What You Are Looking for is in the Library

by Michiko Aoyama

The only reason I don’t go back home is because I couldn’t stand putting up with the inconvenience of country life again.

Find a new job, Tomoka. This thought has been on my mind a lot recently. But it feels such a huge effort to do anything about it. Basically I’m not very driven. Even writing a CV is a big hassle for me. Anyway, what else can a girl like me do? A young recent junior college graduate with no skills, who only Eden was willing to employ.

“You managed to find employment, you go to work every day and you can feed yourself. That’s a fine achievement.”

“In a world where you don’t know what will happen next, I just do what I can right now.”

What I do know is that there’s no need to panic, or do more than I can cope with right now. For the time being, I plan to simply get my life in order and learn some new skills, choosing from what’s available. I’ll prepare myself, like Guri and Gura gathering chestnuts in the forest. Because I never know when I might find my own giant egg.

With Hina gone, the weekend stretches out emptily before me.

I flick through the TV channels but the raucous laughter from the variety shows is tinny and harsh in my ears, so I switch off.

Yasuhara stares at the mackerel tabby in silence. I worry that I have worn out my welcome with all my negativity.

“It’s hard work on your own,” says Yasuhara. “You need someone else there—a partner, family member or friend—someone to discuss things with and let off steam. If you don’t have a partner to share the mental stress, it’s exhausting.”

“Singles are envious of those who are married, and married couples envy those with children, but people with children are envious of singles. It’s an endless merry-go-round. But isn’t that funny? That each person should be chasing the tail of the person in front of them, when no one is coming first or last. In other words, when it comes to happiness nothing is better or worse—there is no definitive state.”

“Life is one revelation after another. Things don’t always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it’s all for the best that many things don’t turn out the way we hoped. Try not to think of upset plans or schedules as personal failure

or bad luck. If you can do that, then you can change, in your own self and...

“Things change, even if you want them to stay the same. At the same time, you can try to change, but you will still remain the same.”

But whatever it was, if I ever spoke to him, he’d just look at me like I was an insect.

“But at least you know about Wallace now, don’t you, Hiroya, from reading that book. Now he’s in your thoughts, and you’re making a place for him to live on in this world. Don’t you think that’s enough?” I’m a place where Wallace lives on? Is that how you make a place for somebody—one person thinking about another?

for the best, I think.” Is this the secret, then? If you throw yourself into doing the things you like, it’s possible to live a happy, healthy life as he

“You told me how unique it was to walk like a crab because the scenery goes by sideways and the world looks bigger than normal. Walking sideways gives you a wider view.”