The Sky Crawlers: Prologue, Episode 1

By MORI Hiroshi

“Are you getting angry, because I just said ‘Like a child.’ ...?”
“I’m a child.” I utter, and then smile.
That is the way it is, because I am a professional pilot. It is a profession that adults cannot take.

The war, which is theatrically staged, goes on in the world. “Kildren” (children who are capable of living eternally in adolescence) engage in actual combat operations as daily routines.
Which leads to happier existences, to live or to die?

“The Sky Crawlers” has been written by the revolutionary, the one and only author Dr. MORI, Hiroshi. It has been regarded as THE masterpiece by the author himself.
This view of the world is brutally innocent enough to fascinate numerous readers. Also, the animation movie version “The Sky Crawlers”, directed by Mamoru Oshii, has attracted global attention.

The English version of “The Sky Crawlers”, the novel series long-awaited by the whole world, has just taken off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365226526

Book preview

The Sky Crawlers: Prologue, Episode 1

The Sky Crawlers: Prologue, Episode 1

Originally written in Japanese by MORI, Hiroshi

Translated by Ryusui Seiryoin

Cover illustration by mm

Cover design by mm

This work was first published in Japan in 2001.

Japanese edition copyright © 2001 MORI, Hiroshi / Chuokoron-Shinsha

English edition copyright © 2016 MORI, Hiroshi / The BBB: Breakthrough Bandwagon Books

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-365-22652-6

Foreword

I will devote this to adults who do not know wars.

These are the three mistakes that they make:

They believe that children were born from them.

They want to think that they know more than children do.

They hope that children will become the same beings as they are in the future.

The ridiculousness of such perspectives is more miserable than wars are.

The Sky Crawlers

I didn’t tell them when they were actually going to die, though. That’s a very false rumor, Teddy said. "could have, but I knew that in their hearts they really didn’t want to know. I mean I knew that even though they teach Religion and Philosophy and all, they’re still pretty afraid to die. Teddy sat, or reclined, in silence for a minute. It’s so silly, he said. All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody’s done it thousands and thousands of times. Just because they don’t remember it doesn’t mean they haven’t done it. It’s so silly."

This excerpt is from Teddy, a short story included in Nine Stories (written by J. D. Salinger)

Prologue

In the dream, I am fighting to guard my precious person. She is the last physicist in the world. With the loss of her brain, a part of our civilization or history will be tranquilly terminated. It is a sure interpretation. It is because the very worth of the humankind exists in her head. We are trying to fight against that.

We?

I mean, the two of us; I and she.

I never thought that there was any other human being in this world.

The two of us are running away through underground passages. We are trying to get away from the attacking enemies as far away from them as possible and are trying to survive together for so long as we can. We do not even have enough time to talk to each other. I have not had time for recalling the reason why we have gotten ourselves into this situation. I just ... I just want to do something for her, who is frightened. I cannot bear to hear her crying. The emotion proudly cries for its eternal pain more than any other remaining scars on my body do. I think I myself am ready to die at any time. In the first place, I have never been afraid of my death. If she were to be caught by the enemies, I would have committed suicide immediately without any hesitation.

Even so, I ask her why she is afraid to such an extent. With a really grim expression, she replies like this:

That means I wouldn’t be able to be with you ... I’m afraid of being alone.

Really.

Neither of us has been afraid of death.

To begin with, living itself is the possibility in which we might have to part with someone. Because we live, we feel fear. However, life and death never have the same meaning. I mean, when I die, I part even with myself. So, whom the dead body, or the shadow in this world, lives with or parts ways with is entirely meaningless.

With myself?

Who is myself?

Such a notion is the arrogance that a living being thinks.

It is an illusion that only a living one is deceived into imagining.

It is an irregular, fragmented, and literally desperate lie.

What do you think if we die here together?

In the middle of a dark underground passage, I speak of the proposition.

As expected, she easily accepts it. Rather than despair, I think of it as a far more familiar and more optimistic decision.

Bye. I say.

Thanks. She smiles.

I point the gun toward her head, and pull the trigger.

A single shot.

Gun smoke.

Sweet fragrance of gunpowder.

Then.

After I finish observing her slowly falling down.

I close my eyes and stop my breath.

Farewell, the eternity.

Hey, air. Hey, space.

Call my name, if you can call my name.

Recalling the textile pattern.

There is a small stain at the edge of mandala.

Swimming.

Dancing.

And, crawling.

In this way ..., I escape from the dream.

Since I know the way to awake myself from a dream, I sometimes use the method. I have to be aware of the fact that I am in a dream. It is the condition. Each time I want to escape, it