“Until age 24 or so, I lived with my girlfriend in a 15,000-yen apartment in Yamagata. The people around us were kind and would give us fruits and vegetables. So while we didn't have much, I think we ate a well-balanced diet.
Even though we were poor, we had a pet Japanese rice fish. I found it dead one summer. I went to toss its body in the trash like in Parasyte, but my girlfriend said she wanted me to bury it, so I went off into the park, alone. I tried to bury it under this big tree, but the ground was too hard, my hands got all dirty, and I had no hole to show for my effort. Out of options, I figured I would pretend I had buried the fish and left it lying there on top of the ground. As I watched it for a little while, ants found the body and began trying to carry it away. I'm not sure what came over me, but in that moment, love for the pet fish welled from within me for the first time. I brushed the ants away, and then I ate it.
The next day I had an upset stomach. And when my girlfriend suggested it was something I'd eaten, I came up with some lie cover up the fact that I'd eaten our pet fish. I've had people get mad at me many times throughout my life, and when I'm scared of that, the lies just spill out. Most of the time I get caught in them, but this time I didn't.
That brings us to now. The memory of lying to my girlfriend is far stronger than the guilt of eating our pet fish. Please allow me to confess my sin here.”
―
Tatsuki Fujimoto,
藤本タツキ短編集 22-26 [Fujimoto Tatsuki Tanpenshū 22-26]
