Grapes　-Afternoon on the Islands of Langerhans-　Haruki Murakami

　 It may be a relatively minor incident compared to the crash of a jumbo jet, but a few years ago I was trapped overnight on a Chuo Line train during a typhoon. I had taken the express train from Matsumoto in the evening and stopped a little before Otsuki due to a landslide, which caused the train to come to a complete stop. By the time the morning broke, the typhoon had already passed, but the restoration work of the railway tracks was taking longer than expected, and we ended up spending time on the train until the afternoon of that day. However, since I was originally free, there was no problem with delaying my return to Tokyo for a day or two. I walked around the small town where the train stopped, bought a bag of grapes and three pocketbooks of Philip K. Dick, and then returned to my seat, eating grapes and reading leisurely. I think it's regrettable for those who were on a hurry trip, but for someone like me, this was quite an enjoyable experience. I could read books all at once, get a bento, get a refund for the express fare, and if I complained about it, I felt like something bad would happen to me. It's also very pleasant to get off at a small station where you would never normally get off and wander aimlessly around the small town without any purpose. I can't remember the name, but it seems like a place where you could walk from end to end in fifteen minutes. There was a post office, a bookstore, a pharmacy, something like a fire brigade, and a primary school with a large playground for some reason, where dogs were walking with their heads down. The sky after the typhoon had passed was a clear blue, and the white clouds were reflected vividly in the puddles scattered everywhere. When passing by a store that specialized in grapes, a youthful and sweet-sour grape aroma wafted out. I bought a bag of grapes at that store, and while reading Philip K. Dick's novel, I ate them all. Thanks to that, my "Time Slip to Mars" has grape stains all over it.