“Still, was it really necessary for us to do this?” I asked.

“Of course it was!” With one deep sigh, she fell asleep against me. She felt as soft and as light as a kitten.

Alone now, I leaned over the edge of my boat and looked down to the bottom of the sea. The volcano was gone. The water’s calm surface reflected the blue of the sky. Little waves—like silk pajamas fluttering in a breeze—lapped against the side of the boat. There was nothing else.

I stretched out in the bottom of the boat and closed my eyes, waiting for the rising tide to carry me where I belonged.

—translated by Jay Rubin

SAY HEY, how’s tricks?

This morning, I paid a call on the kangaroos at the local zoo. Not your biggest zoo, but it’s got the standard animals. Everything from gorillas to elephants. Although if your taste runs to llamas and anteaters, don’t go out of your way. There, you’ll find neither llama nor anteater. No impala or hyena, either. Not even a leopard.

Instead, there are four kangaroos.

One, an infant, born just two months ago. And a male and two females. I can’t for the life of me figure out how they get along as a family.

Every time I set eyes on a kangaroo, it all seems so improbable to me: I mean, what on earth would it feel like to be a kangaroo? For what possible reason do they go hopping around in such an ungodly place as Australia? Just to get killed by some clunky stick of a boomerang?

I can’t figure it out.

Though, really, that’s neither here nor there. No major issue.

Anyway, looking at these kangaroos, I got the urge to send you a letter.

Maybe that strikes you as odd. You ask yourself, Why should looking at kangaroos make me want to send you a letter? And just what is the connection between these kangaroos and me? Well, you can stop thinking those thoughts right now. Makes no nevermind. Kangaroos are kangaroos, you are you.

In other words, it’s like this:

Thirty-six intricate procedural steps, followed one by one in just the right order, led me from the kangaroos to you—that’s it. To attempt to explain each and every one of these steps would surely try your powers of comprehension, but more than that, I doubt I can even remember them all.

There were thirty-six of them, after all!

If but one of these stages had gotten screwed up, I guess I wouldn’t be sending you this letter. Who knows? I might have ended up somewhere in the Antarctic Ocean careening about on the back of a sperm whale. Or maybe I’d have torched the local cigarette stand.

Yet somehow, guided by this seemingly random convergence of thirty-six coincidences, I find myself communicating with you.

Strange, isn’t it?

OKAY, THEN, allow me to introduce myself.

I AM TWENTY-SIX years old and work in the product-control section of a department store. The job—as I’m sure you can easily imagine—is terribly boring. First of all, I check the merchandise that the purchasing section has decided to stock and make sure that there aren’t any problems with the products. This is supposed to prevent collusion between the purchasing section and the suppliers, but actually, it’s a pretty loose operation. A few tugs at shoe buckles while chatting, a nibble or two at sample sweets—that’s about it. So much for product control.