Daniel 先生の日記

ハロウィンの思い出（カナダ）

It’s been a long time since I have celebrated Halloween but I still
have fond memories of the fall season in Canada.  Everybody gets
really excited for this season even now.  It’s a time where kids can
go out with their friends and collect candy, friends can get together
and watch scary movies, and adults will throw parties with all of
their friends.  For my first Halloween I dressed up as a dinosaur, it
was my favourite costume and I used it for many years.  Me and my
parents would walk around the neighbourhood and collect candy late
into the night.  When we got home I would empty my bag of candy on to
the floor, sort through everything I had collected and organize my
favourite candies.  After a couple years of Halloween my parents
started to realize I was eating too much of the candy at once so they
started to take it away from me, hide the bag and ration it out to me
so that I wouldn’t eat it all at once.  As I grew into my teens it
wasn’t so “cool” to go trick or treating with your parents anymore so
me and my friends would all meet up at one of our houses dress up and
go out for many hours collecting candy and then when we were finished
we would come back to one of our parents houses and talk about our
favourite houses, costumes, and decorations we saw that night.  Once
you hit a certain age trick or treating is no longer seen as
acceptable and if you go to houses to collect candy the owners of the
house will start to chastise you and say “Aren’t you a little too old
for this?”.  So once we turned 18 we would start to have our own
Halloween parties and watch scary movies together or go camping and
tell scary stories to each other around the campfire while cooking
marshmallows.  Some people really love Halloween so much that they
spend many hours decorating their homes to be like a haunted house.
Is Halloween as popular in Japan as it is in Canada?  What will you do
for Halloween?   I hope you get to enjoy this Halloween as much as
possible.  Have fun and stay safe.

アメリカのウェストバージニア州といえば、かの有名なジョン・デンバーの名曲「カントリー・ロード」の主人公の故郷ですが、近ごろこの州で、大量のゾンビが飛び回っているそうです。

ゾンビといえば、数々のホラーゲームや、「ウォーキング・デッド」のような海外ドラマでもおなじみの、「意志も知性もない死から蘇った生ける屍」で、ひとたび噛まれると、普通の人もゾンビ化してしまうという、恐ろしいやから達ですね。でも、ゾンビはあくまで架空のキャラクターのはずです。

しかし、このゾンビ蝉は架空ではなく、実在する本物の「ゾンビ」なのです。「マソスポラ」という細菌が蝉の個体に入り込み、下腹部の内臓を食い尽くし、できた空洞に胞子を張り巡らせ他の蝉へ感染拡散ができる状態にすると同時に、蝉の脳神経経路完全に乗っ取るのだそうです。

つまり、この細菌に侵された蝉は、自分の意志とは全く切り離されながら、飛び回るというのです！！まさにゾンビです！！更に、マソスポラという細菌は幻覚症状を引き起こすともわかっているよう。つまりこの蝉たちは何も知らずに幻覚を見ながら飛び回っていることになります！

このゾンビ蝉の英語記事はプラネットアカデミーのツイッターでリツイートしましたので、興味ある方はぜひ、英語で読んでみてください（ゾンビ蝉の写真もありますよ！）

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