…Hello?

Can anyone hear me? Shit. My head is pounding. How did I get here? Ow, my legs. I can’t move them. I think I just woke up from being unconcious. I think I was suppose to die. Where am I? Wheres Oliver? Where’s that woman that Oliver hangs out with? Agh I can’t hear anything.

Let me see if I can remember anything…

I remember Her getting angry about something and I was sleeping so soundly but the way she got angry scared me so bad that I couldn’t help but jump and run somewhere where I felt safe. I stepped outside and felt the brisk, salt filled air against my face and it made my usual wet nose into something as dry as the food that I eat on occasion. It was a pretty clear night from what I remember, I felt so safe when I finally left that house, I felt like maybe I should go for a quick stroll before going back to bed because I was feeling particularly lucky. Maybe I could find a juicy pest to snack on… Man, that thought is making me hungry. Was that the last time I ate?

I walked along the moist grass and I could feel my paws falling into mud puddles on occasion. For a while, I could hear the sounds of the ocean waves, coming in and then going out, coming in and then going out. I heard a rustle in the huckleberry bushes and pounced on the most plump mole rat I had ever seen, oh my god I was so excited and just remembering this is making all this pain feel better but I think before I ate that plump mole rat, he made a wish while he died and that wish had come true.

Right, I was surrounded by four raccoons. Man those creatures are nasty, I’ve heard people admire how cute they are but truly, I find them to be annoying and disgusting. I could NEVER just rummage through garbage looking for something, let alone something to EAT. Well, they came for me, because that was the mole rats wish and that’s the last thing I remember. I vaguely remember crawling back toward the house, but where I am now… it smells like my house but somehow I am not in my house…?

It’s dark. I’m cold. I really can’t move my legs and I can’t feel my tail. Am I okay to just die here?

What was that?

Is that the woman I hear? Is that Oliver’s Woman? Am I smelling Oliver?! Oliver! I try to meow but I can’t. My mouth is parched. I open my eyes a little more and notice the cracks of light coming down. I don’t know where I am, I really don’t. Oh please Oliver, please just see me please please please. I opened my eyes more, hoping that the suns reflection will turn my eyes into another beam of light.

Something is coming. But it smells familiar. It’s Oliver. Oh thank god.

Careful with the tail there.

To whoever may read this sad letter,

There was one thing I wanted to confess, just in case kamisama misinterpreted some of the actions that I had been partaking in the last few days. If someone were to have watched me the way we watch T.V. but with no back-story, then they would most likely think that I am father with feelings of incest toward my daughter but I wanted to make it clear that this is not the case and I was truly just trying to help. But even then, I still feel like I have committed a sin.

You see, my daughter and I share the family computer, and I know that anytime my daughter logs off the computer, she clears her cache but one night she forgot to do it and I ended up seeing something that made me cry harder than I think I have ever cried before.

I knew she was being picked on in school but I didn’t or more like, I couldn’t even imagine that it was going this far.

It fills me with disgust to even say this but my daughter’s blood soaked underwear was being auctioned off. Can you believe this? I couldn’t believe that some people could be filled with so much hatred to do that to another human being, let alone to someone like my precious daughter. I felt like I had only once choice to help and this is where I am scared that my actions may have been misinterpreted. I made an account on this website: C.imperator (Ah, I love the internet, I love how I can hide myself and be something as strong as a Staghorn Beetle) and I put in my bid. I started bidding not because of hentai feelings for my daughter but I wanted to save her innocence. I couldn’t let the perverts  of the world wide web to mercilessly steal that innocence away from her. I didn’t have much money but I continued to bid higher and higher and hoping and hoping that these terrible people who were bidding on her underwear would just give up and stop, I wanted to scream “SHE’S MY DAUGHTER. STOP. PLEASE STOP.” My palms were so sweaty and I was shaking so much from fear and anxiety. This was my one chance to do right by my daughter, to save her.

And yet… I lost.

maketa.

And I find myself realizing that maybe I’m not as strong as a Staghorn Beetle. But maybe I will be in my next life.

Sincerely,

The other day I was talking to my room mate about how a restaurant I went to once a long time ago, had a mini flat screen television at every single table so that patrons can watch T.V. while they ate their meals. I turned on the T.V. but only for five or so minutes because I couldn’t stand that me and my partner at the time were just not communicating to each other and just zoned out on the T.V. Then I started thinking though, how is a mini flat screen any different from the smart phones that we carry in our pocket?

I work in the service industry at a restaurant, and I find myself noticing more and more that patrons are starting to communicate less to one another in real life and becoming more and more attached to their phones, most likely communicating to other people outside of where they are at the time.

If it weren’t for things like social media, I think I would have less friends. I wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with people I have met in my life. This even goes for my family. I remember growing up feeling so sad that I rarely communicated with my cousins or family in Japan but now with social media and other outlets, I can now stay in touch with them very easily.

So it’s weird though that even though a cell phone, or texting in some ways brings us closer to each other but in other ways it distance us from other people too.

Communication in this book is so prominent, whether it’s Nao communicating with her grandmother via text messaging, to Nao communicating with Ruth through her diary, or how the post mistress communicates with the entire town about Ruth’s finding. When you think about someone or something aging, some things that come to mind is the loss of something, whether it’s memory or freshness but as our world gets older, it’s developing newer ways to communicate yet the communication is losing it’s meaning more and more due to the newer findings (some people argue that communicating over the internet is shallow). Like Jiko, as she becomes older, she is communicating less (she is of few words) yet what she says is very meaningful and can be interpreted in different ways.