Catfish Rolling by Clara Kumagai

Author:Clara Kumagai [Kumagai, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803288024
Publisher: Head of Zeus

16

When I get there, Naomi’s halfway between the stage and the door. ‘There you are,’ she says in English. ‘Did you enjoy my lecture?’

‘Yes.’

‘Interesting. I thought you found it inaccurate.’

I check that she’s not annoyed. ‘No. It was just making me think.’

‘Some job satisfaction for me.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn up in a lecture.’

‘I mean, I was going to try to find you, but this was honestly a coincidence.’

‘A coincidence.’ She looks at me for a beat too long. Then, ‘I owe you your fee. Will you come to my office?’

I guess she wants to talk. ‘Sure.’

Naomi’s office is more colourful than I expected. There are prints and photos and red and purple flowers lining her window sill. It’s smaller than I thought it would be, and shabbier. She settles herself behind the desk and I sit on the other side, back in my student role.

‘People are order and chaos. But isn’t there more chaos than order?’ I don’t know why this is what comes out of my mouth first.

‘We live in a system much bigger than us and we have to obey its rules. But anomalies,’ she says, ‘exist. Don’t they?’

‘You know they do.’

Naomi looks at me with a hint of amusement. ‘So. What happened after you got caught?’

‘They asked me questions. I don’t know why they’re so protective of their little crops.’

‘Why were you so interested in them?’ she asks.

I shrug. ‘It just seemed weird. Like … what are they doing?’

‘They’re finding ways to make money, I assume. That’s generally the explanation.’

‘Growing stuff isn’t a finding.’

‘The method could be. What do you think?’ She waits, not as if she’s a teacher waiting for the correct answer, but as if she’s interested in what I have to say.

‘I guess,’ I say, ‘they can grow faster in some places, which means more money. Slower… It’s not true that eating slow food actually makes you age less.’ I stop. ‘Is it?’

Naomi says, ‘Not that I know of. However, that doesn’t mean it’s untrue and neither does it mean that it couldn’t be sold as that.’

‘It must be illegal or something.’

‘There are all kinds of products that haven’t been proven to work but are used anyway. Because why not try it, if there’s a chance? We buy things out of hope, not proof.’

‘So the company really isn’t doing anything evil.’ My disappointment makes me realise that I’d been counting on them being a sinister corporation. ‘They don’t even have to market stuff as anti-ageing miracle cures. They can use the land and the time to grow as much as they can. Or raise animals or whatever. I suppose they don’t have to be evil to be bad. They can just be capitalist and want to make money.’ This is a really dumb revelation.

‘That’s not really that bad, or it certainly isn’t considered so by most people. I’m sure it would help the area, which everybody is always in favour of,’ Naomi points out.

So in favour of that, they’ll ignore how bad it can be for people actually working there until it’s too late.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.