Hoeru Kaze

 

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Introduction

In a land far away in the east, there is a town made of pottery. The roofs of the houses are tiled in blue ceramic and the shrine is made of a beautiful yet now crumbling porcelain. The most resplendent of all the buildings is the town hall, made from the finest kaolin clay, designed and created by none other than the greatest potter in the land, Tanakamaru-san.

The town is high up in the forest ridden mountains so for a long time it remained secluded; in fact, it was only when Tanakamaru-san left the mountains to sell some of her pottery to surrounding areas that others learnt of its existence. The town built by potters soon became an attraction and people travelled from far and wide to visit it. Stories about it reached even across the sea; the story about a boy catching a giant red fish that fed the town for nine days, the stories about the original company of potters stolen from their homes to be kept hidden high in the mountains and the story about a dog who broke chains and stopped a parade with a single bark.

This is a story about how I met that dog and how I set her free and how she, in turn, saved my life.

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Chapter 1

I was sent to the town as an educator. I arrived on a hot summer day with a suitcase of belongings and a secret wrapped up so tightly and hidden away that even I hardly noticed it. I had been given a fan that I flapped desperately in front of my face; I had never experienced such heat. It clung to my clothes and hung so thickly in the air that I almost had to wade through it.

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