Kazuko To, a poet afflicted with Hansen's disease, wrote a poem that says: ``And I am a fish/ Rising to the bait/ That would hook me today/ To take me to tomorrow.''

This work is included in ``Kibo-no Hi-wo'' (For a spark of hope), published by Henshukobo Noa.

Every time I hear about young people killing themselves in group suicides, I think of To, who has continued to question with a sense of wonderment why she keeps living or is forced to live.

Unlike To, those young suicides did not rise to the bait that would bridge today and tomorrow. Why? And I have to wonder why they felt the need to kill themselves in a group setting.

Here is a comment that ran in The Asahi Shimbun last year: ``I want to die, but I am afraid to die. Perhaps it's more like not wanting to live, rather than wanting to die.''

Apparently, they shared a sense of deep weariness with life. They also seemed to share their fear of death and wanted to avoid pain. Am I to understand, then, that they found their best solution for easing fear and pain in huddling over a charcoal cooking stove and dying together from carbon monoxide poisoning?

An Internet bulletin board message I came across recently said: ``I don't know how to light a charcoal stove. Could someone please tell me?'' Someone else posted a message to the effect that he/she had purchased charcoal but was without a car, so he/she was looking for someone with a driver's licence.

The casualness of it was so out of place, it could have been a Web site for hiking aficionados or something.

But this suicide pact business is apparently not unique to Japan.

According to a British news report on Net-solicited group suicide attempts, British police were tipped off that six people were planning to commit suicide together. The police stopped them from going ahead. So, Britain does have cases of group suicides, but not as many as are in Japan.

To me, the image of people coming together via the Internet and huddling together around a charcoal stove seems to mirror the loneliness and bleakness that can assault people in Japan today.

I pray that they would at least look for the bait that would ``take them to tomorrow.''

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 14(IHT/Asahi: October 15,2004) (10/15)