Illustration: Tomoki Kurokawa

This is my town, my station, with crowds and bright lights. Supermarket, rental store, drugstore. There used to be a family restaurant too, but it closed without my knowing it. Although they all have a small range of goods, once you live in a place, it grows on you. A tag by a graffiti idol SHIH TZU gives off a slight aura. I want to thank him for bombing such a town too. I want to tear the whole wall off and set it up in my room.

I get a curry box at the usual shop. “Curry St.24” is super compact and boxy AI with his stubborn man like thinking is the master. Even though it’s a boxy shop, the food is not boil-in-bag. It comes out hot with Saffron rice and lively chicken after being boiled alive and mixed with spices in the box. The curry is tasty and healthy. My happiest moment is when I flip through a book, wrapped in a blanket, zapping the TV and eating this.

Well, I better get going home. Before the curry gets cold. My way home is illuminated from below by a bluish white light. You can see the ground below and the light seems like the light of a castle that you’re overlooking from higher hills. The light is like a dress covering a mountain.

Because of the pedestrian conveyor belts, the steep hill is nothing hard. Under the hard ground, various lines are extended including electricity and gas. There are several places you can peep over underground, and I’ve wanted to go deep under the ground since I was a child. I’ll probably do the “adventure tour” sometime soon. My friends were once arrested for having a party down there. On the road, heating wires for melting snow are placed evenly spaced apart. They are useless though, as we haven’t had snow in the past 10 years. I run hopping over them.

The only thing I can think about on my way home is about the books I’m going to get. I walk counting numbers. I walk with a bit bigger strides. I gallop to stimulate the bottoms of my feet. It is said that the bottom of your feet have some points that connect to the brain. Like this, I accept the situation that it is far from my home to the station.