Magic Bullet

I met Mr. K first time on January 15th.
At a neighborhood Korean Restaurant
He was drinking makgoli sitting next to us.


We were eating our favorite dish as usual.
I don't remember how it happened.
A conversation struck naturally in a small homey restaurant.


Mr. K had a health food which he claimed might cure "it."  
Mr. K elaborately argued for its efficacy and potency.
Honestly, who would take pills given by a stranger?


However, the illness I am afflicted with has no known cure.
It is progressing and the future is looking break.
I jumped off the deep end and took the pills.
I met Mr. K by chance.  It was not like he came to knock on my door.


Half believing, half with reservation, I went to see Mr. K at Sanuki Kaikan Hotel.


Since the chance meeting, I bought the pills.  
It is my decision and so be it.


Instead I ponder on the invisible world, where eventuality, inevitability, synchronicity and serendipity happen.


I am afflicted with ALS.
Every morning I wake up to find something I can not do anymore.
I can not walk over bumps any more.
I can not reach up for things on the high shelves.
Such an everyday movement makes me aware the way I become to be unable to.
That is the everyday life I live.
That is the fate I have to accept.


I discovered "the health food which might cure it" by chance.  I feel it could be a gift from heaven.  If I take it at all, I rather believe it cures.  That's how I feel.


I live everyday at the mercy of the fate.  Let the fate guide me to the consequence of the magic bullet.


That was what I thought in Sanuki Kaikan Hotel.  Next time I come here I will try their udon noodle.  

Poem by Maria Franki

Edited and translated by J. Ujiie

©2011