Louise Heal Kawai

don’t really know what it means to feel like myself

When you say see you tomorrow to someone, it’s because you’re going to keep seeing them. It’s like at school you see everybody because they go to school every day. But when you graduate and you don’t go to school any more, it stops and you don’t see everybody any more. If you want to see somebody, you have to make plans to meet, or even make plans to make plans, and next thing you end up not seeing them any more. That’s what’s going to happen. If you don’t see somebody, you end up never seeing them. And then there’s going to be nothing left of them at all.”

“The worst thing is, you never know when somebody’s going to just disappear.”

know—putting off stuff and not doing anything, and not going and seeing somebody when I really wanted to. I stopped that. It’s too risky… You should just go and see someone when you can, right?”

know—putting off stuff and not doing anything, and not going and seeing somebody when I really wanted to. I stopped that. It’s too risky… You should just go and see someone when you can, right?”

“You know—putting off stuff and not doing anything, and not going and seeing somebody when I really wanted to. I stopped that. It’s too risky… You should just go and see someone when you can, right?”

“It was to try to meet someone who’s already disappeared.”

I’ve never seen the middle of the ocean or the edge of the sky, but maybe the kind of breeze that blows in those places now comes blowing in out of nowhere and I feel it wrapped around me. Like when you’re holding a cat and you touch its soft belly. Or sticking your finger in a jar of jam and stirring, then slowly sinking in all the rest of your fingers. Or licking the sweet condensed milk at the bottom of your bowl of strawberries. Or when a blanket brushes the top of your feet. Or when butter turns transparent when it melts over your pancakes.

The whole day I don’t really feel like myself (though, to tell the truth, I don’t really know what it means to feel like myself), and today is the worst day of the week for lessons, because it’s Tuesday, and we have Maths, followed by Science, and then PE, and then after it in fourth period, Music. I can’t believe whoever made that schedule: they know nothing about kids and how they feel through the day, what were they thinking, putting things in that order?

Nobody should have to explain what they choose to paint and how they feel about painting it.