The weak fear happiness itself.

One day, I went to a soba restaurant outside town, and while I was waiting for the zarusoba I opened an old graph magazine. There was a picture of an exhausted, lonely kneeling woman who wore a checked patterned yukata after the tradegy of a large earthquake. With the intensity of my chest ready to burn up, I fell in love with that poor woman. I also felt a horrifying desire for her. Maybe tragedy and desire are back to back to one another.

But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.

Last year nothing happened The year before nothing happened And the year before that nothing happened.

The real things are apt to be deviant.

Now even if I die, no one will be so grieved as to do himself bodily harm.

As for love . . . no, having once written that word I can write nothing more.