Hiromi Kawakami

Even a cracked pot has a lid that fits.

Forcing myself to make conversation felt like standing on a cliff, peering over the edge, about to tumble down headfirst.

kiss wasn’t unpleasant. Maybe not unpleasant, but I wasn’t happy about it. Rather than happy, it made me feel a little lonely.

We both seemed to be the type of person who liked to stop in every so often at the local bar. Our food preferences weren’t the only things we shared; we had a similar rhythm, or temperament. Despite the more than thirty-year difference in our ages, I felt much more familiar with him than with friends my own age.

We never made plans, but always happened to meet by chance.

I couldn’t resist buying something every time I came. On one trip, I bought a huge iron pot. I had thought it would be useful to have when I cooked for a lot of people, but when did I ever have that many people at my apartment?

A grown woman would know how to get warm in a situation like this. But, for the moment, I was a child and helpless.

“Would you consider a relationship with me, based on a premise of love?”

Enveloped in Sensei’s warm and dry embrace, I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry. But I didn’t laugh and I didn’t cry anymore either. All I did was be still there in Sensei’s arms.

He would write something in chalk, like the first line of The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon: In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful.