Five Drabbles, Post-Hisao
Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:47 pm
A drabble is a story in one hundred words.
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When Emi Ibarazaki took the track for the hundred meters at the 2012 Summer Paralympic games, she had just found out that her husband, Hisao Nakai, had died of a sudden heart attack.
Then disaster struck: an equipment malfunction resulted in a collision with another runner and a broken wrist, sending her home to Japan.
Four years later, she took the gold in the four hundred meters at the 2016 Paralympics. When she took the stand, she carried with her a baby boy: her son, Hisao, born nine months after the 2012 games.
Visa: The Official Sponsor of the Paralympics
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“Mrs. Nakai, your novel has received some controversy due to its unusual. . . some would even say offensive. . . title.”
“I chose the title very deliberately, for the same reason why I cut my hair and began allowing photographs several years ago: to cut through the pretty, happy delusions society creates and tell my stories honestly. Too often, Japan has tried to avoid confronting its imperfections directly. People like me and my late husband are either ignored as pariahs or placed on pedestals as saints. Katawa Shoujo Monogatari isn’t interested in either. In the end, it’s just a love story. Nothing more.”
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For Hisao
I have seen the golden color of the wheat fields.
I have gazed upon the brilliance of the night.
I have seen the blood red sunset cast its fire over the mountains.
I have witnessed all these things because you showed me through your eyes.
Now the jewels have fallen from the velvet heavens,
The sunset’s fire’s quenched in bitter tears.
The brilliant sky has faded into darkness once again.
But I’m holding to the color of the wheat fields through your eyes.
“Through your Eyes,” from the poetry collection “Colors of the Wheat Fields,” by Lilly Satou-Nakai.
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Tezuka’s “Rainy Period” is one of the more controversial periods of her career: this ten-year stretch is unique in that it is the only time in which she moved away from her trademark abstractionism towards portraiture, as well as a soft, Monet-like impressionism.
These works are also the only Tezuka paintings to have actual titles: all of the extant paintings have the same title: “Hisao,” after Tezuka’s long-time lover and companion. “All of my other paintings are me,” she said, in an interview carried out shortly before her death. “With these, I was trying to show the world Hisao.”
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Hello,
Thank you for your generous donation to the Nakai Foundation. Since its founding, the Nakai Foundation has been the foremost philanthropic organization in the field of cardiac research. Since then, we have funded research leading into great advances in the field, awarded hundreds of scholarships for medical and scientific students, and provided grants to help defray the costs of treatment for countless children in need.
It is only through generous donations like yours that we are able to continue this important work. Thank you, and have a very happy holiday season.
Sincerely,
Shizune Nakai
President, Hisao Nakai Memorial Foundation
-----
When Emi Ibarazaki took the track for the hundred meters at the 2012 Summer Paralympic games, she had just found out that her husband, Hisao Nakai, had died of a sudden heart attack.
Then disaster struck: an equipment malfunction resulted in a collision with another runner and a broken wrist, sending her home to Japan.
Four years later, she took the gold in the four hundred meters at the 2016 Paralympics. When she took the stand, she carried with her a baby boy: her son, Hisao, born nine months after the 2012 games.
Visa: The Official Sponsor of the Paralympics
-----
“Mrs. Nakai, your novel has received some controversy due to its unusual. . . some would even say offensive. . . title.”
“I chose the title very deliberately, for the same reason why I cut my hair and began allowing photographs several years ago: to cut through the pretty, happy delusions society creates and tell my stories honestly. Too often, Japan has tried to avoid confronting its imperfections directly. People like me and my late husband are either ignored as pariahs or placed on pedestals as saints. Katawa Shoujo Monogatari isn’t interested in either. In the end, it’s just a love story. Nothing more.”
-----
For Hisao
I have seen the golden color of the wheat fields.
I have gazed upon the brilliance of the night.
I have seen the blood red sunset cast its fire over the mountains.
I have witnessed all these things because you showed me through your eyes.
Now the jewels have fallen from the velvet heavens,
The sunset’s fire’s quenched in bitter tears.
The brilliant sky has faded into darkness once again.
But I’m holding to the color of the wheat fields through your eyes.
“Through your Eyes,” from the poetry collection “Colors of the Wheat Fields,” by Lilly Satou-Nakai.
-----
Tezuka’s “Rainy Period” is one of the more controversial periods of her career: this ten-year stretch is unique in that it is the only time in which she moved away from her trademark abstractionism towards portraiture, as well as a soft, Monet-like impressionism.
These works are also the only Tezuka paintings to have actual titles: all of the extant paintings have the same title: “Hisao,” after Tezuka’s long-time lover and companion. “All of my other paintings are me,” she said, in an interview carried out shortly before her death. “With these, I was trying to show the world Hisao.”
-----
Hello,
Thank you for your generous donation to the Nakai Foundation. Since its founding, the Nakai Foundation has been the foremost philanthropic organization in the field of cardiac research. Since then, we have funded research leading into great advances in the field, awarded hundreds of scholarships for medical and scientific students, and provided grants to help defray the costs of treatment for countless children in need.
It is only through generous donations like yours that we are able to continue this important work. Thank you, and have a very happy holiday season.
Sincerely,
Shizune Nakai
President, Hisao Nakai Memorial Foundation