[Translated from the Japanese by Mariko Nagai]
Water Cat
Even now, I can clearly recall the period in my childhood when the "ritual" possessed me like a fever. And the cats we spent intimate days with float up in my dreams on exhausted nights. Freed from everything, they float and sink, frolicking with fish. The cats gradually multiply until they become a school of cats, swimming in the wide sea.
For some reason, I understand everything in my dream. Yes, I see; I sometimes sigh. I understand that everything had to be the way it was at that time: the ritual, the melancholic face of the leader boy we called "the Priest".
But when I wake up from this familiar dream, the past seems washed out and I realize that I am still, as always, living in the season of betrayal.