I could see there were countless people busily working away.
Fashioning chains and wrapping it around their midsections and passing it on the person beside them.
This goes on and on, with everyone doing the same thing at a dizzying pace.
All of them have chains wrapped around their midsections. at first glance it seems that they are completely immobilized, but their hands and feet are free enough to forge the chain and wrap it around their bodies. They work so intently. There isn't a sign of bother on any of their faces. They actually look happy as they work. But all is not what it seems.
In places there are slightly more refined men standing, once again, with chains wrapped around their midsections talking incessantly in shrill voices, like what one would hear from a phonograph. They speak at length with difficult words and complicated reasoning, saying something to the effect of 'the chains protect us; the chains are a sacred object that frees us.'
credits
from The Chain Factory,
released July 11, 2021
Excerpts from the short story The Chain Factory (鎖工場) by Osugi Sakae (大杉栄).
Originally published in Kindai shisō/近代思想 (Modern Thought), vol. 1, no. 12 (Sept. 1913): 2-5.
Translated by Adam Goodwin
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