pessimistic

"can you give me a concrete example of what you mean by that--to die little by little?"

"well...i don't know. you're trapped in the dark all alone, with nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and little by little you die..."

"it must be terrible," i said. "painful. i wouldn't want to die like that if i could help it."

"but finally, mr. wind-up bird, isn't that just what life is? aren't we all trapped in the dark somewhere, and they've taken away our food and water, and we're slowly dying, little by little...?"

i laughed. "you're too young to be so...pessimistic," i said, using the english word.

"pessi-what?"

"pessimistic. it means looking only at the dark side of things."

"pessimistic...pessimistic..." she repeated the english to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. "i'm only sixteen," she said, "and i don't know much about the world, but i do know one thing for sure. if i'm pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots."