my grandfather the master detective – masateru konoshi
Saturday morning, one week later, Iwata was running alone on the same riverside promenade.
It felt colder than last week, even though the weather forecast had predicted temperatures three degrees higher.
Could it feel colder because . . .
An embarrassing thought flitted through Iwata’s mind, one he was very reluctant to acknowledge. . . .
because Kaede isn’t with me?
*******
The Hasegawa Scale, officially known as the Revised Hasegawa Dementia Scale, is a cognitive function test devised for simple dementia screening. It starts out with questions about one’s birth date and current location, then tests memory by having subjects recall recently mentioned information or doing basic arithmetic. The maximum score is thirty, with anything below twenty suggesting possible dementia. For a Lewy Body Dementia patient such as Kaede’s grandfather, it wasn’t unusual to get astonishingly high scores. However, getting a perfect score repeatedly was truly remarkable.
*******
‘I feel bad, Kaede, but I really love it here in Himonya. I love the voices of the preschoolers, the sparrows that flit over from the bamboo grove in the park, and the cherry blossom petals that drift here on the breeze from the grounds of the shrine. I love this tiny garden always swarming with insects, and I love the lingering scent of my wife in the house, even though it gets fainter as the years pass. Perhaps that’s why she’s not in my hallucinations much any more, even though I long to see her. My only “son” – your father, who used to be my best drinking buddy – rarely shows up any more either. Still, there’s the cherry tree he planted for me in the garden, and the chest of drawers that my wife used; her sewing machine; her dresser that you use these days too, Kaede. I watch you sitting there at that mirror and I feel perfectly content.’
Every word was a punch in the heart. He’d never told her that he’d been hoping for visions of her grandmother and her father to appear.
Impresie. Albastru inefabil... 