Genki Kawamura - If Cats Disappeared from the World

I remember that day really clearly—Lettuce wouldn’t leave her side for a minute, constantly snuggling up to her.

“In order to gain something you have to lose something.”

Mom said it was just obvious. People are always trying to get something for nothing. But that’s just theft. If you’ve gained something it means that someone, somewhere, has lost something. Even happiness is built on someone else’s misfortune. Mom often told me this, she considered it one of the laws of the universe.

Lettuce lived for eleven years. He developed a tumor and lost a ton of weight. Toward the end he just slept a lot, and died peacefully in his sleep.

The day after Lettuce died, Mom wouldn’t move. She had always been bright and cheerful, and actually liked cooking and cleaning. But now suddenly she was no longer in the mood to do anything. She just stayed at home and cried. So I did the laundry, and then I’d drag Mom out for dinner at the local chain restaurant. Over time, I think we tried out every item on the menu.

A month went by like that and then one day, suddenly and unexpectedly, Mom arrived home with another rescued kitten in her arms, as if it happened every day.

The kitten looked just like Lettuce. It was a round, black and white mass with a mixture of grey. A beautiful cat. It looked so much like Lettuce we decided to call him Cabbage.

Looking at him all curled up Mom laughed and said, “He really does look just like Lettuce.” It was the first time she had smiled in a month. Seeing her laugh again after such a long time made me teary.

Or maybe just well up a bit. I guess I was worried that Mom might just fade away, disappear off to some faraway place and never come back.

Then four years ago she really did leave us.

“What a coincidence—I have the thing that Lettuce had,” said Mom, laughing faintly.

Just like Lettuce, the weight dropped off Mom, and in the end, she went to sleep and simply never woke up. She died peacefully.

“Take care of Cabbage,” she implored me before she died.

Fate, it seems, has a sense of humor—I’ll end up dying before Cabbage just like Mom. She’d be pretty unimpressed with me, I’m sure. I can just imagine her saying she should have left Cabbage with someone else.

Next thing I knew it was morning.

For the first time in a while I’d dreamed about my mother.

Cabbage meowed nearby. I pulled him close to me and gave the soft furry ball a squeeze. His silky, fluffy, and warm body was life-giving.

And then I remembered. I had gained one extra day of life.

I was wondering how many of the previous day’s events I’d imagined. Maybe it all really happened, but on the other hand, it could have been a dream. But my phone, which I normally would have left on the bedside table, was nowhere to be found. And the fever, which I’d had for so long, had gone, along with my headache. Maybe that meant that the deal I made with the Devil was also real?

Telephones had disappeared from the world.

When you think about it that’s not such a bad thing, especially when it comes to mobile phones!

Lately it seemed like I was messing around on my stupid phone all the time, from morning till night, just before bed. I didn’t read many books anymore, and I didn’t read newspapers. DVDs I borrowed just piled up in my room unwatched.

On the train on the way to work I was always looking at my phone. Even when I was watching a movie, I checked my phone regularly. And when I was eating. When my lunch break came around I got this terrible urge to look at my phone. Even when I was with Cabbage I’d end up looking at the phone instead of playing with him. Being such a slave to it made me hate myself.

Mobile phones have been around for only about twenty years, but in just that short time they’ve managed to take complete control over us. In just twenty short years something that we don’t really need has come to rule our lives, making us believe that we can’t do without it. When human beings invented the mobile phone, they also invented the anxiety of not having one.

But who knows, maybe we went through the same thing when people first started sending letters. It’s the same with the internet. Throughout human history we’ve given birth to new things, only to lose the old. When you put it like that, maybe God was on to something when he accepted the Devil’s proposal.

I know you’re probably wondering who I made my last call to.

It’s kind of personal, but all right, I’ll tell you.

She’s the first woman I ever loved. My first girlfriend.

OK, now don’t go calling me a sentimental moron.

They say that when a man is dying, the first name that comes to mind is his first love. In this, I think I share something with the common man.

Lounging in the morning sun, I took my time getting out of bed. I listened to the radio while I cooked breakfast. Made some coffee, fried an egg, and plopped one slice of bread in the toaster. Then I sliced a tomato and placed it on the plate. After breakfast I had another cup of coffee and leisurely read a book. Ah, life without a phone. It was so good! It seemed as if time had suddenly lengthened, while the space opened up and spread out.

Midday approached.

I slammed the book shut and headed for the bathroom. I took a nice hot shower, and then put on my clothes (the usual black & white) which lay neatly folded nearby. Then I headed out to see her.

The first place I went after leaving the apartment was the barbershop (my usual place). I realized it was absurd taking the time to get a haircut when I was about to die, but I wanted to look good for my ex-girlfriend, so don’t laugh.

After fixing my hair I stopped by the optician’s across the street to get new glasses, then went to catch the tram. One was just arriving as I got there so I ran and jumped onto one of its green carriages.

It was a weekday so it was packed. Normally, all of the passengers would be looking at their phones. But today was different. Instead, people were reading books, listening to music, or staring outside at the scenery. People seemed to have no trouble finding something to fill their free time. Their facial expressions seemed cheerful, somehow.

Why do people look so serious when they’re checking their phones? It seemed so calm inside the tram without those contraptions. Not only had I won an extra day of life for myself, it looked like I’d also done the world a big favor.

But had phones really disappeared from this world completely?

I looked out the window of the tram at a sign for a noodle shop, which sat on the corner of the shopping district. (This is where Cabbage secretly goes at night for dried bonito shavings.) The shop’s phone number appeared on the sign as always. And when I looked around the inside of the tram I could see that there were still posters advertising mobile phones. But no one on the tram was on their phone… What did this all mean?

Then I suddenly remembered. Something similar happened in an old comic book series I used to read as a kid. Doraemon , Tentomushi Comics, Vol. 4. That’s the time one of Doraemon’s secret gadgets, the pebble hat, is introduced.

The story goes like this:

As usual, Nobita Nobi (the kid who’s the main character in the series) has been told off by his parents. Nobita goes to Doraemon for comfort, complaining, “They don’t need to watch me so carefully all the time. I just want to be left alone.” Then Doraemon pulls a gadget out of that fourth-dimensional pocket of his: the Pebble Hat.

Doraemon explains: “When you wear this hat, you’ll be like a pebble on the ground—unnoticed.” In other words, you’ll still exist, but no one will notice.

Nobita is thrilled and puts on the hat. For a while, he enjoys being left alone. But then, he starts to get lonely. And when he tries to take off the hat he can’t. It’s stuck on his head, so he starts to cry. It’s his tears that make the hat come off, and Mama and Papa start to notice him again. Then Nobita says, “I’m glad people care about me,” and that’s the end of the story.