The Master Key

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On that day, the snow (unusual for April) which had fallen on the night before was still half an inch deep in the morning.

But before midday the sun peeped through the clouds and a thaw set in. In no time at all, the streets once again danced in the sunshine of spring.

At exactly noon, a woman tried to cross the road at the Otsuka Nakacho crossroads, even though the lights were against her.

Her head was completely hooded by a red scarf, and she wore a thick winter coat over black ski pants. This in spite of the fact that everyone else on the street was beginning to sweat slightly in the warm sunshine…

When the woman had got about a third of the way across the road, a small van came racing towards her from the direction of the Gokokuji temple. It was fully laden with wooden kegs of nails. The young driver, a boy from the mountains, was affected by the snow; his mind was full of the rosy-cheeked girls of his native place, and he had his foot hard down on the accelerator as he came up the slope. The green light seemed to beckon his youthfulness on—hurry! hurry! it seemed to say. From the corner of his eye, he caught a sudden glimpse of the girl in the red scarf but to him it was just a further reminder of the girls in his snow-bound native village. Perhaps that was why he skidded on the tramlines, although one cannot be sure. At any rate, the inexperienced young driver slammed on his brakes, but the van did not respond to his efforts to control it. It slid right around and headed back towards the woman. The last thing the young man saw before closing his eyes was the red-scarved and astonished face of the woman as she came crashing through his windscreen.

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