The Third Night - Natsume Soseki

While first reading The third Night I wasn’t very sure what to expect from the story. From the first few sentences it really seemed that the boy on the back of the main characters back was just his son however as the main character states “The child is blind and his head Is blue; clean-shaven”. Now I don’t really know what kind of child has a blue head so it became apparent that there is something special about this “child”. Not only could he understand the things that were going on around him, but he also seemed to dictate what was on the main character’s mind by mocking him. Though looking back at the story now I am more surprised at the questions the “child” asked his “father”. For example the boy asked “Father, Am I heavy?”, to which he added “don’t worry I’ll be heavy soon” which is definitely something a normal boy wouldn’t say, why would a child want to weigh down his father? Why would continuing make him any heavier? As soon as the “child” told the “father” about what he had done it, that he had killed him 100 years ago, it occurred to me maybe this child wasn’t biologically the son of the father.. Although a blue clean shaven head doesn’t make sense to me, the guilt of killing someone else and carrying it through out one’s life as a burden or “child” makes more than enough sense to me. Though the only question I have for this story is.. is this story supposed to be taken literally? Did the main character really kill a child 100 years ago? Or did the main character choose to try and forget about his actions and just happen to remember it as if it was 100 years ago?