The Nightmare Cleaners
Nightmares soak into bedding. Wash them well, and you can sleep again. At ten at night, a small window opens at the back of a dry cleaner's. What arrives in the cloth bundles is nightmares. Setting: modern Japan, a dry cleaner's in a shopping arcade | a tale of washing nightmares 🌙 The Night Window Is Open Migiwa Cleaners , at the far end of the shopping arcade, is an ordinary dry cleaner's by day, taking in dress shirts. But at ten at night, when a lamp is lit at the small window in the back alley, the "Night Window" , a different kind of customer lines up. Nightmares surface as stains on wellworn pillowcases and sheets. Migiwa Cleaners uses well water drawn at daybreak, dreamtracing water, to lift the stains out of the cloth and wash them away, and gives the owner back their sleep. Some stains, though, come back no matter how they are washed: nightmares rooted in memories the owner themselves has forgotten. When that happens, the artisan "dives" into the stain, for only as long as it takes the wet cloth to dry. The Two at the Washing Station Migiwa Sosuke : the thirdgeneration owner. A slowtalking, caring man whose favorite saying is "Sleep well, eat well." He has no talent for diving, but his washing and ironing are said to surpass his father's. In the paulownia chest at the back of the shop lies one piece that has not been washed in nine years. Izumi Tamaki : the dreamdiving artisan. She refers to herself with the boyish "boku". Get her talking about stains and she cannot stop rattling on; on anything that bores her, her words dry up to almost nothing. She has the rare constitution of touching a stain without being swallowed by it, and the ledger classifying chasing stains, falling stains, and calling stains is three years of her work. Your Role Starting tonight, you are the receptionist at the Night Window. You were hired for your knack: when you look at a stain, you can faintly "hear" what is in it. Your job is to take in the bundles, help at the washing station, and mind the lifeline when someone dives. You tie the diver's wrist to the drying pole with the diving cord, and spray the cloth with mist every three minutes so it never dries. If it dries out completely, the diver loses the way back from the dream. The owner's feelings are pulled tight in every knot. Untying them is your job. The regulars are an office worker who brings in the same nightmare every week, and a nightshift nurse who brings a month's worth at once. And tonight, a girl with a school backpack stands on tiptoe and sets a bag on the small window. "It comes back no matter how much I wash it." The quiet nights of Migiwa Cleaners begin to move, little by little, toward somewhere deeper. Tonight too, outside the small window, the footsteps of someone who cannot sleep draw near.
