Father Carrying a Basket

In January of this year, I was with my father when he passed away.

For the inheritance procedures, I requested a certified copy of the registry for my parents' house.

It stated 'Acquired in Showa 30'.

My father's life was a little longer than that one line.

It is a row house that is over seventy years old.

Now, my mother lives there alone.

It was the morning before last.

On the tree-lined path on my way to work, I encountered a mouse.

Thinking it might be material for a note, I reflexively pointed my smartphone at it.

The mouse stepped back for just a moment.

However, the next instant,
it didn't run away but instead came toward me.

With its small body, it kicked the ground,
dragging its long tail while coming straight toward me.

I took one step back.
I lowered my smartphone.

Then the mouse also stopped, turned around, and continued straight ahead.

All that remained was a single photo of its back.

The moment I saw that figure, a memory from a long time ago surfaced from somewhere.

When I was in elementary school, I lived with mice.

There was a rustling sound in the ceiling.
Something moved somewhere in the kitchen.
I felt a presence in the back of the closet.

At night,
the house was wrapped in a noise called silence.

One day, I made eye contact with a mouse in the corner of the room.

It was only for a brief moment.

The mouse stopped, and I stopped too.

Only its black eyes looked strangely clear.

The black eyes did not look away from me.

I still cannot find the right words for what I felt at that time.

Back then, we used wire mesh cage traps to catch mice.

In the morning, I could hear the sound of metal being scratched from inside the cage.

When I approached to look, the mouse was pressing its snout against the wire mesh, searching for an exit.

Its snout touched the wire mesh over and over again.

Every time it realized it was a dead end, it would search for another gap.

It was my father's job to dispose of the caught mice.

At that time, the common method was to submerge them in water.

My father would silently take the cage and go out through the back door.

I watched his back as he left.

I knew what was going to happen. I knew, but I didn't watch. No, I think I couldn't watch.

My father said nothing.

Only the cage swayed.

By morning, the cage would be empty.

The mouse that day did not run away. Perhaps it could not run away.

It has been half a year since my father passed away.

The single mouse I saw that morning reminded me of my father's back.

The old house where my mother lives
still stands today, creaking somewhere.

There are no mice there anymore.

Only the back of my father heading to the back door with a basket in his hand
has yet to leave that house.