If cats disappeared from the world

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Imagine that one day you'll learn that you only have a couple of weeks to live. You come home to your cat and a lonely apartment just to discover an Alter Ego, with your face and features who tells you that he CAN extend your life, in exchange of something from this world. 

So, for each thing that disappears from this world, the Alter Ego gives you one more day. Nothing more simple, no :). I would say that there are so many things that if they will disappear this world will become so much better:

• wars
• egoism
• diseases
• evil people (I have a good list here: Trump, Bannon, Dragnea, Kim Jong Un, Putin, Bashar al Assad, Erdogan just to name a few of the populists who are now messing up with the national and international policies and people's lives). Only with my list and he would have extended his life by at least a week :)
• poverty
• loneliness

But, since Genki Kawamura did not share my ideas, he started with more down to earth proposals like phones, movies, clocks, and cats. He tried with chocolate also but, just to quote my Star Trek Next Generation friends: when it comes to chocolate, "resistance is futile".

The Alter Ego was the one who decided what thing should disappear, and even he had difficulties when it came to chocolate. So much so that he decided against it.  But this trip towards the end of his life is not only about deciding how to extend his days and what things he should give up, it is also about recalling old memories. This is how we learn about his girlfriend from the university years, his mom (which gave him the cat), his father. 

What we learned about his girlfriend is that she studied Philosophy, was passionate about movies, and they split up seven years ago. All those memories took him back to their life from the beginning but also to the lessons he learned from the time spent together and separated:

 "After a week, I started sleeping with my phone, holding it tight against me so I wouldn't miss a call from her. The warmth of the phone I held reminded me of the warmth of her body" (p.11)

As he goes back to that period, one can easily notice his:

•  struggle to cope with what happened

" I wonder why people always expect things from others that they themselves can't and won't do" (p.52)

• relationship with his ex

"Women are always unforgiving and unsentimental about men in their past" (p.55)

• need to forgive 

"You have to forget in order to move on" (p.60)

• errors and lessons

"It would have been nice to have taken the time to listen to what the other was feeling... That smile became a small wound that opened somewhere in the back of my brain" (pp. 70-71).

But, as he travels back to what made his life so far, we also notice how

 he took his life for granted:

"My whole life up to this point, I'd faced what I thought was an infinite tomorrow. But once I discovered that my life would indeed end, it felt more like the future was coming to meet me" (p.132).

he loved his cat:

"Cats are really something. They'll just ignore you half the time, but they seem to know when you're really in need of some comforting" (p.148)

he made peace with what happened and wishes no more extensions:

"In order to gain something you have to lose something"

cause

 " Stealing things from others in order to live is even more painful" (p.176)

A quote I'll take with me from this beautiful story:

"As you go on with your life, always remember the things that are good in you. They're your gifts. As long as you have these things, you'll find happiness, and you'll make the people around you happy. Thank you for everything you've done for me. And goodbye. I hope you always keep hold of these things that are so beautiful about you" (p.174)