Genki Kawamura - If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Can’t decide, huh? I get it… and I’m not surprised. You really do like movies, don’t you?”

“I really do…”

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll give you half a day to decide. The last movie of your life!”

I was at a complete loss, so I decided to visit Tsutaya. Yes, I know it’s the name of a store, but it’s also the name of a guy I know.

OK, I know that’s weird.

Let me explain.

I was at a complete loss, so I decided to visit the local video-rental store, which, by the way, is not a Tsutaya store. The guy who works there is an old friend of mine from junior high. He’s like a regular walking encyclopedia when it comes to movies, so we gave him the nickname Tsutaya. I decided to visit him, and get some help with making my decision.

Tsutaya had worked in the rental shop for over ten years. When you add it up, he’s probably spent half his life there—and he’s spent the other half watching movies. To put it bluntly, other than when he’s asleep, his entire life is devoted to movies. He’s made of movies. The biggest movie geek on earth.

Tsutaya and I met each other in spring, the year we both started junior high and were in the same class.

For the first two weeks of school Tsutaya just sat alone in the corner and spoke to no one, not during class or at recess. So I went over and talked to him, and we became close friends, just like that.

I don’t remember what made me finally break the silence. I guess I believe that this happens maybe three times, tops, in someone’s life—that you meet and are attracted to someone whose personality is so very different from your own. Either you become lovers (which would happen, in my case, if the person was a woman) or you become best friends.

There was something about Tsutaya that really drew me to him. So I just started talking to him and we became close friends.

But even when we’d grown really close, Tsutaya didn’t talk much, and he was too shy to look you in the eye. Our eyes can’t have met more than two or three times. But I liked him anyway. Normally he wouldn’t say much at all, but if we talked about movies, suddenly the words would start pouring out of his mouth, he’d get a glint in his eyes, and he’d just go on and on. I realized then that when a person talks about something they really love there’s a kind of thrill to it.

In junior high I learned a lot about movies from Tsutaya, and I watched everything he recommended. He knew about all kinds of films, from Japanese samurai movies to Hollywood science fiction and French New Wave, and even Asian indie films. His movie geek-dom knew no bounds.

“What’s good is good,” Tsutaya would always say.

He was unsurpassed in his knowledge of movie trivia. He could tell you what genre the film belonged to, when it was made and where, the cast and the director. It didn’t matter what era or nationality you were talking about. It was all the same to him. Ultimately, “what’s good is good” was all that mattered.

As luck would have it, we were also in the same class in high school. So in effect, I got six years of private tutoring in film studies for free. I’d say that I was now an expert. But compared to Tsutaya, I realize that most people who claim to be experts in film are just fakes (I’d probably have to include myself in that bracket). In this day and age, when people lay claim to expert status without having done more than dipped a toe in the subject, Tsutaya was the real thing. He was an authentic, naturalborn geek. Hardcore. Although that didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to be just like him. I mean, all geeky and stuff (no offense, of course).

It was an eight-minute walk to the video-rental shop.

As usual, Tsutaya was there behind the counter. He had become so fixed in that one position over the years, he looked like a statue of a sitting Buddha on the altar of a temple. When viewed from the outside, it was more like the shop and the infinite number of DVDs had grown up around him, with Tsutaya fixed in the middle.

“Tsutaya!”

I called his name as I passed through the automatic doors of the shop.

“H-hey, l-long time no see. W-w-what’s wrong?”

Not quite Buddha… Tsutaya still couldn’t look you in the eye, even as an adult.

“Look, I know this is out of the blue, but I don’t have any time to chat.”

“W-w-what’s wrong?”

“I’ve got terminal cancer. I’m going to die soon.”

“Huh?”

“I could die tomorrow.”

“Wha-whaaat?”

“So I have to decide what the last film I see before I die is going to be, and I have to decide quickly.”

“H-how?”

“Tsutaya, I need your help. Can you help me decide what to watch?”

I could tell by Tsutaya’s expression that being given such a responsibility out of the blue had left him at a bit of a loss.

Sorry, Tsutaya. I realize this is all quite sudden.

“R-really?”

“Yes, really. It’s a shame, but that’s the way it goes.”

Tsutaya screwed his eyes shut. He looked like he might be grief-stricken, or maybe just trying to think. He let out a deep breath and opened his eyes. He got up from behind the counter and wandered through the maze of shelves.

Tsutaya had always been that way. If someone needed help, he got to work quickly and did whatever was needed without asking why.

We both scanned the shelves full of DVDs and Blu-rays. A never-ending succession of movies passed before my eyes. Realizing this would be the last time I ever watched a film, I found myself remembering scene after scene, line after line from my favorites.

“ Everything that happens in life can happen in a show .”

So sings Jack Buchanan in The Bandwagon .

But really, could everything that had happened to me lately happen in a movie?

One day I’m diagnosed with terminal cancer—with no warning—and told I don’t have long left, then the Devil himself appears, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, promising to make things disappear from the world one by one in exchange for granting me one more day of life. It just doesn’t work. It’s too fantastical. Life is stranger than fiction!

Tsutaya was wandering around the section devoted to Westerns.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Peter Parker reminds himself in Spiderman , having developed super-powers.

Maybe it was the same for me. I had been making things disappear from the world in exchange for my life. Which was a pretty big responsibility, as well as a risk, and a stressful dilemma to have. Come to think of it, having signed on the dotted line with the Devil, I was beginning to understand just what Spiderman must have gone through.

What should I do? I was none the wiser, but maybe movies could offer some moral support.

“May the Force be with you!”

Thank you, Star Wars , and to you, the Jedi knights.

“I’ll be back.”

The Terminator , I know how you feel—I want to come back too!

“I’m the king of the world!”

Oh, DiCaprio. Come on, man, calm down.

“Life Is Beautiful!”

Now, that is a load of rubbish!

Suddenly a voice from behind me…

“Don’t think! Feel!”

I’d become completely absorbed by my own miserable thoughts when suddenly Tsutaya turned to me and spoke. In his hands he held a copy of Enter the Dragon .

“D-d-d-don’t think! Feel!”

Tsutaya cried out again.

“Thank you, Tsutaya. Bruce Lee’s great, but somehow it doesn’t seem like a good candidate for the last movie you want to watch just before you die.”

I laughed at his suggestion.

“When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends.”