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“Act Now, Not Later”

Today’s story-teller is poet Kimihito Sasa.

There is a book never fails to bring tears to his eyes no matter how many times he reads it. It is a novel, “Kino Koen (Yesterday at the park)”, written by Minato Shukawa.

The story is that a main character, the fourth grade kid, tries to save his best friend who was going to die in a car accident by time slipping to the day before the incident.

Despite his effort, his friend gets in another accident each time he tries to save him, and eventually, he passes away.

And each time he tries to save him, the way he dies gets more tragic. In the end, it starts to get the other people get involved in the tragic accident.

The kid is disappointed to learn that there is no escaping fate. Imagining how disappointing it is for him brings tears to Sasa’s eyes.

Sasa says, “The phrase in the book: ‘That is why you have to tell your loved one that you love him/her now. You have to act now, not later.’ It teaches you how important it is to live in the present because we are so helpless with our fate.”

So Sasa have met Shukawa and got to know him. Osaka people are known to be funny and friendly. Like any Osaka person, Shukawa cracked jokes and laughed a lot.

Getting to know him and learning his personality made Sasa wonder if this man is really the same person with this novel writer who could write such a sad story.

The NIKKEI 01/27/2010 by Kimihito Sasa (poet)

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