Forecast For Tomorrow - 現代怪談

Welcome to the second in our series of what I call, Haiku Horror.
Like its namesake, the Haiku, these stories are short and sweet, the setting itself providing form and function.

The storyteller can induce the appropriate pacing for the audience when recited or heard through some vocal medium. However in this case, when read through some printed medium, pacing can be introduced only through careful spacing and alignment.

With that in mind, we welcome you once again for a brief detour down the road of Haiku Horror. 

Forecast For Tomorrow
A Modern Japanese ^*Kaidan

original story copyrighted by the author
translation copyrighted by M. L. Mills, 2010～

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It was 15 years ago when I aimlessly flipped on the TV at around 2:30 AM. Much to no surprise, there was nothing showing, only the familiar off-air colorbars.Then just as I was thinking of heading off to sleep, the bars disappeared.

Suddenly the screen was showing a telecast of an active landfill station.

The landfill continued on in the background while a ticker appeared at the bottom of the screen with "CBA News Flash" on it. I thought the whole thing peculiar and kept watching when names, or credits, started scrolling across the ticker while the narrator monotonously read them off. A piece of heavy classical music accompanied the broadcast.

Finally, after a full five minutes of this,

“These will be the fatalities for tomorrow.
Thank you and good night.”

Ever since then I've been terrified of turning on late night TV.
Yet no one around will believe me.

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Original text story (Japanese only.)
Audio recording (Japanese only. Account with nicovideo required.)

Thanks for visiting! Stay tuned and happy listening. (^_-)-☆

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

^*Kaidan: a traditional Japanese “ghost” story usually involving the unexplainable, a flexible concepts of time and space, strange meetings, love gone wrong, the supernatural… Curious and sometimes terrifying stories, but never centered on nor featuring either gore or sex. Original text story  (Japanese only.) Audio recording  (Japanese only.  Account with nicovideo required.)

Translator's Notes (and various oddities): 

We originally had another working title.
And it was a good title!
But then I realized it was potentially too revealing for such a short piece. Fortunately though, just as easily and quickly as the original title came to me, so did the better revised title.
Thank fuzz for warm morning showers.
And, yes, CBA is a play on the actual ABC, or even CBS if you will. Much like NNN is a play on the actual news stations, JNN or possibly NHK. (^_-)-☆

Finally, once again our thanks to NikoNiko for providing a place where these stories can be posted and shared, and to all the users that take the time to record and share. In particular, a heartfelt thanks to uribou for providing this little gem and doing a fabulously professional job of recording as always.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.