Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

‘I wanted to scream out don’t go but I was too proud.’

Tears are a woman’s weapon.

‘When you go back, no matter how hard you try, the present won’t change.’

The only people you can meet while in the past are those who have visited the cafe.

There is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present.

the only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the cafe.

no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present.

in order to return to the past, you have to sit in that seat and that seat alone.

while back in the past, you must stay in the seat and never move from it.

there is a time limit.

‘And you must return before the coffee goes cold.’

Coffee was introduced to Japan in the Edo period, around the late seventeenth century.

In that moment, Fusagi remembered that he had a wife, but he didn’t remember that Kohtake, standing before him, was his wife.

Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don’t trust.

People don’t see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind.

‘You father didn’t go in that box because he wanted to. There was a reason. He had to go. If your father could see from his box and see you crying every day, what do you think he would think? I think it would make him sad. You know how much your father loved you. Don’t you think it would be painful for him to see the unhappy face of someone he loved? So why don’t you smile every day so that your father can smile from his box? Our smiles allow him to smile. Our happiness allows your father to be happy in his box.’

was so absorbed in the things that I couldn’t change, I forgot the most important thing.

‘At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?’ But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.