The Sixth story of the anthology short story series “A Song from the Laundry Room” is titled “Every cloud has a silver lining”.
This story records that it is during a return visit to a hotel in South Korea in 2023.

In 2019, I celebrated my 30th birthday in Seoul, South Korea. The landscape through the window in the hotel room was a hazy gray. Air pollution levels were so high that day, TV showed me that the government had banned large vehicles and old diesel cars from entering the city.
The hazy gray landscape I was looking at through the window in the hotel room was not just air pollution. It seemed to reflect my feelings as I entered my thirties.

In 2023, at the age of 34, I visited the same hotel again, this time in the same room.
The hotel no longer had the sprawling lobby of its more glamorous days; Replaced by a counter where every part could easily be substituted with something else. There weren’t nor of the receptionists in uniform, which was totally out of trend, and the picturesque lobby’s flower arrangements.

短編アンソロジーのシリーズ「A Song from the Laundry Room」6作目のストーリーのタイトルは「Every cloud has a silver lining」です。
このストーリーは、2023年韓国のホテルに再訪した際に撮影したストーリーです。

2019年、ぼくは30歳の誕生日を韓国・ソウルで迎えた。窓の外の風景は霞んだグレーだった。TVは、政府が大気汚染のレベルがあまりに高いことを理由に市内への大型車や古いディーゼル車の乗り入れを禁止したことを知らせていた。
ホテルの窓から眺めていたグレーの霞んだ風景は、ぼくにとって、それは単なる大気汚染ではなかった。それは30代に突入したぼくの心情を映し出しているような気がした。
2023年、34歳になったぼくは再び同じホテルの同じ部屋を訪れた。ホテルには、華やかな時代を感じさせただだっ広いロビーはなく、代わりに、どこのパーツも簡単に取り替えがきくような変わり映えしないカウンターがあった。
流行があったことを知らせるような色合いの制服を着たやる気のない受付係も、絵に描いたようなロビー装花もなくなっていた。

それでも、窓の外にはあの頃と同じようにグレーの霞んだ風景があった。そして、あの頃と変わらず部屋の中から外を眺め、写真を撮っているぼくは、先の見えない未来に飛び込む勇気のない男のようだった。






Photobook 'Every cloud has a silver lining'
”A song from the laundry room” #6
Every cloud has a silver lining, 2025
18.2 x 20 cm
30 pages
13 color plates
Softcover
Edition 50 + 2 A.P
Printed in Kyoto, Japan

€12 + Shipping

A song from the laundry room

“A song from the laundry room” is my latest anthology short story series which seems it doesn’t make any sense for someone else. However, I personally have it as a small treasure of my life.
The title of the series “A song from the laundry room” is named after the sentence from Brazilian author Clarice Lispector’s novel.

Story #1 A memory is something you have or something you have lost, published in Nov 2022
Story #2 The scene on the wall, published in May 2023
Story #3 The elderly couple, some boats, waiting for sun comes out, published in October 2023
Story #4 Ode to Autumn, published in October 2023
Story #5 Rites of Winter, published in February 2025
Story #6 Every cloud has a silver lining, published in May 2025