Motto: I am a reaper (3-16-10)

I am Jade. Let me tell you a story about when I was in my early 20s.

As the winter was yet gone, it was getting warmer and warmer to give me a sense that both cherry and plum trees would come in full bloom soon.

I was working in a nursing center somewhere in Chiba prefecture, Japan, as a clerk. Over there, that short bald middle-aged guy with a mustache, taking care of a bedridden old woman was my boyfriend, Keyron, a caregiver. We had been working in this center together for about four months.

I loved Keyron. One reason was that he was sympathetic and impartial to people. He was born and bred in an ordinary family and it gave him lots of occasions to interact with various types of people to help foster his people skills. For another reason, he had a unique set of characteristics worth priding and, even though the quality of his occasional jokes was mostly questionable, they succeeded in making me happy.

On the other hand, however, I was aware that his human-specific shortcomings appeared more clearly since I turned into a human from a cat.

“How come could that guy date that lady?”

One afternoon when I and Keyron were hanging out in Shinjuku, Tokyo, one of the busiest downtown areas in Japan, anyone cast invective at him. “Anyone” was a member of the impassive “all-the-same” variety donning business suits. Although they didn’t make a pinch of appeal to me, there was something on which I wanted Keyron to be retrospective, which was a dress code.

“Keyron, I might be wanting you to consider what to wear in public.”

“I’ll do so next time,” his cliché.

His promise never came true! Although when performing stand-up to the public audience he had dressed in a suit, he was now in a yellow T-shirt and a dark pair of knee-length pants! He never practiced a sensible dress code with seasonal arrangements even when dating with me! I knew that this was just one of his drawbacks, a lining on the reverse side of his strength of character, but I was not completely tolerant of comparing him to those business persons who earned high social status and incomes.

That tall good-looking guy clad in a white laboratory coat, talking to each of the elderly from bed to bed in this nursing center, was Akihito, a surgeon from a university hospital. He showed himself to us twice a week. He started this part-time job shortly after I and Keyron began working here.

“He is a surgeon right?” sneaking a look at him, I whispered a quiet phrase to myself while Keyron was struggling to change the diaper of a bedridden woman.

As a surgeon he could operate. Despite the high skill, that was kindness with which he approached those elderly individuals! And, he earned a lot!? I loved Keyron, but in matter-of-fact talking, which deserved more either he or Akihito? This question was increasing its share of my thoughts recently, an effect after I had received insinuating smiles from Akihito--he had affection toward me for sure. In return, I must admit that he seemed to have some special charm, to be separate from those “all-the-same.”

“What are these glasses?” I wondered one day, picking up a pair of dark glasses from the desk designated to Akihito in the staff room. I knew that it was impropriety to approach him, but my curiosity was ripe and went beyond restriction.

“Test them on,” said Akihito.

Through the glasses, everything looked darker than the vision via sunglasses. The colors of every object fell close to monotone, therefore I identified bright otherwise invisible lines rather clearly, which connected a person to another. Each line had its own color, that was probably decided by some factor about the people. As I took off the glasses, those lines disappeared.

“What is this!?” I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Not saying anything nor explaining the effect, Akihito kept a mysterious smile on, inciting my mouth to shape pouting in a girly way--I attempted to draw the truth by this stupid method. In no time, while waiting for his reply I again wore the glasses to ensure the outcome. Certainly, there were bright lines across people; What surprised me the most, there was already a thin yellow line between me and Akihito. Relationships! This pair of glasses enables the person to see human relationships! Astonished and embarrassed by the findings, I turned to Akihito.

“There, you got it!,” Akihito chuckled and made a slightly warbling voice as he took the glasses off me.

One afternoon the other day, my day off, I was sharing the table with Akihito at a cafe over coffee while Keyron was working. A black blazer which was covering the slim body of Akihito was chic. Having played on my inflating curiosity about the glasses and him until this moment, he picked them out of his bag. As soon as he gently put them on me, they were lines stretched between customers, staffers and beyond.

“These lines represent relationships between people as you said before. Look at that serious-looking middle-aged guy in a business suit. His name is Gunner, having a seat before his wife. Can you see a line between them? The line must look on the verge of breaking because they are in the process of filing a divorce. He has yet lost lines whose butts dangle from his torso. They used to run to a major auto-company which he had worked for and his relatives. I will show you something amusing,” said Akihito as he pulled a scalpel from an inner pocket of his blazer.

“Gunner is about to lose his social persona,” Akihito got close to the couple and chopped off the pink line between them. Immediately, the wife stood up and left the table, and Gunner’s face became creasy, full of tears cascading on. Across from the table, I was almost intolerant of laughing out loud, to witness a scene in which one of “all-the-same” became “a different.”

“I will lend you these glasses and the scalpel if you like,” said Akihito. And I received the set.

“From now on, we both are such villains,” he smiled.

Although it was undeniable that the line between me and Keyron became fragile by some degree, we still made a couple. I was becoming an addict to cutting the key relationships of those in uniform and seeing them turn into losers of society and their faces expressing despair. I didn’t feel guilty so much, thinking that I helped them have it coming.

On a later day, Gunner came to see his mother whose diaper Keyron was changing at the time.

I didn’t know he was her son, I thought, as it was his first visit here in my memory.

Whatever changes his psyche made through a series of debacles and misfortunes, his smile was subtle however warm over the face of his mother.

As I put on the glasses, it was a resuscitated thick reddish-pink line between the son and the mother whose remaining life was limited.

“I have lost everything except for you, mom,” Gunner dropped a phrase to his mother. The mother, having gone senile, didn’t reply.

“I know where you were working for,” said Keyron in a humble tone.

“It must have been the havoc that hit the company. But I am sure that what the company did is our pride.”

Keyron had many lines which reached those aged; There was an inchoate one between Keyron and Gunner; And the one between me and Keyron was still thick, being white.

Akihito, standing over here, was toying with a scalpel.

“You have what!?” I shouted at Akihito.

“Do you have any line except for one coming to me, this killer!!” I cut off the line between us and threw the two given items back to him.

In a flash, the flawless evil revealed his true appearance as a dark reaper, smirked at me and evaporated into the air.

Afterward, I stay together with Keyron. I wish he were more considerate about clothing and earned more. But eventually, I love him. That was such a day of this mischievous cat.