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danger of death is the same. It’s the same as a fall on land, and one of necessity awakens from the dream.
    Yet once having pushed his thinking this far, the fake fish, with a timidity unexpected in a cold blooded animal, still hesitates. They say that when one is able to realize that one is dreaming one is already near the end of the dream. The fish has clone all he can do to wake rip, and although it is waiting a while longer to see just what will happen, it will not influence the outcome.
    The fake fish decided to wait. His very determination touched with the pallidness of the sea seemed to have paled.
    Days, weeks passed, and the time had come for the fake fish to reach his decision. A storm had broken. A great tropical storm bore down, causing the bottom of the sea to tremble. Great waves rose, making the timid and indecisive fake fish demonstrate what little courage he had. But he was in no hurry to die. He simply gave himself over to the movement of the waves.
    Suddenly a wave crest like the blades of fifty electric saws marshaled horizontally bore down on him. Sweeping the fake fish before it, it broke momentously against the cliffs and tossed the fish high into the air. And the fake fish drowned in the atmosphere.
    Now I wonder if he awoke from his dream. No, one does not have a shell weed dream so casually. It is altogether different from an ordinary one. As the fake fish died before awakening, he could not expect to awaken from his dream again. He still had to go on dreaming until after he died. Ultimately the dead fake fish apparently would exist forever as a fake fish, as if it had received the latest freezing treatment. They say that among those fish tossed up onto the seashore after the storm there were not a few unlucky ones who had fallen asleep suffocated by the flowers of the shell weed.
    But for some reason I have not yet become a fish. I have apparently dropped off any number of times, but I am still
    the box man I was. On reflection, a fake fish and a box man don’t seem conspicuously different. The fake me becomes something not at all myself when I put on the box, Perhaps I who have been immunized against being something fake no longer possess the capability of having the dream of a fish. No matter how many times box men keep awakening from their dreams, they apparently end up being only the box men they always were.
    The Promise Is Fulfilled, and a Letter with Fifty Thousand Yen Covering the Cost of the Box Was Dropped from the Top of the Bride. This Was Barely Five Minutes Ago. I Attach the Letter Herewith.
    I trust you. No receipt is required. As for the disposal of the box, I leave that up to you too. Before the tide goes out, tear it up and throw it into the sea.

    Something strange has happened. I have read and reread her letter. Can there be some other way of interpreting it? At this point, I can only give a literal explanation. I try smelling the stationery with green lines that has been folded in three. It simply has the faint odor of disinfectant.
    I assumed arbitrarily that the doctor would come. My various strategies all presupposed an attack by him. However, she herself was the one who came. Yes, she herself came. She came herself. She herself … the reason is quite unclear … oh, it’s clear enough . . she was simply carrying out her promise. I wonder why I am upset? Didn’t I quite expect betrayal on her part? Perhaps so. A betraying woman like her quite suits me. indeed be at a loss if the promise is kept. But just a minute, perhaps I have committed some important oversight. For example, I might well try rethinking her position … and her role in the affair.
    I don’t think there is any point in continuing writing. Since I have neither killed nor been killed, there’s nothing further to explain.
    A letter adrift in space … address unknown… shall I tear it up and throw it away?
    Calm down now. Look here, fifty thousand yen. But since I have the money, simply disposing of the