Two years ago, on January 17. On the day of the heavy snowfall in Tokyo, I became one of the “xx people injured by snow-related falls in Tokyo” that the news was reporting on. I had unintentionally avoided an elderly woman walking from the other side and fell down in the process. It was a three-day weekend from the following day. I went to a clinic nearby to receive medicine just in case it started to hurt but found out that I had actually broken my arm. The clinic looked for a hospital that would be able to examine me, and I headed there with a taxi, thinking how something like this actually happens in real life, plans I have to cancel, people that I will cause trouble, all one after another.

Waiting for a week until the surgery. Being hospitalized before the surgery. Going to rehab. The pain that won’t go away. Undergoing surgery again a year later to remove the nails. These were all things I experienced for the first time in my life. My memories of this event have started to fade, but one thing that I’ve engraved in my mind is that you have to experience it to understand it. I did think so before, but this event made me think even more so. This day was a day that gave me the experience that, although imagining is important, that doesn’t mean you have fully understood it.

(Urara)