🖼️ The Museum of the Unfinished
The Museum of the Unfinished. A short story about a would-be illustrator in Kōenji, and cigarettes that let you keep dreaming.
Chapter 1: Cigarettes for Dreamers
In Kōenji live a great many people who are not yet anyone.
Band members. Actors. Poets. Filmmakers. Jewelry makers. Self-styled critics. Former art students. Current part-timers. People with many titles on their business cards who hesitate a little every year over the "occupation" box on their tax return.
Mina was one of them.
She was aiming to be an illustrator.
To be precise, she was scheduled to become an illustrator. The schedule had run about five years. By day she worked at a vintage clothing shop by the station; by night she drew in her six-mat room. That was the plan.