The heron of the canal

The canal has a magistrate: Shibu, a grey heron who stands in the shallows like a folded umbrella and judges everything that moves. The fish. The current. The quality of the morning. All of it, wanting.

Katjo encounters him on the bridge rail during a delivery run, and the two of them do the thing each does best: they stand very still, and look at things properly.

An hour passes. Neither moves. Passers-by assume public art. Somewhere in that hour, without a sound, an entire professional respect is negotiated — the strictest bird on the water and the strictest small person on the street, colleagues at last.

Now, on Thursdays, the heron stalks past the café window and inclines his head one degree. Katjo returns exactly one degree. Hara-san, watching over her newspaper, files it under things that are none of her business and all of her delight.