"Okay, Mr. Ghana. Say hello next week."
"Yes, it's nice to meet you"
Greet the Director of Human Resources sitting across the street and exit from the small conference room. Leaving a miscellaneous building in a new workplace that has been hired.
Good!
Koichi raised his right hand faintly and smiled as he posed as a little gut.
Warm relief spreads through the chest.
Three months ago, a long-serving advertising agency dissolved — de facto bankruptcy — and then, although he received unemployment benefits early for his company-friendly retirement treatment, days of hardship continued for him a few years ago when he bought a single home, had a mortgage, and provided for his wife, two families of four children.
Those days of misery were also decided relatively quickly in this recessionary time, at the age of forty years ago, and may have been shorter than thought.
My wife, of course, would have been anxious about the kid up there who was going to be a sophomore in middle school. I've put a lot of strain on my family too, but that's over.
Koichi has been specializing in brochures, catalogues and other directories for many years, said to be "pagey" in the industry. Nevertheless, there were many firm contents, such as company information, hiring guidance, accounting reports, etc., which also required the professional knowledge of the industry in some companies that issued them.
It was quite a big place as an editorial production, with about thirty editors for the firms that decided to re-employ as well. His area of specialty was also a company that did it with strength.
Walking along the edge of the office district where the miscellaneous building stands, the back road where people have come and gone in the evening, at a somewhat greater stride than usual, I stop and look back and look at the building occupied by a determined company for hire a little further away. It's a pretty big building amongst the surrounding buildings.
I guess they hired me because I had quite a track record. Though my salary has fallen somewhat lower than before.
Still decided earlier than I thought, and I'm really glad. Even those around me who can be called acquaintances and friends could not be introduced to a good place to change jobs that seemed like this, and it is still mind-boggling given what happened earlier to do it freely.
Eventually, we see a large surface street at present. Many cars and people come and go, turn left when you go out on the cluttered street in the evening. I see the entrance to the subway. I go down the stairs leading down to the basement, so that I can be sucked into a line of people, and Koichi also goes down.
A few days ago, my wife's face comes to mind when I told her about the hiring announcement. His mouth also loosens.
My older child is a junior high school student next year. The youngest child will be in fourth grade. It gets tougher than the household income, but my wife also started part-time. If we don't even have the luxury, we'll figure this out. If work even begins at a re-employment location, a late-night return home will follow as every day as it did at my previous place of work, but this is normal in this industry. I can't help it. I just earn my job, that's all.
Get through the ticket and get on a pretty long escalator that goes down to the home.
Suddenly it happened when Koichi reached as much of that escalator as he tried to blur and wonder again.
Behind me, the voices screamed sharply at each other above the escalator. There are signs that people are coming together and moving violently. Are you up for rubbing?
The moment I tried to turn my back on a nasty hunch, something heavy came up. There are no people before Koichi. I glance at him without being able to do anything, trying to be thrown out into the air and falling. The light in my eyes caught my tail. A yellow scream of a miserable woman.
A vertical stripe of metal, of escalator stepping stones that extend across the full range of vision.
That became the last thing he saw.