Story 3
That Thing
The small privately-run café I frequent has a surprisingly large interior with an open atrium reaching up to the second floor. The coffee and food are excellent, but there are almost no customers. Instead, the place is full of those things.
Have you ever heard the saying that ghosts like to go upwards?
I don’t think those things are ghosts, but in the morning they’re near the entrance on the first floor; by noon they’re swaying back and forth somewhere between the first floor and the atrium. By evening, when I leave, they’re up by the lights on the second-floor ceiling, repeatedly bumping themselves against it.
I don’t know what those things are. I probably don’t have any kind of spiritual sensitivity.
But the reason I keep coming to this café is to see them.
Maybe I’m possessed. Sometimes I feel an overwhelming urge to see them.
When that happens, I skip work just to go watch them. And every time, before I know it, I’m sitting in the café drinking coffee and watching them. My memory of how I got there is hazy — only the strong desire to see them remains clear.
Because of them, I quit my full-time job and before I realized it, I had become a poor drifter, hopping from one part-time job to another.
Are those things some kind of yokai?
If anyone knows, please tell me.
