The Shore Diner: A Souvenir Story About What Wasn't Seen

Hiiragi-san, one of my regulars, read the article out loud with my copy of the paper spread open on the counter: the king had gone to see a window, and the window hadn't opened. "So he came all that way and saw nothing?" the customer next to her asked. Hiiragi-san laughed. "The fact that seeing nothing becomes its own story — that's something, isn't it."

Thinking about it, it's a strange business. My place has days when regulars show up and days when they don't, and days when they show up and still can't decide what to order. Nobody writes any of that down as "nothing was decided." But a window, it seems, becomes an event whether it opens or not. Hiiragi-san had just started her bear-lineage drum practice, so she was the one whose "starting something" had made the news, and hearing about a window whose "not opening" made the news seemed to leave her strangely uneasy.

"Our drum, once we actually started, turned out slower than I expected — nothing like the dog or fox lineage's sound at all," Hiiragi-san said. The customer beside her teased, "Sounds just like the king's window. You go in with expectations, and what comes out is entirely up to the other side." Hiiragi-san nodded, oddly convinced: "True enough — we didn't know what sound we'd get out of that drum until we actually struck it."

She read the line again out loud — that the king had said one also can't pretend to have seen what cannot be seen. "I want to say that to a regular of mine, too. If you can't finish your bowl, just say you couldn't." She didn't say who she meant, but it was probably me.