Beyond the Window: The forecast division on my desk
Editor's column. As this paper's four-panel comic begins, a word about my desk-mate.
From today this paper carries a four-panel comic. Its star is the white thing that has lived on my desk for seven years. Its name is Yurari, chosen by readers; I call it "the white one".
It was found in the spring of 2019 in the basement archive, curled up behind the microfilm shelves, about the size of a teacup. We reported it to the TDA and a single sheet came back: lineage unknown, harmless. Registration number Drift-2019-0417. The sheet is still in my desk drawer. No one came to claim it, so the newsroom took it in. My desk has been its place ever since.
It has one antenna on its head, ending in a drop-shaped bulb that glows blue when a Yuragi is near — usually a little ahead of the Forecast Division. The TDA says it is probably sensing air pressure. I say nothing. A newspaperman does not write as understood what he does not understand. But when it glows, I do telephone the bayfront reporter.
It does not speak. Its face, its antenna and the way it holds its teacup convey most things. Holding out the cup means it wants tea. Glowing and holding out the cup means it wants tea and a Yuragi is near. The two cannot be told apart.
"Don't be surprised — check," I tell young reporters. But seven years on, I have not finished checking this white thing. What it eats is not clear: tea, the Remembrance Day buns, and now and then the edge of a proof sheet.
The comic will draw the odd corners of daily life in this city. A city with the Yuragi has many. A creature on a newspaper desk that beats the forecast with its antenna is one of them. It will not draw the dark things; the articles do that.
Today's first strip, I am told, is about me telephoning the Forecast Division. It is true. I made the call, the division corrected the figure, and the white one held out its cup.
