The title "Tokuhon-junintoiro" means "a booklet about everyone has his/her own taste." In this page, friends of mine tells you what inpired him/her and every story is different, of course.

 Isabel Harter, this month's writer, tells you a story of her big achievement at her office. You'll find it very funny!

●●Isabel's self introduction●●

 My name is Isabel Harter and I am living far away from Tokyo. When I see the pictures of the floods in my home country Germany, I feel quite safe where I am...Normally I don't write short stories, I only did it for Reiko, whom I know since about ten (!) years. In my real life I am an Ethnologist - but please don't ask me what this exactly is....

日本語はこちら

#7 "Hello Kitty"

 My desk stands in an open-plan office. It recently often happens that my eyes wander around, absorbing the impressions and smiling over the satisfying idea to have had it all rearranged.



 It never was my dream to be an interior designer. It simply started with the idea, that I could clean the windows of my office. There are exactly 60 windows: 20 big ones, each of them has a set of two small ones above, which can be opened sideways by a long window open cane. The window wall, interrupted by four regularly set robust pillars, is - let's say - 50 meter long. There are no windows on the opposite wall - except the glass squares in each of the four doors through which you can enter the office. In the past, our customers, the citizens of the remote town, would just peep through the door's windows and not enter for fear of disturbing the work of the rooms most important four persons seated in very comfortable white ruche covered armchairs facing each door. Citizens with something on their mind obviously felt uncomfortable when entering our office, either because there was no space to set a foot or because the civil servants at their lined up desks would continue their work without deigning to look at the incomer.

 I can't exactly remember the incentive for the strong desire having these windows cleaned, for you couldn't really see out of them. The grey blinds were semi-closed day in day out, just during lunchtime we would open them. I belonged to the 10 persons facing the windows and I have to admit, that the Japanese morning sun is quite strong - even in the afternoon it can hurt your eyes. Lucky where the 4 persons backing the windows! Not only did they not have to adjust their eyes to the incoming sunlight, they also had the semi-comfortable armchairs, could forward orders and watch television during lunchtime without contorting the head. Even if it was generally possible to open the blinds, it just didn't make sense, because high as man shelves loaded with filed away files, would obstruct the view on the awkward town and its undeservedly beautiful surrounding woody mountains.
 You might be astonished, but it took me exactly four months to clean the windows. In order not to interfere with the running system of the City Hall, I wisely decided to clean them secretly on weekends when the civil service of the town is virtually inactive. I hoped, that my colleagues wouldn't notice any of the changes made on weekend the following Mondays. I don't want to be unfair, but I assume that my colleagues would have been somehow angry over unannounced changes.

 The first weekend I peeped through all four glass square doors: The armchairs of the most important persons where empty as expected. First of all I moved their armchairs and their desks nearer to the doors. This doesn't seem to make sense at first view, but in the long term I would move them every weekend some centimeters, so that they could be placed unnoticed outside of the office one day. The shelves in front of the windows were too heavy to be moved by myself, so I had to choose carefully some files from each shelf; I would burn them later in my tiny front garden. And so I did every week. It went very smoothly, nobody ever missed any file. The shelves became lighter and lighter and one dark, taifuny Saturday evening, I could move them by myself. I moved them towards the pillars (which interrupted the window front) in order to have the office room dived into nice and cozy working niches. The effect was exciting: Our working methods became more effective. Once the shelves were moved, I could finally clean the windows!



 Now and then I am still working on the interior of my office on weekends.... Anyway, it is much nicer now, since I painted the walls yellow, put some flowers here and there and successfully arranged a comfortable sofa corner for the visiting citizens. Even the mood of the most important persons (sitting now outside the office in order to greet the visiting citizens) seem to have changed, since the white ruche covers of their very comfortable armchairs were changed into colorful covers with "Hello Kitty" Design.



★END★

(Next writer is Cake-o, my friend from Osaka. Don't miss it! )

★From Isabel to Iromi★
 
Thank you very much for postponing the deadline...!

(From Reiko to Isabel)
 Thank you for writing this essay! Your story reminds me of a film "Amelli" a bit.
 About ten years ago, Isabel and I belonged to a same drama class at a college in Edinburgh, Scotland. Our class was quite exciting, but at the same time it was quite chaotic, due to a variety of our nationalities, I suppose. Someone never stopped talking, someone never listened to anyone even if to our teacher (most Italians and French were this type.) You should have seen our drama , which we foreigners wrote and played in English at the end of the term. It was funny and very clumsy...

 Isabel lived with two students: one from Japan and the other from Italy. Their flat was located in an area so we could call "posh neibourhood" in Edinburgh. Needless to say, Isabel's flat was quite a thing. It had a massive bathroom whose floor was covered with a scarlet carpet... Definately larger than my present flat in Tokyo. Not only with Isabel, I got along well with other her flatmates so did Isabel with my flatmates. We had a party. We went for a walk in the park. We saw many films. Even we went to the police together. We shared so many good and bad memories of Scotland.
 Anyway, Isabel and I have been good friends since then. Now, Isabel is working in Japan and her Japanese has become fluent. She knew few words in Japanese ten years ago. See? time passes like an arrow, but you can gain something...maybe sometimes.
 We often talk about holding a big reunion party in Edinburgh one day. No idea when we can do that, but I'm sure that we all can meet again no matter how old we become, no matter how apart we live. Isabel, isn't this a beautiful friendship?

→「読本 十人十色」バックナンバー
1「筒井康隆礼賛」by よねお
2「デス・スターの溝」by KITT
3「恋い焦がれる」by マサコ
4「おれがすき。」by こばやし
5「奥の奥の感覚」by トヨダ
6「こちらヒューストン」by テラケン
7「ドラッグのすすめ」by イロミ
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