Chapter 14 Chapter 5: The Letter from the Mouse and the Story of the Future

1 The first letter from the mouse Postmarked December 21, 1977 Are you OK? It seems that I haven't seen you for a long time.How many years has it been? How many years? The feeling of years is gradually becoming dull.Like flat black birds flapping overhead, I can't count more than three.Sorry, I'll let you do the counting. I left without a word, without saying anything to anyone, and maybe I caused you a little trouble too.Or walk away without even saying a word to you, making you feel uncomfortable. I tried to explain to you several times, but I always couldn't.I wrote many letters and tore them up one by one.But if you want to say this is a matter of course, it is a matter of course. There is no reason why you cannot explain clearly to others.

I guess so. ◇ I have never been good at writing letters.Often the order is reversed, or some opposite words and sentences are used incorrectly, so writing letters confuses myself.Secondly, I lack a sense of humor, so I tend to get bored with myself as I write. Originally, even a person who is good at letter writing should not need to write letters.why?Because it is enough to survive in one's own context.But that's of course just my opinion.Perhaps it is impossible to live in context. It's very cold now, and my hands are so numb with the cold, it's almost as if it wasn't mine.My brain doesn't seem to be my brain either.Right now, it's snowing, snow like someone else's brains.And it keeps piling up like other people's brains. (meaningless article)

Apart from the cold, I'm doing fine.And you?Can't tell you where I live, but please don't mind.Not trying to hide anything from you.Please be sure to understand this.In other words, this is a very delicate question for me.I feel like if I tell you where I live, something will change inside me from that moment on.Although I can't make it clear. I don't think I can say things clearly, you always understand very well every time.But the more you can understand it, the more I seem to be unable to explain clearly.Must have been born with a flaw in some way. Of course everyone has flaws.

But my biggest flaw is that my flaws get bigger and bigger with each passing year.In other words, it's like keeping a chicken inside your body.A chicken lays an egg, and the egg turns into a chicken, and the chicken lays an egg again. Can a person live like this, holding on to this defect?Of course I can survive.Turns out, that's the problem. Anyway, I still don't write my address.This must be better.It's the same for me and for you. Perhaps we should have been born in nineteenth-century Russia.I am the Duke of XX, you are the Earl of XX, two people hunt, or duel, or fall in love and be jealous, have metaphysical troubles, drink beer while watching the sunset by the Black Sea.Then in his later years, because of the chaos of so-and-so, the two were exiled to Siberia and died there.Isn't that great?If I had been born in the nineteenth century, I think I could have written better novels.If not as good as Dostoevsky, at least he can barely be a second-rate novelist.what will happen to youYou must be nothing more than an Earl of so-and-so.It's not bad just to be an Earl of so-and-so, sort of nineteenth-century.

But forget it.Go back to the twentieth century. ◇ Let's talk town. Not the town we grew up in, but various other towns. The world is truly full of towns and cities.There are all kinds of inexplicable things in every town, and those things fascinate me deeply.Because of this, I have traveled through quite a few towns in the past few years. As far as you walk, if you walk out of a station, there is a small circle with a street map and a shopping street.It's the same everywhere.Even the dogs look the same.Regardless of other things for the time being, after going around the whole city, I walked into a real estate agency and asked them to introduce me to cheap apartments.Of course, I'm from another place, and the so-called small town is exclusive, so I can't immediately gain their trust.But as you know, I'm usually easy to get on with, for no particular reason, and after fifteen minutes I can get on well with most people, so where to live is decided, and information about towns is obtained. .

The second is to find a job.It also starts with getting along well with all kinds of people.If it were you, you might be impatient (although I would be impatient too), anyway, if you don't live for four months, it doesn't matter who you get along with.First find a coffee shop or bar where young people gather in the city (every town has such a place. It’s like a city’s belly button), become their partners there, meet friends, and ask them to introduce jobs on their behalf.Of course, the name and origin are all fabricated at random.So just like that, I now have more names and experiences than you can imagine.Sometimes, I often forget who I am.

Speaking of jobs, there are all kinds of jobs.Although most of the work is boring, the work itself is still fun.Most are done at gas stations.The second is bartending at the bar.Bookstore clerks did it, and they did it on the radio.So did road workers.Cosmetics salesmen did too.As a salesman, I have a pretty good reputation, and secondly, I sleep with all kinds of girls.Sleeping with girls under different names and identities is also pretty good. In short, it is such a repetition. In this way, I reached the age of twenty-nine.Thirty in nine months. Is this kind of life suitable for you?I don't quite know yet.Whether the dissolute character is a common existence, I don't know.Perhaps, as someone has written, one of the three aptitudes is necessary for a long vagabond life.That is, a religious orientation, an artistic orientation, or a spiritual orientation.Without one of these, The Long Walk would not exist.However, I don't think I am suitable for any of these three. (If you are reluctant to say which item it is, no, forget it)

Maybe I opened the wrong door and couldn't find a way out.But no matter what, since it is opened, we can only work hard.Because we can’t always continue to buy things on a negative account. That's it. As I said at the beginning (have I?) I feel a little dangerous when I think of you.Maybe because you remind me of things from my more normal times. (extension) Enclosed is my novel.It's meaningless to me already, so please dispose of it casually. This letter was sent on a limited time limit, and I hope it will arrive by December 24th, and I hope it does. Anyway happy birthday to you.

besides, Merry Christmas. ◇ The rat's letter was crumpled and stuffed into the mailbox of my apartment on December 29th, when the year was approaching.Two forwarded stickers were attached.Because the address is written in the previous old address.Anyway, I can't help it because I can't inform him. I re-read the densely packed letter covering four sheets of light green letter paper three times, and then picked up the envelope to examine the half-obscured postmark.That's a postmark from a place I've never heard of.I took the atlas from the shelf and looked for the place.From the mouse's article, it is speculated that it should be near the northern tip of Honshu, as expected, the place is in Aomori Prefecture.A small place about an hour by train from Aomori.According to the timetable, five trains arrive there a day.Two shifts in the morning, one shift at noon, and two shifts in the evening.I have also been to Aomori in December several times.It was terribly cold in there.Where even traffic lights can freeze.

Then I showed the letter to my wife.Poor thing she said.Poor people maybe that's what she meant to say.Of course it doesn't matter anymore. As for the 200-page novel written on manuscript paper, I put it in the desk drawer without even looking at the title.I don't know the reason, but I don't want to read it. For me, just believing it is enough. So I sat down on a chair in front of the fire and smoked three cigarettes. ◇ The second letter from the mouse was in May of the following year.