The Kitten and the Café at the Edge of the Ocean

“We have a cat in the café. Does that bother you?”

A small house at the edge of the ocean, the road laid with shells. A young, polite host will courteously offer you to choose food to your taste. People come here to order kagezen—“a treat for a shadow.” They say these dishes allow you to talk with the dead and ask them questions that worry the living. The café doors are open to those who have lost loved ones, and they say that under the blue roof miracles happen—miracles that can heal even the deepest emotional wounds.