Eat Sushi

• “Eat well.“

I.

You’re a tourist in a small Japanese coastal town called Kurome.

A typical backpacker who’s been drifting here for a few days now, soaking in the local atmosphere, slowly memorizing certain streets, faces, and names of dishes. You want to know what else lies here. What sits—so to speak—beneath the surface.

You’re hungry. Not for food, but for understanding.

It’s evening when you stumble into a long, narrow alley whose end you can’t even quite see. It curves gently like a snake and bleeds into darkness.

You peel away from the main tourist route, turning into that alley like a curious new branch growing away from the trunk.

The sun slips behind the horizon far too quickly; the evening glow snuffs out, carbonizes, and seeps into the night in a surprisingly short span. You can feel the dampness of the surrounding walls—windowless walls of old houses. There is no street lighting, yet the sharp, vital stars above give you just enough illumination to see a few meters ahead.

Your lizard brain urges you to stop, to turn back. But another part of you insists on going deeper, further into this alley that stubbornly refuses to end.

This town is like an ancient creature—fossilized and motionless on the surface, yet fully alive inside. And always hungry. It needs only to lie here with its mouth open wide, and the food crawls in on its own. Confused tourists, mostly—tourists like you.

The alley you’re walking through is its esophagus.

Creature or not, hunger begins to stir in you as well.

In the distance, you notice a muted, warm yellow glow. That must be the end of the alley, you think and quicken your pace. A few small whirlwinds of air coil around your ankles—not strong, but unmistakable. They ruffle your pant legs, kiss your skin, and vanish.

With every step, the yellow glow grows brighter, and your mind tries to anticipate its source.

Soon enough, you realize it’s a tiny mobile sushi stall—wooden, with a roof of corrugated metal. Paper lanterns hang from its eaves, their soft glow the very thing that lured you in. The air carries the smell of fresh fish and seaweed.

From behind the counter, a small old man stares at you—his skin crumpled like paper, his belly slightly swollen. His grin stretches from ear to ear, revealing large yellow teeth. His hands shimmer with a thin film of salt.

“Don’t be shy, come closer,” he says in your native language—fluent, precise. “Surely you’re hungry.”

You’re startled, but in truth, you are hungry.

So you sit on the foldable bench right in front of the stall. Your elbows rest on the counter.

“I’ve just prepared a special selection of sushi. A varied selection. The best sushi in Kurome. Not just in Kurome!”

“For whom did you prepare it… exactly?” you ask, puzzled—there’s not a soul around, and you only just arrived.

“For you, of course!”

He sets down a wooden tray piled with fresh sushi. And he wasn’t lying—it’s genuinely diverse. Nigiri, maki, uramaki, temaki, temari, even gunkan.

“Go on, have some.”

“Yes, please.”

It’s impossible to resist.

Although… a few pieces, upon closer inspection, look more or less unusual.

The old man notices how carefully you’re examining his food.

“Variety,” he says, “comes with certain risks. Eat to your fill, but also… eat well.”

He hands you a pair of wooden chopsticks.

You take them.

“Eat well.”