The dog who joined the round

He appears on a Tuesday behind Sato-san's bicycle — a shiba puppy with a patch over one eye, no collar, and total confidence in where he is going: everywhere Sato-san goes. Every proper village, English or otherwise, acquires such a dog eventually. It was our turn.

By the third street the whole neighbourhood has watched him fail to climb the shrine steps twice, and fall into Ume-san's flour sacks, emerging as a small determined ghost. He is, everyone agrees without a meeting, staying.

Ito-san opens a file: FOUND — one dog, brave, clumsy. HOME — the correct paperwork stalls, because every shop on the street has quietly claimed him. The file closes itself: home, everywhere.

They call him Poko, for the sound he makes falling over things. He sleeps at the police box, breakfasts at the bakery, and reports to the café each afternoon, where four small green colleagues ride him around the counter like the neighbourhood's smallest bus.