. Late last week, I finally took two days off work. It was the first time since I started my current job. I rested over the weekend and have returned to work, and I'm feeling a little better now. But the cough still hasn't stopped. Fortunately, I learned that my absence caused no trouble whatsoever for Keio—none at all—so I've decided to take it easy and be patient.
As I suffer from coughing in the middle of the night, all sorts of delusions spring to mind. What if I don't get better? As I started to worry, my wife, who had pulled out a thick "home medical sciences" book, declared with strange confidence, "An unexplained, persistent cough... you have lung cancer, there's no doubt about it." So, I have lung cancer. If that's the case, I don't have much time left. Come to think of it, people in the old days suffered a great deal from coughing. Masaoka Shiki, for instance, wrote a great number of haiku and poems in a short time while coughing his lungs out.
The loofah water from the day before yesterday— I did not take it.
People in the old days also died young. Masaoka Shiki was 35. Mozart was also 35. Sakamoto Ryōma was 31. In comparison, I've done nothing and am already approaching my sixtieth birthday. My time is short. Thinking about these things gradually depresses me. I recall the opening passage of the *Hōjōki*.
In the morning some die, in the evening some are born. Such is the way of the world, like a bubble on the water. Whence we come and whither we go, we know not. In this temporary lodging, for whom do we trouble our hearts, and by what are our eyes delighted?
At times like these, it's better to recall pleasant things. For me, that is the memory of the sea and ships. Just thinking about that makes me happy. The other day, a ceremony and commemorative lecture for the 175th anniversary of Yukichi Fukuzawa's birth were held in Osaka. I attended as one of the Vice-Presidents and stayed overnight in Kobe. The next morning, from the Naka-Tottei Passenger Terminal at Meriken Park, I boarded the passenger ship *Asuka II* for a three-day, two-night voyage to Yokohama. It wasn't a trip with a specific purpose. I just wanted to be out on the sea. But for that, it was quite expensive. I had to override my wife's fierce opposition—she insisted we had no extra money for such things—and finally set sail, using a long weekend during a break in my busy work schedule. Onboard, there were various pleasures unique to a passenger ship, like meals, tea, and a jazz concert by Makoto Ozone. And although my wife had been against it, she ate and enjoyed herself thoroughly on the ship. But for me, the greatest pleasure was simply being on the open sea and doing nothing.
After departing from Kobe, the *Asuka II* headed south through Osaka Bay, with Awaji Island to starboard and the coastline of southern Osaka to port. Seen from the sea, Awaji Island is large and long. Soon we passed through the narrow Tomogashima Suido (Kitan Strait) and into the wide-open Kii Channel, continuing further south with the mountains of Wakayama to port. Gradually, the ship turned southeast, and by evening, we were sailing east in the waters south of Cape Shionomisaki. Unlike the Seto Inland Sea, the sea in this area is a deep, dark ultramarine. As it was not a journey in a hurry, the passenger ship proceeded slowly through the calm sea at a speed of just over 10 knots.
Large yachts with wind-filled sails and domestic cargo ships occasionally passed our vessel. A large cargo ship in the far distance slowly overtook us. From their perspective, the sight of a large passenger ship of over 60,000 tons sailing on the open sea must be magnificent. Our ship repeated a gentle pitching motion (the vertical, bow-to-stern motion), cutting through the sea surface with its bow, creating a wake that spread out behind on both sides. Although it was sunny, the wind was surprisingly strong, and there were swells on the sea. When the wake and swells collided, the sea surface would rise, the wave crests would break, shatter into swirling eddies, and foam up white before flowing away behind us. The bow would cut the sea again, the wake would spread, collide with the swells, and the waves would break and shatter, leaving a trail. This repeated over and over.
I stood on the deck for a long time, watching the complex movement of the water. Astern, the sun had already begun to sink low. The ship's hull blocked its light, creating a shadow on the port-side sea. The light, coming in at an angle, illuminated and reflected off the white crests where the wake and swells collided and broke. If I looked closely, a small rainbow would float gently between the breaking waves. For just a few seconds, it would shine with seven colors and then quickly vanish. Rainbows appeared and disappeared in the waves here and there. They must be born during a certain time of day when conditions like the angle of the light and the height of the waves align. I was mesmerized for a while, but the ship's shadow grew darker, and soon all the rainbows disappeared. Astern, the sun sank into the sea, setting the western sky ablaze in red.
As Kamo no Mabuchi said, life may indeed be as fleeting as a bubble on the water. But the sea foam I saw from the ship, which made a rainbow sparkle for a moment, was exceedingly beautiful. I want to go out to sea again and see that rainbow. I want to see the breaking waves, the countless swells. I'll get over this cough quickly, save up some money, and get on a ship once more. Thinking that, even while coughing in the middle of the night, I felt a little more cheerful.
(Date of publication: 2010/07/29)