The Cat at Platform Zero Vol.20

About this book

Every summer, Hoshizaki's keepers give the valley its one bright night — and this year, for the first time, they get to stand in it.

Eight linked stories of the fireworks night and the summer festival in a small valley in Japan, where the trains run at :42 and the station cat attends from the bench. A lantern painter of thirty years finishes the great lantern a day early, hands over her mending stall, and watches the whole sky with her hands empty. A drummer who has kept his farewell secret all summer says it aloud before the whole crowd — and is answered. The last stall on the lane closes for exactly the length of the fireworks, and its keeper buys an ice with her own money and stands in the crowd. A fireworks maker who has fired eleven skies he has never seen composes this year's finale from inside the watching, and stands under it at last. A baby attends her first festival, and it is kept for her in trust. An old man who has watched from bridges for four years comes down before dark and takes his place on the elders' bench. A daughter who has rationed her home to one bright night a year stays — for the morning after, and her mother's Tuesday food. And keeper Sumi closes the summer in the thirteenth volume of the station book: one night, and its morning.

The first train is at 05:42. The last train is at 22:17. The cat, as ever, is on the bench — the best seat at the display, and it has been kept for him.