Smiling Makes People Happy

As I was resting on a bench
with my body feeling hot
from being brightly lit by the sun,
about two meters away,

there was a mask
that someone had dropped.

The wave of people
getting off the ferry
kept stepping on that mask one after another,
so
I waited for the flow of people to stop,
quickly picked it up,
and put it in a nearby trash can.

Then,
a voice called out

from behind me...

When I turned around,
there were two women.

For a moment,
I was nervous, thinking,
“Are they the owner of the mask?”
but that fear was unfounded.

In their hands was my hand towel.
“You dropped this, didn't you?”

Right after I
picked up the mask someone else had dropped,

they had picked up
the hand towel I had dropped
and brought it to me.

When I said,
“It turns out I was the one
who dropped something,”

the two women
smiled.

How beautiful
that smile was.

The fatigue in my body
and the heat
blew away in an instant.

I realized that a smile
is something that can make people
feel this happy...


I thanked them politely
and parted ways
with those two.

I will surely
never meet these two again.

But I won't forget them.
It lights a little flame in my heart.

This small encounter
became a wonderful memory of my trip.

#Miyajima #ItsukushimaShrine #Travel #Smile #TravelEncounters
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