[Essay] A White Dress and a Red Book

I've come out to the streets of Nanto.
I'm saying things that don't make sense, as usual.

*Quoting lyrics from Quruli's 'Tokyo'

While listening to that very song, 'Tokyo' by Quruli, I headed toward Nanto City in Toyama Prefecture.

By the way, I always listen to it whenever I go out to set up a shop.

Today, I held a ZINE stall in that same Nanto City.

Nanto City.

I imagine most people don't know this region.

Even for me, born and raised in Toyama, I haven't been there much.

To put it roughly, it's quite the countryside.

Quite the countryside (3/4 of that is the same word).

The sound of 'Nanto City' alone seems to convey that it's rural.

By the way, my hometown is Uozu City.

Yes, that's right, there's the sea and lots of fish.

The ashtray at the station nearest to the venue was very close to the vending machine.

In my opinion, a place where the station entrance, a vending machine, and an ashtray are all installed close together is 'the countryside'.

At such a local event, and with 'ZINEs'—which aren't even popular in the provinces yet—as the main attraction...

Will people even come? I was worried, but the number of visitors was beyond my imagination, and it was quite lively.

It's thanks to the organizer's promotion.

Thank you so much.

I'll write about it later, but my stall at the Mori, Michi, Ichiba market two days ago had the worst sales ever, like total crap, so I was very anxious about whether I would sell anything today.

And seeing the reports of the success of ZINE Tokyo held yesterday flowing through social media, I felt a bit bitter, thinking, 'Ugh, what is this! Seriously! They look like they're having fun...'

But,

Happily, I sold more than I did at Mori, Michi, Ichiba.

In fact, I sold more than at the ZINE Fes Tokyo in January.

Huge! I'm so happy! This is my home turf after all!

I was able to talk to other exhibitors, do some shopping myself, and had a great time.

The friend who said, 'I'll go if I can!' didn't actually come.

By the way, the event had a 0 yen entrance fee, and the stall fee was 1,000 yen.

So cheap! Aren't you running a deficit? I asked the staff, and they laughed and said, 'We are.'

As usual, I drank alcohol, talked loosely and lazily with customers, and sold some ZINEs—or didn't.

One scene from today.



A woman in a white dress (probably in her 20s) came alone and stopped in front of my booth.

'Hello,'

'Oh, hello...'

She quickly read a few samples, said in a small voice, 'I'll... take this,' and bought one copy of my ZINE, 'Baku'.

'Thank you,' I said as I handed it to her, and she left immediately.

There was no other conversation in particular.

It was a quiet exchange.

Five minutes later, while smoking a cigarette in the smoking area, I vaguely recalled that moment.

While this applies to everyone at the venue, I wondered what path led that person to come today.

Did she see it on social media or a flyer and think, 'It's Sunday and I'm off, maybe I'll go'?

Did she sleep in too late that day and struggle with, 'Should I go or not?'

Did she think, 'It's getting hot, maybe I'll wear a white dress'?

Did she come thinking, 'Wow, it didn't actually rain'?

Of course, there's no way to know that, and I've never really thought about such things at previous stalls either.

At the booth, people come, things sell, gratitude.

Maybe I had just gotten used to it.

That's not good, not good at all.

But at that moment, I felt it was somehow mysterious that 'a stranger came from somewhere, we met, they took the book I wrote, and they went back somewhere else.'

I'm happy.

It's mysterious and makes me happy.

As I was thinking this vaguely, that person happened to walk out of the venue toward the parking lot.

She was holding my ZINE in one hand.

Against her white dress, the red color of my Baku cover stood out.

...

Come to think of it,

When she said, 'This,' her fingers were trembling slightly.

Somehow, I felt I wanted to keep writing for people like this.



The loosely started event ended loosely.

I listened to Quruli's 'Tokyo' again,

And took a train the same red color as the cover of 'Baku' to go home.

Work tomorrow... I hate it... I softly wished that a meteorite might fall in a way that wouldn't bother anyone but would still result in a day off from work.

As usual, I'm writing this kind of nonsensical text again.