The Day I Cried on the Train

A reflection from: If Cats Disappeared from the World, by Genki Kawamura

I don’t remember every detail of the plot now. It’s been years. But I remember the feeling.

Photo by Kristin O Karlsen on Unsplash

Writing this to recall the feelings and emotions I felt that day.

2022, I just started my first 9 to 5 job.

Commuting home in a 2-hour journey after a tiring day.

I was physically in transit, but emotionally arriving somewhere deeper.

The story quietly demand the readers to feel. Not necessarily be understood.

I find myself on the last chapter, and I didn’t expect anything from the reading.

— When the protagonist faces the disappearance of cats (his beloved Cabbage), he realizes how small, seemingly ordinary connections are woven into everything he cherishes.

I didn’t expect to cry, not in public.

Not over a story about disappearing cats and a man bargaining with death.

The life around me seems ordinary, so the story struck me a little strangely.

The story, unexpectedly, holds deeper meaning despite being a bit ‘unique’ at first.

It’s about

What we’d be willing to give up for more

About

How the smallest things, like a cat’s presence, keep us grounded in ordinary life.

That day on the train, I wasn’t thinking about philosophy or the plot. I was thinking about my own people.

Friends that I haven’t been speaking with for a while.

My own cats, one of them has recently lost the fight against the illness.

My own regret, love, and fear of losing things that I often overlook in ordinary life.

When the world around us moves so fast that it’s suffocating.

We often overlook the most ordinary things until they’re almost gone.

What does it mean to live? And what are we willing to let go of?

If I were to disappear tomorrow,

What would the world lose?

What would I miss the most?