今朝の落書き

When we were in middle school, a classmate listened to a musician. Today, twenty years later, the owner of that voice is coming to my shop to perform live.

Without that musician, without that classmate, and without me, this would not happen today. Perhaps we could also say that we have arrived at today because each of us has lived twenty years that belong to no one else.

That classmate was saying something like that yesterday. I went to sleep thinking, yes, that is true.

The next morning, brushing my teeth, I was absentmindedly thinking, well then, time to go and get ready.

To open the doors at half past six in the evening, we begin busily preparing in the morning. Put that way, how many days have we spent preparing already? How many months ago did we start talking about this? And yes, how many decades ago did I, did we, first encounter the voice that will ring out tonight?

I would not go so far as to say we have been preparing for twenty years. But I hold on to this one truth: listening so intently when that friend sang at karaoke back then, all the different preparations we have made together day after day—everything connects and becomes my anticipation today, that friend's anticipation, the sounds a great musician makes, and the faces of the people gathering to immerse themselves in them.

Thank you for reading again today. ‘Life isn't such a bad thing after all,’ said a close friend of twenty years.