The first you heard of it, you run into Knife Cat over coffee, she says she went there last week and there was no lantern, no note, and same thing this week. You said maybe he just got sick, but then why doesn’t he put a sign on the door. You think maybe he’s on O-bon holiday like the rest of town, but he’d leave a note – and anyway he never takes days off, that’s what he said.

shouta end note

So you went there, he’s definitely shut. You can see an electricity bill wedged into the latched door. And now there is a note, it basically says, I have had to cease trading suddenly, thanks for your long-time support. Some helpful passerby with a biro has corrected one of his characters. That doesn’t fix that he is gone. A couple of locals outside scratch their heads. A woman on a bicycle says she knew him fairly well, you say you were there a couple of weeks ago, she says did he look okay and you say yes he looked fine. She has no contact for him. It’s that feeling, you never got to say goodbye. You want to go in and for him to be there and to order.

shouta end long shot
Published on