Read more at The Independent

— by Annie Lord: Keiko Furukura describes the Hiiromachi Station Smile Mart she’s worked at for 18 years as though it were her boyfriend. She tells of how the whirring of the freezers and the beeping of the coffee machine “ceaselessly caress my eardrums”. And when alone at night in her small, pokey flat, she dreams so much of “the brightly lit and bustling store” that she begins to shape herself to please it: “I silently stroke my right hand, its nails neatly trimmed in order to better work the buttons on the cash register.” […]

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