To Morimi Tomihiko: Addlebrained Author (May 18-June 21)

May 18

To: Mr. Morimi Tomihiko

Dear Mr. Morimi,

My name is Morita Ichirō; we used to be in the same club in our college days. It has been some time since we last spoke.

Do you remember me? Yes, I am the very same Morita Ichirō who pilfered the girlie magazine you brought for spiritual lubrication during spring training camp and circulated it to everyone at the outdoor activities center; the same Morita Ichirō who pored over the notes you used to leave lying around in the clubroom and disfigured my own writing in fallow imitation. Great memories, don’t you think? I hope you feel the same sense of nostalgia that I do.

I currently reside in a place far from Kyoto.

Since April, my research duties have confined me to a research lab by the sea in Noto. As for why I find myself in this predicament, I can only thank the paternal concern of my thesis advisor, who decided that the best way to nurture my emerging talent was to drop me off a cliff, albeit one so steep that there is very little hope of me ever clawing me way back up again. Oh, how deep, how profound the love of a professor for his students.

It’s too heavy for me, I say, too heavy by half.

This gloomy chasm is host to: a lonely Noto Railways station; Taniguchi, who quaffs down mysterious virility-enhancing substances and rambles on about how to seduce women; calm seas; immutable mountains; Wakura Onsen; Noto Island. Looking up from this dark place I can see only a sliver of blue sky above me, a sliver which in my mind is a bridge to beautiful Kyoto, and a bright, promising future. And so I write letters, attach them to shiny red balloons, and release them into the sky. Someone, anyone (preferably female), grant me salvation from this abyss. I’m so very lonely; my future seems so very barren.

But that’s enough about that.

Ever since you graduated I’ve been following your activities from afar, watching you roam both banks of the Kamo River under the auspices of your seemingly deskbound career. The sentences you weave are no different than the eccentric scribblings that filled up the notebooks strewn in the corners of the clubroom. Who would have thought that the lunatic ravings that once led me astray would one day be contaminating bookstores across the country? Whenever I read your writings, I am reminded of those college days, that prime of human putrescence and youthful passions.

I would be delighted if you could find time in that busy schedule of yours to jot down a quick reply.

Sincerely yours,

Morita Ichirō

May 29

To: Mr. Morimi Tomihiko

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Have your travels ever taken you to Wakura Onsen? I am currently living in a town called Nanao, and Wakura Onsen is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Polishing my manhood in the Sōyu bathhouse is one of my few and greatest pleasures, rivalled only by the delight of Tengu Ham.

I happen to know the author of the disturbing letter which you received. He’s just a boy, still in elementary school, and he seems to be extremely jealous that his personal tutor is a great fan of yours. So I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about from this threatening letter of yours.

I’m sure you receive a great deal of fan mail.

Since I came to Noto I’ve started a self-imposed training regimen writing letters, in order to improve my skill in written communication. Regrettably, most of my effort is wasted dealing with a breast-obsessed friend of mine who is madly in love, so I have precious little to show for my efforts. Recently his letters have been flooding my mailbox. That’s how I came upon the idea of asking you to instruct me in the ways of writing letters. I would be most indebted if you would teach me that world-famous technique of yours to woo a woman with a single letter.

Oh, how I long to go back to Kyoto.

They’ve just opened an exhibit on Fujita Tsuguharu at the MOMAK, haven’t they? You know, I once took a girl to the MOMAK. We went around the exhibits, gazed at the Fujita Tsuguharu paintings, and went to a café for coffee afterwards. How about you stop fantasizing about lewd things at your desk all day and go outside to experience some real culture once in a while?

Hoping to hear from you again,

Morita Ichirō

June 11

To: A despicable Don Juan (Mr. Morimi Tomihiko)

Your admission that you don’t respond to fan mail because you don’t know what to write shocked me. Withholding your literary talents and disappointing your readers is a grave sin. It’s a poor correspondent who wastes half the day reading the same letter over and over and yet never sends a reply, while you’ve got a deadline breathing down your neck no less. Why don’t you send the letters to me; I’ll reply to them for you.

My congratulations on the publication of your first bunkobon.

