The Orange Button

A commuter train in Tokyo on a summer evening, warm late light slanting across a long bench seat of green moquette, city lights soft beyond the windows, on the seat a flat rectangular cassette player fifteen centimetres tall, its front of dark metallic blue with a brushed silver strip along the right edge, a narrow window showing the two hubs of a plain white cassette, one small orange button on the top edge, every surface plain and unmarked, beside it a dark leather briefcase and the grey trouser leg of a seated passenger, a hand holding up a light silver-grey metal headband headphone with two round dark grey foam pads.