Sayaka Murata’s Love Letter to a Convenience Store

–Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Dear Convenience Store,

I hope you don’t mind me getting straight to the point. We’ve known each other for 17 years, but I guess this is the first time I’ve ever written you a letter.

I was 18 when we met. I thought you were really scary to begin with. You were so grown up, and I thought you wouldn’t have time for the likes of me. I always felt nervous with you, and I kept a notebook in my pocket to jot down detailed notes on every little gesture or habit of yours as I noticed them.

I don’t suppose either of us could pinpoint the exact moment we fell in love. If I had to hazard a guess, I would probably say it was that night when were together at 2 am for the first time. Somebody had suddenly called in sick and begged me to cover for them, so I was left inside you until the middle of the night. I’d only ever met you during the day or evening, and I was thrilled by the scent of the summer’s night on the air that came flowing into you.

When it was time to go home, I suddenly had the urge to see you look embarrassed, so I asked, “Do you think a convenience store and a human can have sex together?” thinking it would make you blush and get all flustered. But you answered smoothly, your face utterly serious, “What are you talking about? We’re already doing it, aren’t we? You enter me every day.” I think that’s the moment we became lovers.

Since then I don’t go to work—I go on dates, all dressed up for the occasion. And you too greet me a little cockily with your magazine racks and store mirrors sparkling clean.

It did occur to me that by the same logic you must be having sex with everyone from the geezer on the night shift to the couple who are your managers and hundreds of customers, but when I put this to you, you answered unhesitatingly, “What? But I’ve only ever done it with you!” so I suppose there must be something different for you.

It must have been about three years after I met you that I was told you were going to die in a month’s time. I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. I’d never thought a convenience store would live for only three years.

But you really did die. For two days before your death, everything in you was reduced to half price, and people flocked in to buy it all up. All I could think of as I watched them was that I’d never be able to see you again.

I was taken aback, then, when the managers told me you were going to be reborn a 15-minute bicycle ride away. It was the first time I’d ever dated a convenience store, so I never knew that it was in your nature to repeatedly die and be reborn.

I fell in love all over again with the reborn you. We had our ups and downs, like my affair with a family restaurant, and your dying again. By the third time you died, though, I’d gotten used to it. And even now, after 17 years of splitting up and getting back together again, we’re still together.

“There are so many things I love about you that even a hundred pages wouldn’t be enough to cover them all.”

People say things like, “Why are you dating a convenience store? Doesn’t it matter that it’s not human?” and “It’s been ages now, aren’t you fed up with it yet?” and “There’s no way that’s true love. You must be doing it to get material for your next novel.”

I’m used to it and don’t give it a second thought, but when I brought it up half jokingly on a date recently, you looked a little sad. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you. Shall I kill the people who said those kinds of things?” I asked, only half kidding. “Oh no, you mustn’t do that,” you answered, completely serious. “They won’t come back to life like I do.”

Now that I think about it, it’s rare for you to show any emotion. You never really laugh even when I tell a joke, and if I suddenly rub up against you intimately, you always keep your cool and never go red. But I always believed that you knew why I loved you, even if I didn’t spell it out for you. And yet the other day, when we were splitting up for the nth time and ended up arguing for ages, you suddenly blurted out, “I still don’t even know why you’re going out with me.”

That really shocked me. And it’s because I want you to understand that I’m writing to you now.

There are so many things I love about you that even a hundred pages wouldn’t be enough to cover them all, so I’ll give you just one concise reason.

The number one reason I love you is that you made me human.

Everyone goes on about how you’re not human, but until I met you I was the non-human one. At least I wasn’t the sort of human who could function well as one. But that changed, thanks to being with you.

You gave me the flow of time, with morning, afternoon, and night, and the gift of miraculous shoes to walk around the real world. For me you were a magician. Without you, I would probably have lived my life without ever being aware that a period of time called morning even existed.

You were the sole unshakable “normal” in my life, and so my feelings as a human are all yours.

But I’m getting kind of heavy here, aren’t I? Maybe we really are going to split up once and for all. Love has turned me into that weird creature called a human, but you will never be anything but a convenience store. Maybe my devotion has become a bit of a drag for you.

I wonder about what it will mean to lose you. Without you, I will probably forget how to be human again. Being that dependent on you is kind of scary.

But let’s stay together a little longer. I know you’re not without your faults: you’re showing signs of wear and tear here and there; the endless ding-dong of your door chime gets on my nerves after a while; our dates are always in the same place since you say you can’t go anywhere, being a building; the food you’re so proud of having cooked yourself is full of additives;  and you give me extra work by suddenly introducing a coffee machine and telling me, “Look! Look! A new toy!” And apart from anything else, the geezer on the night shift and the managers enter your body and wriggle around to their hearts’ content—how is that not being unfaithful? But then, I can’t help finding your faults charming too, so my love for you must be an illness. Frankly, I think it’s your duty to stay with me until I’m cured of it.

We’ll be having another date tomorrow morning. Lately I’ve been just going through the motions and wearing the same old jeans all the time, but tomorrow I’ll wear a brand new dress. I want you to dress up for me, too. Make sure you’re super clean, even inside your backroom refrigerator, okay?

Come to think of it, we’ve never even kissed. Let’s make tomorrow the day we have our first kiss.

Yours,
Sayaka Murata
December 2014