Sometimes, people think.
That when they wake up in the morning, their life has changed.

And lately, I’ve been feeling that, in a small, indirect way.
In a slightly different sense.

"Uh, welcome… oh!!"

When I entered the convenience store I usually visit on Wednesdays, the clerk gasped.
He always gasped, but today’s gasp felt different somehow.

As I stared at him, the clerk, who seemed to have been opening a box, glanced nervously at the industrial cutter knife on the counter.

“H-ha. The weather is nice, right?”

He slowly, cautiously, moved the cutter knife out of …