Galaxy Railway Night - A Fairy Tale by Kenji Miyazawa

Author: (Japanese) Michio Kaku
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: "Classmates, some say it looks like a great river, while others say it resembles the traces left after milk flows—what exactly is this white expanse, do you know?" A blackboard hangs a pitch-black star map, and the teacher points to a white, hazy streak running through it and asks the students. Keinera immediately raises her hand. Followed by four or five other classmates. Jiaobanni also wanted to raise his hand but quickly lowered it. Indeed, he vaguely remembered seeing it in a magazine, thinking those were made up of countless stars. However, recently Jiaobanni has been dozing off in class every day, too busy to read or lacking any books to read. As a result, he is clueless about everything. The teacher quickly noticed this. "Jiaobanni, do you know?" Jiaobanni bravely stood up. But when he did, he realized he couldn’t answer the question at all. Zaneli turned around from the seat in front, looked at Jiaobanni, and chuckled softly. Jiaobanni was speechless, his face flushing crimson. At this point, the teacher spoke again, "When we observe the Milky Way closely with a large telescope, we’ll know what it really is, right?" But Jiaobanni still couldn’t answer immediately. After thinking hard, he still believed it was made of stars. The teacher was at a loss, so he shifted his gaze to Keinera. "Alright, then let’s hear Keinera’s answer." Keinera, who had been so eager to raise her hand earlier, now hesitated and slowly stood up, remaining silent for a long time. The teacher stared at Keinera in astonishment, then quickly turned to the blackboard and said, "Alright." Then he pointed to the star map and said, "When we observe this white expanse of the Milky Way with a large, high-powered telescope, we’ll see countless tiny stars. Right, Jiaobanni?" Jiaobanni nodded, his face flushed, but his eyes were already brimming with tears. Yes, I knew it all along, he thought. Keinera undoubtedly knew it too. It was in the magazine he read with Hebeinera at the doctor’s house, which was Keinera’s father’s home. After finishing the magazine, Keinera even ran to his father’s study and brought back a thick book, flipping to the section on the "Milky Way" to explain it to himself. The two spent a long time admiring the beautiful, starry images on a full page, all dark and glowing. How could Keinera forget all this? He couldn’t possibly not know the answer. Recently, every morning and afternoon, he had been working so hard that he couldn’t play joyfully with the others during school hours and rarely had a chance to talk with Keinera. Keinera had seen all this and remembered it in his heart. He must be sympathizing with him, so he deliberately pretended not to know the answer. Thinking this, Jiaobanni felt both pitiful about himself and sympathetic toward Keinera. The teacher continued, "Alright, if we consider the Milky Way as a great river, then each tiny star would be like a grain of sand or pebble at the bottom of the river. If we think of it as flowing milk, it would resemble a river even more. In other words, all the stars are like tiny fat globules floating in the milk. If this is true, then what exactly is the water in this river?"