The sun had gone down. Gone.
Little U was looking for his mother, searching everywhere. Then he lay in front of the door, waiting for her to come home, waiting and waiting. He didn’t even bother to bark. His tail tucked inside.
Before leaving on a business trip, his mother boiled only two eggs for him to eat with his kibble.
He stared at the food bowl, choked, with teary orbs. He said to the bowl, “Eggs… looking at you makes me fed up!”
Rice from the next house ran over when he saw Little U dejected and spoke up, “Hey, today my mom has some good shrimp; she boiled it for you already. Are you going to eat it?”
“It’s all yours.” He didn’t even look at Rice.
Rice clicked his tongue, “Wow, you’re generous today!”
Steamed shrimp is their favorite. They fight over it, and they enjoy it once or twice a month.
Shrimp is expensive, even pricier than meat, and his mom, being a journalist, had little money to buy it. Yet today, Little U was absent-minded, and even with a luxurious treat placed right in front of him, he wouldn’t touch it. All he wanted was his mother.
Rice pouted, “Crazy! You won’t eat when you can. That means more for me! But I’m asking you, if your mom never comes back, what will you do? Would you wait like the dog at the Shibuya statue waits for its master?”
Little U shook his head, “You’re a cat, I’m a dog. You’re independent; I’m not.”
Rice didn’t dare say anything more. He wagged his tail and left because Little U had hit a raw nerve.
***Oh Star!
Please speak for my heart tonight.
Even if the wind
carries my mother
to some faraway place,
Through one hundred years,
I will still be here,
waiting for her to return to me.
— Yoshiko Amemiya
October 24, 2025