The Cat at Platform Zero Vol.25

About this book

In December, the market sheds on the Hondori are opened in the dark, as they are opened on every market morning of the year — and for one year, the valley's story belongs to its morning market.

Twelve linked stories, one for each month of a market's year, in a small valley in Japan where the trains run at :42, the bell rings at six on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the station cat keeps the bench. A keeper who has written a whole market's duties in his own hand for nine years lets the keepers write the book themselves. A fish-van driver learns the valley's names, not just its sell-out times. A customer puts her own name first on her own list. A board-writer chalks one awkward price — ¥187, exactly as written — and lets it stand. A stall hand sells the best bunch from the top. A widower pencils one line of his own into a dead hand's list. A cook lets a race go unrun. A porter is carried for. An old lady's tasting round becomes a walk. A grower prices his own persimmons at their true grade. A daughter leaves a blank in the dawn column. And keeper Sumi — who has kept the station through twenty-four volumes — carries a year that belongs to everyone, in everyone's own names, until the entry the year has earned can be written: kept in common.

The first train is at 05:42. The last train is at 22:17. The cat, as ever, is on the bench.