I know a woman, Ibuki Natsuko, who wanted to attend one of your autograph sessions in Kawaramachi (though she was prevented from doing so by a sudden cold). Ms. Mari, the tutor of the boy who sent you that threat in the mail, is also an avid fan of yours. Even my little sister reads your books, becoming more depraved by the day. How is it that you have legions of female readers? How does such a thing come about? Explain yourself.

I’m also astonished at how busy you seem to be. You used to be the kind of person that no one even noticed was there, like the multitude of abandoned bikes that littered campus; now female editors throw themselves at you for a chance to get their hands on your drafts. It’s the most grotesque thing imaginable. I’m half-convinced that you’re making it all up.

For someone who makes his living by writing, your advice on love letters is very disappointing. There is no technique? Just put my heart and soul into it? Are you sure you’re not just too jealous to give up your secrets? I suspect you’re actually writing back to your torrent of fan mail, using this undisclosed technique to batter down the gates of your fangirls’ hearts all over Japan. In fact I’m certain of it, you lecher, you dirty playboy. I never took you for that kind of person. No wonder you always miss your deadlines.

I visited Hakui the other day, to break up my daily monotony. I was looking for UFOs, but there didn’t seem to be any hovering around that day. It was a big disappointment. Have you ever written sci-fi?

Your most devoted disciple,

Morita Ichirō

June 12

To: His Excellency the Alabaster Count of Monte Crackpot

It felt as if no sooner had I dropped my letter to you in the mail than a reply came fluttering back. Damn, he writes fast! I thought to myself, only to realize that it was a lengthy postscript to your previous letter.

Thinking that it was a treatise on how to write a love letter, I opened the envelope with bated breath, only to be met with an interminable account of the rise and fall of one Morimi Tomihiko, featuring crates full to bursting with glistening DVDs; shelves upon shelves of books casting their siren call; hot springs excursions accompanied by raven-haired maidens (or dreams thereof); apartments filled from corner to corner with piles of fan letters; and hordes of bad guys. As I raced through the manuscript, white-knuckled in apprehension over whether Morimi would make his deadline in the end, a single thought occupied my mind: stop writing this crap and get back to work!

Ibuki used to hang a snowman advent calendar on the wall in the lab. Each day in the calendar had a little chocolate hidden behind it, so that every day the proud sweet-tooths of the lab could break off a little morsel of chocolate to enjoy as we counted down to Christmas. I used to be tyrannized by Ōtsuka Hisako, one of the older students in the lab, and whenever it was too much for me and I broke down in tears next to the rotary evaporator, Ibuki would console me with some chocolate from the calendar. Surely she must be the most gentle person in Japan since the Meiji Restoration. Don’t you want to hurry up and finish writing your next book and make this wonderful person happy? As far as I’m concerned, what you think doesn’t matter: her happiness is all that matters.

Don’t let yourself get too upset about always being locked in a basement trying to keep ahead of the deadline. If you want to grab hold of something, you have to let go of something else: for instance, our youthful passions, a glorious picnic-perfect day, chances to relax with girls in a hot spring. That’s just how humans get by.

I’d say I’m the one that deserves pity here, wasting my days here on this lonely seashore staring at a bunch of slippery jellyfish. There’s nothing for me to let go, but there’s also nothing for me to grab hold of. Don’t waste time on self-pity, send that pity my way instead.

A friend once said to me that wasted time is priceless. A pretty saying: I take it to mean that it’s so worthless you shouldn’t even bother attaching a price tag. Wouldn’t you agree?

Bargain Bin Morita Ichirō

June 13

To: Mr. Morimi Tomihiko

I need to get something off my chest right off the bat.

Morimi, you write too many letters.

You write so fast that if you fed all your letters to a goat you’d give it indigestion.

Have you ever considered what it feels like to receive three letters all from the same person in the span of just two days? If I were to receive a dozen letters in a single day from a girl declaring her undying love for me I’d jump for joy, but your constant bellyaching just makes me want to jump off a bridge.

Why is it that you can’t bring yourself to reply to fan mail, yet you can crank out a million words a minute when you feel like grumbling to me? This is exactly why you have trouble keeping up with deadlines. Even a first-grader could see that, why can’t you?

Whenever I read your letters I can picture you perusing a stack of fan mail, blissfully unaware of the subtle chasm that separates fan letters from love letters. Imagine the embarrassment to your reputation if word were to get out that the famous lone wolf Morimi Tomihiko was cuckoo for fan letters, to say nothing if they also knew that you thought that fan letters and love letters are the same thing!

