Short Story: The Post Office on Cruel Road 425, Part 2

While the old man was putting away the flag, my eyes caught a framed picture hanging beside the service window.

It was an old group photo.

It wasn't a black-and-white photo, but the colors had completely faded.

A large group of children were laughing in what looked like a schoolyard.

Perhaps they were teachers? A few adults were also lined up in the center.

In the corner of the photo, the small post office building was visible.

I compared the photo with the view outside the window.

It was the same building.

"Is this from a long time ago?"

The old man returned.

"Yes."

He stopped in front of the photo.

"It was the day of the sports festival."

He said only that, and narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Back then, this area was quite lively, you know."

I looked at the photo once more.

There were at least fifty children alone.

It was a number I couldn't even imagine now.

"Everyone..."

I got that far, then swallowed my words.

"Where did they go?"

That question felt like one with an all-too-obvious answer.

Perhaps sensing my feelings, the old man took a sip of tea and said quietly.

"Because a dam was built."

That was all.

There was no resentment.

There was no anger.

His tone was as if he were stating a simple fact.

"The people in this photograph all moved to the city, too."

I look out the window.

The row of houses I had assumed were abandoned.

They weren't 'discarded.'

They were 'left behind.'

Even though no one lived there anymore, the houses alone had stopped time.

"…So only the post office remained."

The old man smiled slightly.

"Yes."

"Because a post office doesn't close on its own unless someone closes it."

"Does mail still arrive even now?"

The old man nodded at my question.

"They will be delivered."

"Is there anyone living there?"

"No one lives there."

There was a brief pause.

"But there are people who come back."

I felt the air in the room change with those words.

The old man walked to the window and looked out at the rain-soaked village.

"When spring comes, you see."

"Yes."

"There are people who come to see the cherry blossoms."

"And during Obon, too."

"And on the day of the autumn festival."

The old man pointed to a house with his finger.

"That house over there used to be a blacksmith's."

He pointed to a tiled roof a little further away.

"That one over there is a candy store."

I listened in silence.

"None of them live here anymore."

"But you know."

The old man chuckles softly.

"When they come back, they stand in front of their own houses."

Those words strangely touched my heart.

"They also stop by the post office."

"Buying a single stamp."

"Buying a single postcard."

"They don't really have any business there."

"But they say, 'Oh, you're still open.'"

The old man smiled, looking a bit embarrassed.

"That's what they say before they head home."

I look out the window.

The row of houses, which until a moment ago looked like nothing but ruins, now looked a little different.

It is not a village without anyone.

It is a village where someone occasionally returns.

This man had kept the light on in that place of return all this time.

The rain had stopped before I knew it.

Soft evening light began to shine onto the lake through a break in the clouds.

The old man stood up quietly.

The road will start to dry out soon.

As I reached for my hat,

Take care.

That was all he said.

It was the same thing he had said when I arrived.

Because the road is bad.

I felt like I understood the meaning of those words a little better now.

When I stepped out of the post office, the mountain after the rain was silent.

The rain clouds that had covered the valley until just a moment ago had drifted away, and a thin mist was hovering over the surface of the lake.

Only the drops falling from the cedar leaves made a quiet sound.

I looked back once as I walked down the slope.

At the entrance of the post office, the old man was holding a broom.

He was sweeping the wet earthen floor.

Even though business hours were already over.

There was no one coming.

Even so, his figure looked somehow proud.

I got into the car and started the engine.

The clock on the dashboard had passed four in the afternoon.

I slowly turn back along National Route 425.

The abandoned house that looked only eerie when I arrived now looks different.

A child's tricycle lying in the yard.

A tilted clothes drying rack.

A crumbling stone wall.

There was, without a doubt, someone's life there.

The red post office is reflected in the rearview mirror.

Small.

Even smaller.

Eventually, it is hidden by the cedar forest and disappears from view.

I ease off the accelerator just a little.

I will come back again.

That is what I thought.

However, I never fulfilled that promise.

A few years later.

During my lunch break, I found a small article in the corner of a newspaper I had casually opened in the company cafeteria.

"Higashinokawa Post Office to close at the end of March"

It was just a single line.

I put down my chopsticks.

The rain that day.

The steam rising from the teacup.

"There are people who come back."

The old man's gentle voice comes back to me as if it were yesterday.

The article only stated the reasons.

A decline in users.

The aging of the contractor.

But what that post office was protecting could not be measured in numbers.

I looked out the window.

A spring breeze was blowing.

Surely, the cherry blossoms are blooming on that mountain, too.

The post office that waits for those returning is no more.

"There are people who come back."

The End