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he were reading from a book, which irritated me so much that Ioften quarreled with him over it. In middle school and high school he did orienteering, and after he decided he would study natural science in college, I haven't seen him reading even one humanities-related book. Even so, he nonchalantly uses words you find only in such writing. Malicious? Executor? Proxy? I stammered to myself, barely able to follow his train of thought. But as I visualized the Chinese characters for these words, each was in its own right quite convincing, and I thought O-chan's diction indeed appropriate. This idiosyncratic way with words, I think, issues from a depth in my younger brother that I don't sense in my everyday life with him. I related all this to Mother, to which not only she, but also Father replied.
    “Papa appeared to be filled with emotion when I told him about the dream you had, about you and Eeyore going to the theater together.
    “I think I, too, can solve the riddle in the dream scene where you and Eeyore sat in the audience seats far separated from the stage that Papa and I were on, and in which you received rude treatment. I would say it represents the situation you and Eeyore have now been put in. Don't you think so, Ma-chan?. When I asked Papa about this, he said, ‘More than that, I think it portrays their plight after we're dead.’ He even went on to say, ‘By dreaming such a dream, Ma-chan's rehearsing for the future, hers and Eeyore's future as orphans.’ His own strong words seemed to hurt him when he said this. … He told me he would write to you about the thoughts your letter evoked, when he can bring himself to feel better.”
    Just one day after Mother's letter, a letter from Father also arrived.
    “When you're in dreamland in Tokyo, Ma-chan, it's either morning or dusk here in California, which means I'm usually up. I remember one day toward evening, I was walking along Strawberry Creek, which is lined with redwood trees and is onthe edge of the campus close to where I am now living, and I felt myself in the midst of public observation, but unlike a delusion of persecution, the sensation didn't feel bad. It must have been deep in the night in Tokyo, and you were seeing a dream of us on stage.
    “I can think of someone with a malevolent mind, and he's capable of wearing a PRESS armband if he wanted to, but judging from the structure of your dream, I would say this. In your dream you went with Eeyore to see a play you imagined I had written, but before the plot, had even unfolded in your head, you paged the insolent man with the PRESS armband, so you could avert your eyes from the stage on the pretext of your relationship with him. Now if this were the case, I would find some relief in what, you did, for it could mean that you are preparing yourself for a situation in which you would actually come across men with vicious minds. Because, any day, such people are going to appear not only in your dreams, but in your real life.”
    The day I received Father's letter, Eeyore had a fit as soon as we reached Mr. Shigeto's house. He hadn't forgotten to take his anticonvulsants, and he neither had a cold nor was feeling bad, yet he had a fit anyway. Not a serious one, though. His movements somehow slowly gave way despite his resistance to it, and when I looked carefully I noticed an expansion of feverish red from his neck to his face. When I explained his condition to Mr. Shigeto and laid him down on the sofa, Mrs. Shigeto brought a blanket that seemed to have a history connected with some country in Eastern Europe. I wrapped Eeyore with it from his chest on down, and placed his head on a cushion, which was also of Polish peasant embroidery. His head was heavy, and because of its uncertain center of gravity, I had difficulty placing it squarely on the cushion. His breath was foul as always when he has his fits, a reek 1could never get used to no matter how hard I tried. This made me clearly recall—as did the aura