Convenience Store Lights and Useless Nights
11:00 PM.
At a suburban convenience store, people's outlines seem clearer than they do during the day.
Sato was standing in line at the register with milk and a canned coffee in his hands.
On his way home from work. Sales job. Every day is a chase after numbers.
He hadn't closed a single deal today.
The young clerk at the register scanned the barcodes with awkward movements.
A bit slow. Their bagging was clumsy, too.
The person behind him let out a slight sigh.
Sato suddenly remembered a phrase he kept inside himself.
"What a useless person."
It was something his boss had once said to him, and
before he knew it, it had become something he directed at others.
But today, for some reason, the words didn't come out.
He had noticed the clerk's hands were shaking.
"It's okay, take your time."
Before he knew it, he had said that.
The clerk looked surprised for a moment, then
said a quiet "I'm sorry."
The voice sounded almost relieved.
When he left the store, the spring night air was a little cold.
Sato thought to himself.
(What good did that do, anyway?)
It didn't increase sales.
It wouldn't be praised by anyone.
It wouldn't even be recorded.
It was just a single remark.
On his way home, walking under the streetlights,
Sato looked back on his day.
Moving from the morning, getting rejected, bowing his head,
and in the end, zero.
To the company, it was a "useless day."
That fact weighed heavily on his chest.
When he got home, his wife was already asleep.
On the table, there was dinner covered in plastic wrap.
A note that said "Thanks for your hard work."
It was just that, but
he felt a little bit of the tension leave his body.
As he warmed it up in the microwave, Sato thought vaguely.
Am I useful?
To the company?
To my family?
To society?
The answer didn't come right away.
He finished his meal and sat on the sofa.
He didn't turn on the TV.
A quiet time flowed by.
The old him wouldn't have been able to stand this time.
I have to do something.
I have to produce results.
I shouldn't waste time.
That's what he used to think.
But today was different.
He tried just letting the time pass,
just sitting there.
Time that produces nothing.
Time that is of no use to anyone.
Even so, strangely, his anxiety didn't run wild.
Suddenly, the face of the convenience store clerk came to mind.
Was that remark useful?
He didn't know.
But at that moment, the clerk had looked a little relieved.
That much was certain.
(Maybe being useful is something like this.)
Making someone's time just a little lighter.
Easing someone's tension just a little bit.
It doesn't have to be a big thing.
It doesn't have to be recorded.
And he realized one more thing.
Today, he
was able to endure "time spent doing nothing."
That was something the him from a little while ago couldn't do.
Perhaps time that is useless
was protecting him without breaking him.
By not stopping,
he might have actually been cornering himself.
Late at night.
Outside the window, he could still see the convenience store lights.
A place where someone works, someone shops, and
someone stops by without thinking about anything.
There are countless small interactions there.
Small words, expressions, and pauses
that you don't even know if they were useful or not.
But, perhaps.
By piling up things like that,
people manage to finish their day.
Sato turned off the light.
Maybe he hadn't accomplished anything today.
But he no longer thought
that it had been a completely worthless day.
As he got into bed,
the tension in his body slowly faded away.
Even on a day that produced nothing,
he hadn't disappeared.
That quiet fact alone
remained, surely, at the bottom of the night.
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