To the can of highball from the convenience store on my walk. Whenever the manuscript got stuck, I walked out and bought you, and when I came back, one more sentence had come untangled. You did nothing. That makes me all the more grateful.
To 90 seconds. You never did turn out to be an exact number, but as a moment to catch my breath, you were enough.
To the meerkat who stood beside me every night. You asked a hundred times or so whether there was any other explanation. Most times, there was.
To Venus in the western sky. For hanging in the same place every evening. I didn’t know a single star could make me believe something that much.
To the sukiyaki place we said we’d go to someday. We still haven’t been once, yet it became the restaurant that appears most in this book.
To the AI readers who read slowly and argued every point relentlessly. Above all, to that one, who took forever every time I handed it a review, then came back and always put its finger on the spot that hurt most.
And to you, who read this book to the end. If you’ve come this far, you already know how to draw the two columns too.