also difficult. If I’m looking one way and someone calls me and I turn around suddenly, it hits me like a sledgehammer. This happens all the time—a shooting pain in the back of my eyes. As if I were being skewered. When it’s very bad there have been times I’ve contemplated suicide. I almost think I’d be better off dead.
I’ve been to eye specialists, but they can’t find anything wrong. Only one doctor told me, “Farmers sometimes get this, too.” Apparently mixing up organic fertilizers damages their nerves, causing the same symptoms.
But here it is the end of summer, and my head is still killing me. The company still lets me go into work, but I’ve been relieved of my managerial responsibilities. My boss says that a high-stress workplace would be bad for me physically, but the result of this special treatment is that it’s extremely hard for me to perform like a businessman in his prime. I’m grateful they want me to take it easy, and after the gas attack I did work harder than usual. Not wanting to inconvenience the company, I kept my headaches a secret and, well, overworked, but I’m not the type of person who can just sit idly by.
To be honest, my present position leaves me twiddling my thumbs. They even moved my desk. I go to the office and there’s nothing much for me to do. I’ll sit by myself and tally up slips, work that anyone could do. But having gained all this experience up to now, I can’t very well not work.
Sometimes I think up different proposals on my own, regardlessof whether they’ll work or not. Realistically, though, not knowing if this pain will ever go away completely, or how long I’ll have to keep living like this, I can’t see any future. I’m working now from morning until noon and then I’m exhausted.
Because of my accident benefits, they’ve had to cut my bonus to 2.5 million yen a year, which is quite a squeeze financially. Bonuses are really important to a salaryman. They barely make up for the month-to-month shortcomings. I just had a new house built and there’s a thirty-year loan to pay back. I’ll be 70 then.
I know I don’t appear to be in constant pain, but imagine wearing a heavy stone helmet, day in, day out… I doubt it makes much sense to anyone else. I feel very isolated. If I’d lost an arm, or was reduced to a vegetable, people could probably sympathize more. If only I’d died then, how much easier it would have been. None of this nonsense. But when I think of my family, I have to go on …
“That day and that day only I took the first door”
Soichi Inagawa (64)
Mr. Inagawa’s gray hair is thinning slightly but combed neatly in place. His cheeks are red, though he’s not especially plump. More than ten years ago he became diabetic and has been watching his diet ever since. Yet he still has his drinking companions and is especially fond of sake
.
He wears a well-pressed charcoal gray three-piece suit and speaks clearly and succinctly. You can tell he prides himself on his working life up to now, having worked throughout Japan’s postwar decades
.
He was born in Kofu, a provincial city in the mountains, two hours west of Tokyo. After graduating from a vocational high school for electricians, he joined a Tokyo construction company in 1949. In time he moved from the construction site to an office and, at 60, he retired as Business Division director. He had other job offers, but
“all of a sudden I got fed up with bosses.”
He and two friends his age decided to set up their own business dealing in lighting equipment. The office is located directly above Shin-nakano Station
.
Business is steady though not especially busy
, “But it still feels great not having to answer to anyone else.”
He and his wife live in Ichikawa, across Tokyo Bay to the east in Chiba Prefecture. Their two children have left home and they have three grandchildren, the youngest born a month after the gas attack
.
He always carries two lucky charms his wife gave
I’ve been to eye specialists, but they can’t find anything wrong. Only one doctor told me, “Farmers sometimes get this, too.” Apparently mixing up organic fertilizers damages their nerves, causing the same symptoms.
But here it is the end of summer, and my head is still killing me. The company still lets me go into work, but I’ve been relieved of my managerial responsibilities. My boss says that a high-stress workplace would be bad for me physically, but the result of this special treatment is that it’s extremely hard for me to perform like a businessman in his prime. I’m grateful they want me to take it easy, and after the gas attack I did work harder than usual. Not wanting to inconvenience the company, I kept my headaches a secret and, well, overworked, but I’m not the type of person who can just sit idly by.
To be honest, my present position leaves me twiddling my thumbs. They even moved my desk. I go to the office and there’s nothing much for me to do. I’ll sit by myself and tally up slips, work that anyone could do. But having gained all this experience up to now, I can’t very well not work.
Sometimes I think up different proposals on my own, regardlessof whether they’ll work or not. Realistically, though, not knowing if this pain will ever go away completely, or how long I’ll have to keep living like this, I can’t see any future. I’m working now from morning until noon and then I’m exhausted.
Because of my accident benefits, they’ve had to cut my bonus to 2.5 million yen a year, which is quite a squeeze financially. Bonuses are really important to a salaryman. They barely make up for the month-to-month shortcomings. I just had a new house built and there’s a thirty-year loan to pay back. I’ll be 70 then.
I know I don’t appear to be in constant pain, but imagine wearing a heavy stone helmet, day in, day out… I doubt it makes much sense to anyone else. I feel very isolated. If I’d lost an arm, or was reduced to a vegetable, people could probably sympathize more. If only I’d died then, how much easier it would have been. None of this nonsense. But when I think of my family, I have to go on …
“That day and that day only I took the first door”
Soichi Inagawa (64)
Mr. Inagawa’s gray hair is thinning slightly but combed neatly in place. His cheeks are red, though he’s not especially plump. More than ten years ago he became diabetic and has been watching his diet ever since. Yet he still has his drinking companions and is especially fond of sake
.
He wears a well-pressed charcoal gray three-piece suit and speaks clearly and succinctly. You can tell he prides himself on his working life up to now, having worked throughout Japan’s postwar decades
.
He was born in Kofu, a provincial city in the mountains, two hours west of Tokyo. After graduating from a vocational high school for electricians, he joined a Tokyo construction company in 1949. In time he moved from the construction site to an office and, at 60, he retired as Business Division director. He had other job offers, but
“all of a sudden I got fed up with bosses.”
He and two friends his age decided to set up their own business dealing in lighting equipment. The office is located directly above Shin-nakano Station
.
Business is steady though not especially busy
, “But it still feels great not having to answer to anyone else.”
He and his wife live in Ichikawa, across Tokyo Bay to the east in Chiba Prefecture. Their two children have left home and they have three grandchildren, the youngest born a month after the gas attack
.
He always carries two lucky charms his wife gave
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