My six-year-old daughter recently has started writing stories down in a journal on her own instead of improvising stories with me as we’re playing roles in them. I love her stories very much. Sometimes her stories even have a punchline in them, though it doesn’t necessarily always make sense. I’m so happy to see her growing up and being able to write short stories in Japanese (She speaks and writes in English, too but she writes stories only in Japanese for some reason.) At the same time, I already feel like I miss the days that she asked me to play roles and make stories with her, while we were in the car, while taking a walk or while grocery shopping at a supermarket. I played so many roles in her stories and she always picked the cutest character for herself. She liked to be a white fluffy cat the most that wears a sparkly blue dress with purple bows on its head and tail. And the cat had pink paw pads. Once in a while, she still tells me stories about imaginary animals. I like this imaginary hungry turtle story. Here’s how the story goes.

Once upon a time, there’s a turtle called TaroTaro. He lived with his grandpa and grandma. He’s very hungry. He just ate his lunch but he’s still hungry. So he ate his grandpa and grandma. He’s still hungry, so he ate the house. He’s still hungry so he ate the sea. He’s still hungry so he ate the sky. He’s still hungry so he ate the earth. But he’s still hungry so he ate himself! The end.