Just before his 70th birthday, he took a job in a neighboring city.
He then quit his job in a neighboring town a few months later.
And he reluctantly returned to his old job.
119
After a few months of work, another employee joined the company to replace him.
He quit the company again.
This time he continued to spend a lot of time on his hobbies.
There were no health problems.
The only problem was that he often woke up to urinate at night.
120
One of his hobbies is fishing.
He has an ideal form of ``fishing.''
He lives in a cheap apartment about 50 meters from the coast.
The sea is closer than a farmer goes to his nearest farmland.
121
He thinks of the sea near his cheap apartment as if it were a field in his cheap apartment's garden.
Just as he would harvest a few vegetables for dinner from the small garden of his cheap apartment, he hopes to catch a fish in the nearby sea.
122
His ideal type of fishing would be to catch enough fish for himself to eat that day.
That's why he's bitter about recreational fishing, which is often seen on TV.
He believes that the recreational fishing that people watch on TV is a crime against nature.
His fishing doesn't cost much money.
That's why he can't catch fish.
But he thinks that's fine.
123
The sea near the cheap apartment where he lives is the sea at the back of the bay.
Many breakwaters have been built at the entrance to the bay, making it difficult for the seawater from the open ocean to reach.
In other words, the seawater is stagnant.
124
There is also a port where fishing boats arrive and depart, but recently the number of fishing boats has decreased significantly.
Why has the number of fishing boats decreased?
This seems to be caused by changes in the global environment.
It seems that fish cannot be caught due to changes in seawater temperature and ocean current routes.
They say the fishing industry is in decline because the amount of fish caught is decreasing.
125
Due to religious teachings, the Japanese people did not eat meat for a long time.
Therefore, the Japanese sought animal protein from fish.
The Meiji Restoration and defeat in the Showa era changed the eating habits of Japanese people.
In any case, he is sad to see the fishing port in decline.
126
When he walks around the fishing port in the morning, he sometimes comes across fish caught in fixed nets being unloaded.
It seems that they are landing relatively large fish such as yellowtail.
To keep the fish fresh, they stab the fish in its vital parts, and sometimes throw the internal organs into the sea.
At this time, a large flock of kites fly over the fishing boat.
127
Kites have learned that the work of humans produces their own sustenance.
However, when he sees this scene, fish parts that are not needed by humans are never released into the sea.
They understand that feeding kites is bad.
Fishermen work diligently.
128
One rainy morning.
He took an umbrella and went for a walk.
Then he came across a scene where fishing boats were docked at a port to bring the fish they had caught with set nets ashore.
A flock of kites was flying noisily in the sky.
129
Another flock of kites was flying low above the intersection of an old concrete road.
They were flying in circles and the atmosphere was ominous.
Then, near the center of the intersection, there was a small bird making loud noises.
It was a spot-billed duck whose color resembled that of the rain-soaked road surface.
130
There were two spot-billed duck chicks on either side of the spot-billed duck mother.
The kite was on the verge of attacking the chick.
He approached a family of spot-billed ducks, swinging the umbrella in his hand toward the sky.
He was seriously threatening the kite in the sky.
131
Later he calmed down and thought about it.
Spot-billed ducks usually have around ten chicks.
However, when he found the spot-billed duck family, there were only two chicks.
Perhaps it was after several chicks had already been sacrificed to kites?
132
There is a word called food chain.
When a kite finds a spot-billed duck, it attacks to save its life or for its partner or chicks.
So do cats and other animals.
Nature was created that way.
It is a crime against nature for humans to interfere with the laws of nature.
Of course he knows that.
Even if he knows this, if the lives of the cute spot-billed ducks and their offspring are "lights in front of the wind", that is beyond intelligence.
133
He sometimes goes to the beach with a plastic bag.
And he goes to the beach with tongs as well.
Since he is already an old man, his body is stiff and he cannot bend forward.
That's why he needs tongs.
134
He goes to the beach to pick up plastic trash, but his plastic bags aren't very big.
He picks up small pieces of plastic trash, commonly known as microplastic trash.
So even if the plastic bag is small, it can still accomplish his purpose.
The tool he uses at this time, as an old man, is tongs.
The length of the sandy beach is about 500 steps long he walked.
135
He was a smoker until a few years ago.
Sometimes he would smoke a cigarette while walking around town.
At that moment, he threw the cigarette out to the side of the road and snuffed out the flame with his foot.
He had thrown a filtered cigarette out onto the road.
136
There are a few things he notices when he picks up plastic trash on the beach.
One of them is a cigarette filter that he had thrown away in the past.
Cigarette filters are often found on the beach.
As he picks them up, he feels guilty for his past crimes.
137
This happened about a month before the spot-billed duck incident.
As I was walking along the beach, I came across a small bird that was acting strangely and not being able to move.
It was a small bird with a black and white pattern.
Even when he approached, the little bird did not run away.
He couldn't believe his eyes.
138
A fishing line protrudes from the end of its beak.
He caught the bird with his left hand and brought it in front of him to get a good look at the bird.
He determined that the bird had swallowed the fishing hook deep in its throat.
He pulled the fishing line a little.
The bird didn't show any signs of pain, but it definitely felt like there was a fish hook stuck in the back of its throat.
139
He hurriedly took the bird back to his cheap apartment.
Then he placed the bird on his desk and held it still with his left hand.
If this continues, this little bird will eventually die.
Death is inevitable, but is there anything I can do? I asked myself.
140
He stood up from his chair, holding the bird in his left hand again.
He then returned with a shochu glass of water and a toothpick.
He placed the bird on the desk again.
He dipped the tip of the toothpick into the water in the shochu glass and placed it against the bird's beak.
He gave the bird a very small amount of water.
141
It drank.
The little bird drank water.
The weak little bird did not drink the water weakly, but drank it powerfully.
The little bird did not drink water merely to quench its thirst, but to revive the light of life that was fading.
Naturally, with the fishing hook stuck in its throat the little bird wasn't eating or drinking anything.
Never before had he felt more strongly the importance of water to animals, including humans.
Recollection of my childhood in a rural Japanese town. ?U
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