The Guest Cat

by Takashi Hiraide

each new house, each new neighborhood contained its own unique experience of the passage of time.

I’d say one’s thirties are a cruel age. At this point, I think of them as a time I whiled away unaware of the tide that can suddenly pull you out, beyond the shallows, into the sea of hardship, and even death.

I wonder where it all comes from—this need to go to the place where the body has been laid to rest. It’s the need to reconfirm how precious someone was and how irreplaceable, and the desire to reconnect with them on a different plane.