「分身」 －鰻坂ヒカル（英文）
Part One: Phantom Arm
My mother told me that everybody has an exact double. This look-like has the same birth marks， the same voice and the same smell. Of course there are twins， triplets and even more at birth. That’s not what she meant.
Some people might argue that if somebody has average physical features， this sort of thing may be possible to a certain extent. It is a matter of probabilities. A common looking person may be paired by a very similar-looking person.
My mother wasn’t talking about mathematical possibilities. This is the statement: Everybody has a double， somewhere on this planet.
hen I heard the story， I thought it would be nice to see my double， since I didn’t have any brothers or sisters in my family. But my mother said the encounter wouldn’t be amicable at all.
“At the first sight of your double， you are in a deep， deep trouble. My dear boy. He usually appears all of a sudden when you are alone. You can’t move， like a frog stared at by a gigantic snake. You are astonished how similar your double is. Everything is the same…except for his evil character! He will smile at you. Tells you he had been waiting for this moment. It is time to take you away. Then， Bang! You will vanish from this world forever and ever.”
When I studied physics at school in England， “anti-matters” reminded me of the childhood fantasy. When the same type of anti - matter particles collides， they explode. I suppose the disappearance of the doubles proceeds along similar lines. The purpose of the double story was obviously educational. Children should not wander in town alone， otherwise you might encounter your evil double.
I deserved to be told of the double story because I often wandered in town by myself. I was a dreamy ten-year-old boy. I would be collecting funny shaped stones， chasing a dragonfly or an ice cream van， counting the number of my footsteps (I would count to several thousand before I realised I was lost). My mother should be sympathised. The policeman in the block knew my mother very well after many requests to search for the missing child. I imagine my mother worried someday I might be knocked down by a car in the distant town. She probably asked neighbors how to put a stop to my dreamy walks as she was unlikely to make up this sort of story by herself. I wonder who told the story of the double to her. The story defined my life.
Whenever neighbors saw me， they would say to me something like: “Takeo-kun. If you go too far away from here， you might be kidnapped by a bad man and sold to a circus.”
I didn’t care about such rather unoriginal child abductors. But I was fascinated by my evil double. I was scared of him， but at the same time I wanted to meet him. As a result， the double story stopped me from wandering for a while. My wandering was internalised. Probably the double story had served its purpose to a certain extent.
I thought of him a lot. He is breathing somewhere in this town at this moment! Where is he? Does he like reading comics? Which flavour of instant-noodles does he like? Et cetera. I imagined there must be ways to meet him in a friendly manner.
I was very asthmatic and weather defined which day I would have a terrible asthma attack. A sunny weather always induced high level of smog. The local council often switched siren on when the weather report warns smog. Whenever the metallic siren ran in the sky， I was allowed to go home， along with other asthmatic children. We sensed other children’s jealousy on us going home so early. Unlike other children， I often packed my belongings already when our home room teacher told me to go home. How much I longed for the siren! The dioxin emission level in the 1970s was so bad that my expectation was often met.
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