Sweet Bean Paste

by Durian Sukegawa

‘We should simply be grateful they come at all.’ ‘But you don’t get bean paste like this so easily.’ ‘Yes, but the world isn’t an easy place…’ ‘Yeah, well, I guess so.’

Another girl had shown Tokue her new mobile phone, which was apparently the very latest, so Sentaro probably hadn’t seen one yet either, she said. What kind of world will it be in the future now that those things are an inseparable part of children’s lives, she wondered.

A manifestation of our dark future

When the law changed, for one happy moment we all thought we could go home. But more than a dozen years have passed since then and almost no one has come forward to take us back. The world hasn’t changed. It’s just as cruel as it always was.’

It’s my belief that everything in this world has its own language. We have the ability to open up our ears and minds to anything and everything. That could be someone walking down the street, or it could be the sunshine or the wind.

I realized that no matter how much we lost, or however badly we were treated, the fact is we are still human. All we can do is keep on going with our lives, even if we lose limbs, because this is not a fatal illness. In the midst of darkness and a struggle we had no hope of winning, I held on to this one thing – the fact of our humanity – and I was proud of it.

But if I’m really honest, all I ever wanted was to go outside that fence. I wanted to go out into society and work at an ordinary job. I wanted that for the same reasons everyone does – to be a useful member of society and make the world a better place.

I can’t tell you how many times I wished I were dead. Deep down, I believed that a life has no value if a person is not a useful member of society. I was convinced that humans are born in order to be of service to the world and to others.

I began to understand that we were born in order to see and listen to the world. And that’s all this world wants of us. It doesn’t matter that I was never a teacher or a member of the workforce, my life had meaning.

All experience adds up to a life lived as only you could. I feel sure the day will come when you can say: this is my life.

If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die. The only way to get over barriers, she said, is to live in the spirit of already being over them.’