My father was a bit plump, he looked grumpy and didn’t laugh much in front of me. As time passed by, he became smaller and smaller. Long after I left home to live on my own, my father bought a black dog. Its belly was partly white, which contrasted with its body. The doggy’s name is Kuro, which means ‘black’ in Japanese.

Every time my father opened the door of the garden, the dog would stick out its tongue and wag its tail because it understood that it was going for a walk. However I’ve actually never seen my father walking his dog. But if the dog wasn’t around, then neither was he. Every day, walking the dog took him about two hours. Now that my father has passed away, I do it in his stead.

Whenever I walk the dog, I have flashes of memories of my father speaking to the people with whom he used to chat. Much to my surprise, that was the side of my father I never knew.