The Six People on the Door

In the hallway of my childhood home, there was a wooden door that led to the kitchen. It was a dull brown color with several knots standing out, the kind of door you could find in any house from the Showa era.

However, it had one major feature. It was the type of door where the wood grain looks like people.

And it wasn't just one person. If you looked closely, six men and women were lined up.

The three men were standing in a row, and despite their angry expressions, they sported beards like the King in a deck of cards and had outward-curled hair. They looked like they were about to say "Renaissance!" at any moment, so their anger wasn't convincing at all. The man in the middle looked like Thwomp from the Mario games.

Meanwhile, the three women were grinning with their mouths wide open. With their super-long hair flowing, they looked like they had figured something out, staring intently at me in a row. Their catchphrase was "I'm watching you." Since I was playing it back in my head, it ended up being my own catchphrase.

Once you see them that way, you can only see the six of them.

One night, I tried to sneak a pudding from the fridge. It was a three-pack of pudding. My mother had bought them for us three sisters. Actually, I had already eaten one in the evening.

I reached for the doorknob to go to the kitchen. When I looked at the door, the six of them were lined up as usual. The three grinning, long-haired women had faces that seemed to say, "Are you going to do it?" "You're really going to do it?" "Are you sure?" The Thwomp-like man was in a full-on blocking stance.

Yeah, well, whatever.

I quietly opened the door, went to the kitchen, and ate the pudding.

It was delicious.

When I returned to my room, I felt like I was being watched intensely by the six people on the door. Although I had slipped past their surveillance, the guilt remained, and the next day I honestly confessed to my sister, who was shouting, "My pudding is gone!" As punishment, I was made to run out and buy more pudding.

The gaze from the six people on the door. Of course, it was all just a coincidence of the wood grain. Or perhaps it was my own convenience, seeing six people there on my own.

For decades after that, I grew up watched over by the six people on the door. I never did anything majorly wrong. I felt reluctant to do things behind people's backs. Living in a hallway where I was watched by those six was like having a mental security system.

It was decided that our old family home would be demolished. On the day of the move, I stood in front of that door one last time. Sure enough, the six of them were lined up. The grinning women and the Thwomp-like man with the curled hair were just as they always were.

"Thank you for everything until now."

For the first time in my life, I thanked the group of wood grains.

I may not be particularly remarkable now, but I have become an adult who doesn't do bad things in secret and is fundamentally earnest. I believe this is the result of the group surveillance by the six, rather than my parents' discipline.

And, I also successfully developed the habit of letting my imagination run wild over trivial things, to the point where I could create personalities for six people out of wood grain.

Even now, sometimes when I look at wood grain, I think, "Oh, there are about two people there."

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I am participating in this project!

Konishi Kinoko-san, Honda Snow-san.
I am submitting this for "Nan no Hanashi Desu-ya".
Snow-san, I know the editing work is really tough this time too, but I'm counting on you!

What kind of ZINE "No-go" will it be!? I'm looking forward to it already♪

The header image was AI-generated from the photo of the door above.
It's the six people on the door that I took on the day of the move.

It's quite faithful!
I'm sure they are in your houses too.
One or two people in the wood grain...
Hehehe.