“Oh, give me a break,” said Daeng.

“Shh,” said Siri and continued to read.

I was concerned about the effect of too much sugar on their teeth but who could resist the expressions on their little faces as they opened their parcels?

Daeng stuck a finger down her throat and made gagging sounds. They were on the balcony of a rickety wooden guesthouse with a view (if you strained your neck around the building in front) of the river. There was one rocking chair claimed by the doctor and a short wooden stool upon which his wife perched. Siri looked down at her and raised one bushy eyebrow. She pressed her palms together in a short, polite nop. He continued.

Along the dirt track I saw Corporal Yatsusuki Hokobei in extra-large sports fatigues jogging, or rather shuffling, at a moderate pace in my direction. He seemed even more enormous than usual. It took him forever to reach the spot where I was standing. He stopped, leaned forward, and seemed about to die. I’d only ever taken the beginner first-aid course so I wasn’t qualified to save his life. Finally, he caught his breath and let loose a cough that dislodged an avalanche of phlegm. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and took out an old-fashioned fob watch. He looked at it with disappointment.

“Damn,” he said.

“Too slow?” I asked.

“I seem to get slower every day. It just makes me sad.”

“Huh,” said Daeng.

Siri put down the diary.

“We’ll never get to the end if you keep it up with the sound effects,” he said.

“You know if we do meet Toshi we’re going to be deeply disappointed with him.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because he’s written himself into the role of Mother Teresa. He can solve everyone’s problems. Nobody’s that wonderful.”

“Then if we meet him we’ll respect him as a great writer who was able to convince us of that,” said Siri. “Whether it’s fact or fiction doesn’t matter. He has the power to entertain, which is a skill in itself. May I continue?”

Daeng held out her hand. Siri returned to the diary.

“Do you jog every day?” I asked.

“Rain or shine,” said Yatsusuki.

“And the objective is to get fit?”

“To get thin, Major Toshi.”

I looked at him. There are those who are born into thinness and, through poor judgment in the food and drink categories, acquire fat later in life. And there are those, like Yatsusuki, who are born huge, grow up huge, and remain huge all their lives no matter how hard they torture themselves with diet and exercise. Yatsusuki was an armored truck and jogging would not remove one single layer of paint. Once again, the problem was in his mind.

I wear eyeglasses. They are very fashionable and I’m proud of them. Some people attempt to make fun of me because I wear them but I do not respond to their jokes because I don’t consider my eyeglasses to be shameful in any way. I was sure that I could find a way to stop Yatsusuki from jogging himself to death. My mission was aided by the arrival of Colonel Konko Asatsuba.