“How on earth do you fabricate a story and put it together as a novel?”

“I don’t fabricate,” said two voices coolly.

“I remember. I remember things that never happened. Just as you do when you read my novels.”

“The Discovery of Heaven” by Harry Mulisch

I probably wouldn’t have ended up like this if I hadn’t read a book like that.

And by “like this,” I mean I started thinking maybe I could write a novel too.

More than that, I asked an old friend who runs a publishing company to publish my book, borrowed a hundred million yen as an advance on royalties, and gambled it all away in casinos in Monaco, Jeju Island, and Macau.

And the deadline to repay the loan, with the promise that I would if I didn’t write a novel, is just five days away.

What’s more, I told a woman I’d let her read my novel first to woo her, but she unexpectedly got pregnant. Now I’m in too deep, and the wedding ceremony with her is also just five days away.

On top of that, a friend’s production company president got involved in an illegal loan sharking case. He confided in me that his life was in danger, so I reluctantly lent a hand. But if this comes to light, I won’t escape prison. Yesterday, he called to say that the deadline for that is also just five days away.

If I’ve written this much, anyone would think it’s all a lie, and indeed it is. But not everything is untrue.

What’s true is that, before I knew it, my 100-day blog on Honeycomb was going to end in five days. This feeling of restlessness, this sense of “five days left,” is something I wouldn’t have experienced if I hadn’t participated in this 100-day blog. So, in that sense, I’m grateful.

But the truth is, while thinking about how to convey this restlessness, I ended up writing such trivial nonsense.

So, I thought, maybe I could express this visually, and this is what I tried.

The first photo I took kept multiplying until the original image disappeared. All that’s left is the echo of the question: What was I trying to do? Does that make sense?

So, in short, the blog ends in five days. My hundred-day training is over in five days. It’s a feeling of relief, and yet a sense of lingering attachment. That’s how I feel today.

Honeycomb Selection 100: 005



← Diary-T 134–138