From the bottom of my hole.
Through the small circle of vision open to me I would watch as the sky grew slowly lighter and the stars faded away, and in my exhaustion I would think about a whole lot of different things. I wore a bathing suit and on top of that the same muddy jacket every day so that there would be no muddy clothes to tip off my mother. And I noticed that I had hardly any memories of ever putting on my bathing suit and going to swim in the ocean. In swimming class I would just sit and watch, memorizing the strokes—when I actually thought about it, I realized that I don’t even know how to do the crawl. And I remembered how every day I would run out of breath at the same spot on that hill we climbed on the way to school, and how I had never once participated in the morning assembly, when everyone had to stand for such a long time. Back when all that was happening, I never paid any attention to the trivial things that were happening right in front of me, I just kept gazing up at the blue sky overhead. I didn’t notice those things.
It aches when I breathe, and my body feels so heavy it’s as if the cover has me pinned down, keeping me from moving.
I can’t even get down a decent meal. About the only things I can eat are the pickled vegetables the old hag brings, and stuff like that. My God, Maria, doesn’t that make you laugh? Doesn’t it?
Until now it didn’t matter how bad things got, somewhere way down inside I always had this place that was totally fine, just as strong and healthy as it could be. But now the warehouse is empty. I’m really hurting now. I feel so bad I’m finally going to give in and tell the truth.
I can’t stand the nights.
When they put out the lights here this room turns into an enormous universe of dark, and I start feeling so low I don’t know what to do. It’s so terrible that I almost start to cry. But crying wears me down. So I lie here in the darkness, struggling to hold it in. I write this letter by the beam of a small flashlight. My awareness of things drifts off into the distance and then returns—my head is whirling. If anything in me snags it’ll be like falling off a log. I’ll be a miserable little corpse, and all you idiots will run around crying your eyes out.
Every morning an ugly nurse comes and opens my curtains.
Waking up is the pits. My mouth is parched, my head is heavy with pain—the fever has dried me up so completely that I feel like a mummy. And if anything isn’t up to scratch, they don’t hesitate to start giving me intravenous fluids and all the rest. Believe me, it’s the pits.
But when the nurse throws back the curtains and opens the window, the sea breeze comes blowing in with the sunlight. I lie with my eyes still half closed, slipping sleepily through the brightness of my eyelids into a dream about walking the dog.
Because my life was bullshit. If you ask me to say something nice about it, that’s about all I can think up. That’s what it was worth.
Whatever, I’m glad I’ll be able to die in this town.
Keep well.
Tsugumi
Goodbye Tsugumi Page 17