End of the World Blues

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End of the world or not, peonies, azaleas and camellias will still produce beautiful flowers…

—Hagakure Kikigaki (Way of the Samurai)

Friday, 22 December

“That looks heavy.”

Glancing round, the girl saw a porter in the grey-green uniform of the Tokyo Metro, complete with smart white gloves. He was smiling.

“No,” she said. “It’s fine.”

“If you’re sure?”

“I’m certain,” said Nijie, more firmly than was polite…Kids today, she could see him think. No manners.

Having wrestled her case into a left-luggage locker at Shinjuku Sanchome, Nijie Kitagawa slammed its steel door and fed 2,000 yen into a slot. She followed this with two 500 yen coins and checked the door was tight.

The longest she could leave her case was three days. After that, she’d need to change lockers. As Nijie was fifteen and official statistics suggested she should live to the age of eighty-three, this meant she’d need to swap lockers 8,273 times before she died.

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