I also don’t know how to answer your questions about life and how you should end your novel. My friend Komatsuzaki is head over heels for a younger woman, and has lost his head so completely that he’s on the verge of becoming a filthy stalker. The situation is desperate. I find that the task of ensuring that he doesn’t commit some sort of crime in the course of his quest falls upon my shoulders. While I’ve been busy keeping a watchful eye on him, my academic life has also fallen into desperate straits. The results of my last month of research are currently balanced on a knife’s edge, and I need to make sure that my future doesn’t go up in smoke.

So as you can see, I’m not in any position to be your personal guru. It doesn’t matter to me whether your deadlines are approaching, or whether you can’t make up your mind, or whether you think one of your left molars might have a cavity. You’ll just have to grin and bear it. Squeeze out some sentences like you squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of the rolled-up tube. And if it turns out that you really do have a cavity then you’d better get to a dentist pronto.

It’s kind of funny; here I thought I was your disciple, and yet I find myself talking down to you.

Trying to balance too many spinning plates at once,

Morita Ichirō

June 21

To: Mr. Morimi Tomihiko

Thank you for your letter.

The sky over Noto is dark and overcast; on the train each morning I stare out the window at a desolate view. There’s something different, heavier, about the rainy season here. It feels as though my life, both past and future, is filled with grey; only my visits to the dolphin at the aquarium for life advice keep me from succumbing to this spiritual crisis. The only things that still seem to be full of life are the hydrangeas and the slugs.

You’re right, my last letter was a little strongly worded. My apologies; I can only blame my lack of mental maturity. But the way things are going it seems that I am doomed to burst before I ever reach that maturity. Yes, I am the avant-garde Morita Ichirō, bursting alone here in Noto by the sea.

It does seem odd that of everyone I am corresponding with, it is you—the best-selling author supposedly knee-deep in women and work—who writes the most.

With my research going so poorly, reading and responding to the long-winded letters that you send me have become a burden. Trading these enormous missives, eating up one another’s time and destroying ourselves in the process―isn’t this exactly what we used to do in college? Betraying each other’s most embarrassing secrets in the communal clubroom journal, throwing away that which we should have valued most for the faintest hint of praise. You taught me to toy with words and amuse myself by blowing smoke in everyone’s faces, but one day I realized that it was my own face I was blowing smoke into, and that I had lost sight of what really mattered in life. So when it comes down to it everything is your fault, wouldn’t you say?

As I sit here in the lab penning this reply, I can hear Taniguchi plucking away at his mandolin, warbling in an earsplitting falsetto. I suspect he’s downed so many of his weird beverages that he needs to burn off all that virility. The flickering fluorescent lamp in the corner of the room strains my eyes. Outside the window the sun is already setting over Nanao Bay. The Twin Bridge that stretches over the water to Noto Island is a slender ribbon of light. Oh, how far I am from home.

Why am I here?

Why am I writing this letter?

The plunking of the mandolin reminds me of that chilly, dust-plastered corridor in the old boarding house at college. There was an older student named Tamba who used to play a mandolin in my closet, singing, “Let’s bring some colour into this grey old world!” He was a real weirdo who’d show up all over the boarding house with an unassuming kotatsu which he dubbed the Speedy Kotatsu in tow. It’s because I was surrounded by people like that that I wasted and continue to waste my life.

I think replying to fan mail is a good thing, but fretting about which letters to answer is a waste of time. Just pick the best written one and answer it; I’m sure it’ll make you feel a lot better.

It doesn’t seem that you’re getting much work done. You’re not a hermit; you don’t get to avert your gaze from reality and pout, “I want to waste time.” Just sit down and work on whatever’s in front of you. Only by getting things done without complaining will you ever earn the title of being a “great catch”.

I’ll ask one more time, just in case: are you sure there’s no such thing as a secret literary technique to woo women? Please, don’t withhold anything: teach me your ways.

Morita Ichirō

P.S. Have you ever been to a restaurant called Tōka Saikan? It’s on the west end of the Shijō Bridge. I hear Ibuki went there, so I was just curious. Is it one of those trendy date spots?