his letters
Wednesday is resources day: paper, bottles, cans. I tied my paper in a neat bundle with string, the way the sheet says. Inside it were three seed catalogues. They keep coming for him, one a month, the morning glory on the cover a different colour each time.
When I got home from work, they were on my doormat. Untied, the covers smoothed flat.
Then Hoshino-san knocked. She bowed a little and said, very politely, "Those are Sawada-san's."
Nothing else. She went back downstairs, slowly, one hand on the rail.
I felt about ten years old.
They're in the shoebox now. The shoebox, as of tonight:
- four seed catalogues
- a calendar from a pharmacy
- a postcard from a ward office about a free health check for over-seventies
- a hand-addressed envelope from someone in Saitama, which I can't open and can't throw away
I wrote 受取人死亡 on the ward office card and posted it back. The envelope is under the catalogues.