Three years ago, when in 8th grade, I did a homestay in Japan from Fargo, and so I enjoyed Japanese summer vacation together with Akira, a son of the family with which I stayed. I could get all the closer to him because he's as old as I. One day, on our way home from swimming beach, Akira suddenly told me an incredible story. According to him, a considerable part of sewage of Tokyo is drained out to the sea unpurified. Having watched a high-tech sewage treatment method in Japan introduced on a TV show to enhance Japanese self-respect the day before, I didn't feel like believing it and thought him to be kidding me.
He continued to say, "Tokyo is one of the densest cities in the world, and so no sewage facility can perfectly treat feces of 10 million Tokyoites, however advanced it may be. Besides, in general, the longer history a city has, the more strongly does it depend upon the outdated and imperfect infrastructures and the more difficult is it to replace them".
"I'd like to see the water polluted by sewage, Akira. Where is it?" I said.
So he answered with a blasphemous smile, "You did drink it — while we were swimming a moment ago".
No sooner had I recollected the sea smelling like feces than I vomited everything in the stomach. Since I came back from Japan, I've been seized by ceaseless nightmares, such as feces drifting in dim deep sea, millions of bacteria invading my stomach, my vessels and my brain, and the image of Brueghel's hideous picture about the plague pandemic in mediaeval time. Alcohol and marijuana helped me to forget that memory temporarily, if not permanently, but now that I have no money to get them, I have to beg a final and ultimate help from a pistol in my hand.
