- The Minister of Loneliness has abolished email.
He is installing tin cans to every window sill
with a piece of string to someone else's window,
not several, just one.
Each person, of course,
does not need a lot people to speak to, just the one,
but the one must be reliable,
must be available when needed.
We are employing a buddy system now.
Every day is a field trip to the adulthood museum
and we don't go home until everyone has been accounted for.
The way you find your buddy
is a nationwide game of Guess Who?
Where you sing the song that is always stuck in your head,
describe the movie you can't get through without crying,
the hardest you've ever laughed,
the outfit you wish you could pull off,
and the only person who can spot you
is the one you are assigned.
All of Japan is a ball of string now.
The economy has ground to a halt,
productivity is entirely impossible.
Sometimes you go to talk into the tin can on your window
and a knot in the string
accidentally gives you someone else's conversation.
The fading fabric of someone else's loneliness
evaporating into the air between buildings.
You are allowed to eavesdrop, but so is everyone else.
The Minister of Loneliness has moved all kindergartens
to the ground floor of elderly assisted living homes.
There are daily story hours,
animal shelters across the street.
The Minister of Loneliness has not abolished Valentine's Day
but has instituted a nationwide
bring enough for the class regulation
and nobody goes home empty-handed.
The Minister of Loneliness
has prescribed therapy for everyone.
Daily walks through the many gardens,
opportunities for meditation
by a brook in the rain, under falling blossoms,
or along a snowy river bank, depending on the season.
He has commissioned musicians and actors and poets
to create concerts and radio plays and poetry readings
to be pumped across the knotted tin can radio lines
every evening.
When you order dinner for one, the person who delivers it
arrives with an appropriate ability and comfort level
dance instruction video and two hours to spare.
Grieving is encouraged and art making is rampant
but because of the knots,
sometimes when you are expecting
a visit from a grief counselor,
the dance partner food delivery arrives instead.
Sometimes they are the same person.
The Minister of Loneliness isn't tired.
He is the most popular man in the country.
He has a crush on a middle school teacher across town
and everyone eavesdrops
to hear the way he stumbles when she answers.
Everyone is on the edge of their seats.
Everyone forgets about dying
because they can't wait to see what happens next.
Everyone has opinions.
The Minister has to start a hotline
where people can call in to tell him their thoughts.
The tin cans rattle nonstop.
The Minister is grateful for the advice
but is nervous his crush will hear the commotion.
He is nervous she prefers quiet,
but he does not know for sure yet.
He does not know what she is thinking
or how she prefers her tea
or whether she likes to walk in the rain,
but he likes wondering.
When no one is paying attention,
when the window sills are quiet,
late at night awake he does like to wonder.
(audience applauding)