If Cats Disappeared from the World

by Genki Kawamura

Aloha said by making something disappear from the world, I could live for one more day. Let’s see now, that would be thirty items a month, 365 per year. It would be simple. The world is basically drowning in crap anyways. All those small, silly, useless things like the parsley they put on an omelet, or the promotional flyers they’re always sticking on your windshield. Or how about those lengthy user manuals that come with your new fridge or washing machine. Or watermelon seeds. All kinds of unnecessary things spring to mind. If you really think about it, you could come up with at least one or two million things the world could do without. If I’m supposed to live to seventy, that would mean I have forty more years left on the clock. So if I get rid of 14,600 items, I could die a natural death at the age of seventy after all. Aloha had a point: For thousands of years, humankind has done nothing but make useless things. So if something were to disappear, no one would notice. In fact, the world would be a simpler place.