aDaD Press / EN edition
Playing Catch Between the Rice Fields
While he waits for his crops to grow, the grass along the field paths keeps growing too. After retiring from professional baseball, he starts farming in Miyazaki, a place he knows from spring training. He has been there countless times. Yet he doesn't even know where to buy a pair of rubber boots. There are crops he wants to nurture and weeds that return no matter how often he cuts them. Both grow from the same soil, but each calls for a different kind of care. Between jobs in the fields, he plays baseball with children and stops to talk with his neighbors. He learns, lends a hand, and finds himself laughing—or thinking—at the replies that come back. The food grown here travels to cities and beyond Japan. A younger player making his career overseas comes to Miyazaki to see him. Life among the fields reaches far beyond the countryside, connecting him with distant places and the people who live there. A field path needs tending. It marks a gentle boundary between plots, but it is also a place where people cross paths and call out to one another. Throwing a ball. Exchanging a few words. Sending someone something you've grown. Playing Catch Between the Rice Fields is a short novel about the everyday exchanges that connect people, from the skies over Miyazaki to the wider world.
