There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

by Kikuko Tsumura

I had no idea when I might burn out next.

‘Is this brand no good?’ he said, checking the can. The coffee in question was unsweetened and it definitely wasn’t a make that I liked enough to buy, but I began to feel sorry for poor old Mr Kazetani, and in the end I took the can. I got the sense that he wasn’t a bad sort, all told. Although I was also aware that in a workplace context, people could become bad sorts as and when the situation required, so maybe it was more accurate to say he wasn’t always a bad sort.

Standing there alone in the kitchen, clutching a can of coffee of a make I didn’t even particularly like, I fell deep into thought – except I didn’t have enough material to facilitate particularly deep thinking, so my thoughts circulated the same territory over and over.

So great was my astonishment that I bit the inside of my mouth while chewing the batter of my deep-fried chicken, causing myself extreme pain – but I felt like it was hardly the time to be complaining about woes of that ilk.

If my co-worker left, it was inevitable that I’d fall into a temporary state of confusion, even if it was equally inevitable that I would eventually acclimatise.

It marked the peak of my immersion in my advert-writing job.

Mr Monaga announced he was going to the barber, and asked me to keep an eye on the office while he was out. ‘Oh, why the barber?’ was not a question I felt I could ask.

When the fluid level in my bottle of noodle sauce concentrate went down without my using it, though, I couldn’t resist anxiety’s clutches any longer.

There I sat in my small hut in the big forest, my face contorted with rage.