Genki Kawamura - If Cats Disappeared from the World

I looked at my watch. It was 9:00 in the morning.

Cabbage was looking at me with a worried expression. He meowed and then curled up by the pillow. I stroked him gently. So soft and warm, and fluffy-feeling… This was what life felt like.

Finally the cogs in my brain started to turn again, and gradually the events of the previous night came back to me. I had collapsed in front of the movie theater after coming over all cold and dizzy. But after that was a total blank. My head still hurt a bit and I had a slight fever.

“OK, OK, c’mon now, what is this? Don’t be such a drama queen!”

I was calling from the kitchen. I mean, not me, but my Devil doppelgänger.

“Oh, give me a break. It’s only a cold!”

“What do you mean, only a cold?”

Aloha’s red shirt was so gaudy it hurt my eyes.

“I’m saying, it was just a cold and I had to drag you all the way back here. That’s hard work, dude, even for a devil!”

Aloha poured some hot water into a mug, added honey and lemon, and began stirring.

“You seemed to be suffering so much I thought you were going to die.”

Aloha brought over the mug and plonked it down beside me.

“Well, sorry…”

I sipped the sweet and sour liquid. It was delicious.

“Just so you know, this life-prolonging treatment has always worked out for me in the past. Always. We’ve come this far. If I mess up, God will be angry with me, OK?”

“I’ll be more careful in the future…”

“You’re not exactly in a position to be talking about the future, OK? You just remember that!”

There was always something with Aloha. But there was nothing much I could do about it. The guy was throwing me a lifeline.

“Miaaa…” Cabbage let out an exasperated meow and then got up and left. Apparently even he’d had enough.

“So, what are you going to do?”

Aloha waited for me to finish the honey-lemon and then resumed giving me the third degree.

“About what?”

“Oh, c’mon now… we’re talking about what you’re going to make disappear from the world next.”

“Oh, right…”

“Next it’s movies.”

“Sure.”

“Do we go ahead? Press the delete button, or would you rather quit right here?”

If movies disappeared from the world…

I tried to imagine what it would be like.

It wouldn’t be easy. I’d lose my main hobby.

OK, so I realize it was a bit late in the day to be waxing lyrical about hobbies (I mean with the whole death thing and all), but I’d bought so many DVDs… what a waste. And I just bought new box sets of Stanley Kubrick and Star Wars .

Mmmm… did it have to be this way? I guess my life depended on it. Literally.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” Aloha was pressing for an answer. But this was a serious problem. I needed to think a minute.

“So does it have to be movies?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no other way?”

“Well, let’s see… shall we try something else?”

So how about music?

NO MUSIC, NO LIFE.

Can’t live without music!, as the sign outside my local Tower Records store said.

Would it be possible to live in a world without music?

I suppose we’d all manage somehow.

All those rainy days holed up in my room listening to Chopin… I guess I could do without it. It might still be the same. There’d be other things to find comfort in. But what would a sunny day be like without Bob Marley… ? Not quite the same, but I guess I’d manage.

The almost unbearable high I get from listening to the Beatles while speeding along on my bike. It’s my background music at work, while I’m delivering the mail. But I guess I’d get by.

And then listening to Bill Evans on the way walking home in the dark… giving that up would be painful, but I guess I’d manage without it.

Conclusion 1:

NO MUSIC, YES LIFE.

I’d go on living even without music, though it’d be sad.

NO COFFEE, NO LIFE! NO COMICS, NO LIFE!

OK, just thought I’d throw these in for comparison. Let’s say there’s no more coffee or comics. Life would go on. I’m sure I could live without Starbucks caffè lattes. And comics? It would be hard, but I could do without AKIRA , Doraemon , or Slam Dunk if it meant my life.

Look, I’ll level with you. I didn’t want to give up anything, definitely not my collection of anime figures or my limited-edition trainers, but it’s the same as, say, getting rid of hats, or Pepsi, or Häagen-Dazs ice-cream. I wouldn’t like it, but it’s not like I’d die without them. I’d give them all up in a second in exchange for my life.

So I’d tried giving up everything (only in my imagination, for practice).

Conclusion 2:

Basically, all human beings really need to survive is food, water, and shelter.

In other words, pretty much everything in this world, everything in the human world that humans made, is pretty unnecessary—OK to have around, but we could do without.

I’ve had a thing for movies my whole life. So the question is, if all movies disappeared, would it feel like part of me had gone too?

“There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

That’s a line from The Matrix .

It seems to me that the idea of something disappearing from the world and what that would really be like are two totally different things. It’s not only about something suddenly not being there—there’s something else that can’t be measured. It’s a real loss, something deeply human, that can’t be expressed by counting things. It’s so small you could miss it, but without anyone noticing, our lives are changed completely.

More than anything it made my heart ache. My girlfriend who loves movies so much, everyone around the world who loves movies… if I robbed all of these people of something that matters so much to them, I’d be committing a crime. And that kind of guilt would be a heavy thing to carry around.

But then again, what about my own existence? It was either me, or movies. Ultimately my life—which was now hanging by a thread—was non-negotiable. If I was dead, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy movies anymore, and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate my girlfriend’s love of movies, or how much they mean to so many people.

So I made a decision. Make movies disappear.

The main character in a movie I saw put it this way:

“There are lots of people in this world who want to sell their souls to the devil. The problem is, there isn’t a devil around who’s willing to buy.”

But actually they got it wrong. In my case, a devil who wanted to buy my soul really did appear before me. Obviously I never dreamed the Devil himself would ever actually appear.

“So, it looks like you’ve made your decision.”

He seemed pretty cheerful, at least Aloha—who I could only assume was the real Devil—was grinning as he spoke.

“Yes…”

“OK. You know the rules. You get to see one last film—just one now. Take your pick.”

Right. I got to choose one last film. But there’re so many! It was too much for me. I couldn’t choose.

“I’ll give you one last showing of your favorite film right here. I’ll even watch it with you.”

I remembered my girlfriend’s parting words from last night. It’s almost as if she knew what was coming.

Anyway, out of all the movies I loved, I had to pick which one would be the last I ever saw. That’s not an easy thing to do. Should I choose from all the films I’ve seen before, or something I haven’t seen yet?

I had read magazine articles and seen TV shows where someone is faced with a question like what would you have for your last meal, or what would you take with you to a desert island, but I never imagined that someday I’d be faced with the same kind of choice. It felt impossible. But in my case, turning Aloha down wasn’t really an option. I mean, it was do or die.