Each time I peeled another ten-thousand-yen note from the wad of bills in my pocket.
The wad showed no sign of going down no matter how many bills I used.
A Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami
this is the thing her parents had given her
a name: Yen To Dollar
they even capitalized the “To”
which they always highlighted when telling the story
her mother Japanese, her father American
Yen To Dollar was raised in America
she heard the explanation of her name thousands of times
until she would appreciate it only when they could no longer tell it
•
people spoke of her parents with labels you’d expect
bohemian
artistic
gifted
labels tossed at her like small stones and sometimes bricks
and rarely like a bolder rolled down a mountain and over her
•
although she never dreamed of dragons or mythological sheep
she often found sprites in her photographs of streams
so in her great and constant solitude even when with other people
Yen To Dollar was overwhelmed and always overwhelming
like the amount of yen needed to buy something very expensive
something truly unnecessary and frivolous in an American store
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