She arrived at the parking lot much earlier than her usual time. As soon as she got out of the car, she was enveloped by the thick, damp darkness of the July night. Maybe it was the heat and humidity, but the night seemed especially heavy and black to her. Feeling slightly breathless, Masako Katori lifted her eyes to the starless night sky. Her skin—dry and cool inside the air-conditioned car—had already begun to feel sticky. Mixed with the exhaust fumes from the Shin-Ume expressway, she caught a faint scent of frying in the air, the distinctive smell of the ready-meal factory where she was going to work. "I want to go home." The moment the smell hit her, these words came to her mind. She didn’t know exactly where she wanted to go, but certainly not to the house she had just left. But why didn’t she want to return there? And where did she want to go? She felt completely lost.
From midnight until five thirty, without a break, she had to stand in front of a conveyor belt packing meals. For a part-time job, the pay was good, but the work itself was exhausting. Other times, when she wasn’t feeling well, the thought of the tough shift ahead had stopped her right there in the parking lot. But this was something else; it was a sense of futility. As she always did in such moments, Masako lit a cigarette, but tonight she realized for the first time that she did it just to cover up the smell of the factory.
