寿命の買い占め / The Monopoly on Life

「時間こそが真の通貨である」という言葉が、残酷なまでに具現化した未来。人々の間で「寿命の売買」が合法化され、富裕層は他人の時間を買い叩いて永遠に近い若さを保ち、貧困層は日々の糧を得るために数年単位で寿命を売り、若くして老け込んで死んでいった。
​ある強欲な大富豪の男は、古びた肉体を脱ぎ捨て、究極の若さを手に入れることを画策した。彼は莫大な資産を投じ、裏市場で取引される最高級の「赤ん坊の寿命」を大量に買い占めた。純粋で瑞々しい時間を自身の細胞に流し込めば、全盛期の活力を取り戻せると確信していたのだ。
​最新の若返りカプセルの中で、男は至福の眠りについた。しかし、マシンの計算エラーか、あるいは彼の強欲さが招いた過剰摂取ゆえか、処理は彼の予想を遥かに超えて進行してしまった。
​男が目を覚ましたとき、そこは豪華な私邸ではなく、産婦人科の無機質なベッドの上だった。視界はぼやけ、自慢の雄弁な口からは意味をなさない産声だけが漏れる。彼は若返りすぎたあまり、言語も記憶も失いかけた「胎児」の状態まで退行してしまったのだ。
​「おぎゃあ、おぎゃあ」と泣き叫ぶ彼の前に、一人の男が冷ややかな笑みを浮かべて現れた。その男はこの病院のオーナーであり、かつて大富豪が冷酷に寿命を買い叩き、絶望のうちに病死させた貧乏人の息子だった。
​「ようこそ、新しい人生へ。あなたが奪った時間で、今度は私があなたを『飼育』する番です」
​自由を奪われ、真っ白な産着に包まれたかつての王は、自分を蔑む「飼い主」の目を見上げながら、激しく泣き続けることしかできなかった。

In a future where “time is the true currency,” the phrase had become cruelly literal. The buying and selling of human lifespans was legalized; the wealthy maintained near-eternal youth by purchasing the time of others, while the poor sold years of their lives just to afford daily bread, withering and dying young.
​A greedy tycoon, desperate to shed his aging body, devised a plan to attain the ultimate youth. He poured his vast fortune into monopolizing high-grade “infant lifespans” traded on the black market. He was certain that infusing his cells with such pure, fresh time would restore his vitality to its absolute peak.
​The tycoon drifted into a blissful slumber inside a state-of-the-art rejuvenation capsule. However, whether due to a computational error or the sheer excess of his greed, the process accelerated far beyond his expectations.
​When the man opened his eyes, he was not in his lavish mansion but on a sterile bed in an obstetrics ward. His vision was blurred, and the eloquent mouth he was once so proud of could only emit meaningless infant cries. He had regressed so far that he had returned to the state of a “newborn,” on the verge of losing all language and memory.
​As he wailed, a man appeared before him with a chilling smirk. This man was the owner of the clinic—and the son of a poor man whom the tycoon had once ruthlessly stripped of his lifespan, leaving him to die in despair.
​”Welcome to your new life,” the owner whispered. “With the time you stole from others, it is now my turn to ‘raise’ you.”
​Trapped and wrapped in white swaddling clothes, the former king could do nothing but continue to cry violently, looking up into the eyes of the “master” who despised him.