My wife had flung herself face down on the matted floor, trying to catch her breath, shoulders heaving. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing, I’m fine,” she said. With a great effort she raised her face from the mat and forced herself to smile as she went on to explain, “It wasn’t any one thing. I just had this feeling that you were going to die, Papa, and—” This was the most terrifying experience of my life. I don’t have the strength to keep writing this. To go on living with this feeling is painful beyond description. Isn’t there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep? Fragment from Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Spinning Gears