Puma

“For breakfast I eat convenience store bread, for lunch I eat convenience store rice balls with something from the hot-food cabinet, and after work I’m often so tired I just buy something from the store and take it home for dinner. I drink about half the bottle of water while I’m at work, then put it in my ecobag and take it home with me to finish at night. When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I’m as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“It’s the color scheme of that first afternoon—that white panorama full of potential, that threshold white—that Marina understands as whomise. And that’s what she’s trying to recreate now, a year and a bit later, with a series of expensive light bulbs. ‘White light,’ the packaging promised. She fits them one by one throughout the house, and unbeknown to her, choreographs the slow dance of light-over-puddle in the passageway.”
― Laia Jufresa, Umami

“When I can’t sleep, I think about the transparent glass box that is still stirring with life even in the darkness of night. That pristine aquarium is still operating like clockwork. As I visualize the scene, the sounds of the store reverberate in my eardrums and lull me to sleep.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“I no longer knew what standard to live by. Until now, my body had belonged to the convenience store, even when I wasn’t working. Sleeping, keeping in good physical shape, and eating nutritiously were all part of my job. I had to stay healthy for work.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman