Double major? Single major? Master’s degree? Dropout?
Literature? Languages?
Two years? Four years? Six years?
English? Japanese? Chinese?
A translator? A writer? A teacher? A housewife?
Colombia? United States? Japan?
Oh, time, what have you hidden under your sleeve?
Olavia Kite is the worst writer alive.
She used to think she really had talent, thus deciding to major in Literature. However, she missed a tiny detail… She would not like her major! She would lose her horizon and think about becoming a globetrotter/language teacher instead of gaining worldwide fame with her amazing art, which would not amaze the most curious passerby.
But lo, behold! She has not lost her hopes! She has decided to write a novel in thirty days… just because. She found out there was an opportunity to do it and show everybody how sucky she is, and she will not lose that opportunity!
Join her in her sorry attempt to justify herself as a starving anonymous writer. Beginning November 1, 2004, don’t forget to check this blog and lend her your support.
She says, ‘I want to go to That Mysterious Country.’
The whole class wants to go there as well.
But what if she arrives there, and nobody’s waiting?
What if her suitcase full of memories gets lost in the mail?
‘But nothing gets lost there, it’s so organized.’
‘Then I know what will happen.
I will exit the airport, ride a shiny vehicle for hours,
While everyone takes pictures with wide smiles,
And suddenly, boom!
My suitcase full of memories will fall on my head!’
‘Don’t say such nonsense!’
She dreams of visiting That Mysterious Country,
Under the sole condition of having Somebody waiting.
‘Somebody?’
‘Yes, don’t you remember him?
‘The one with the perfect smile and the crooked teeth,
The one with heart-shaped lips and shiny brown hair,
With beautiful long hands to play guitar,
And eyebrows like brush strokes.’
The whole class wants to go there,
But she’s scared.
Not only her suitcase will fall.
Buildings and cherry trees and miniature cars
And poles and computers and ducks and fish
And fried rice and ice cream and lacquer boxes
And microphones and ancient houses and saltwater
Will fall onto her.
‘The world must have become one huge memory,’
A passerby will mutter
As blood escapes the amorphous flattened remains.
Wake up, it was a dream. A simple dream.
But why did you refuse to wake up with me?
So many memories thrust into a box, sinking in the cold sea.
I’ll wait till nightfall, and then I’ll see you again.
Or maybe not.