I’ll stop at 999

He has been making paper cranes for several weeks now

— part of a current, perpetual, unending origami obsession he now holds.

One day we checked out 43 origami books from the library — but he prefers to learn how to fold directly from You Tube videos.

There is a guy — a teacher — who is his favorite.

His high school brother, who was studying Hiroshima, taught him how to make a paper crane.

Then, his obsession became “how small” can I make a crane? Amazing to watch him fold such tiny folds.

During the party, a friend told him the story of a 1,000 paper cranes.

The next morning, he told me he was not interested in making 1,000 paper cranes. “I could never do that.” I wondered, thinking back on all of the strips of paper I had picked up from snips he had made with scissors to turn paper into squares, if he already had. Then he asked me if I thought it was true, that your wish could come true?

I said, “Sure, why not?”

Then, he said, “Well, I don’t think that’s true at all.” Then, he came back later and said, “If that’s true, than you need to be very careful about your wish. That’s why I don’t want to make 1,000 paper cranes.”