The door to the waiting area stood open, and people followed the white painted line on the ground inside.
The white line turned along the foot of the wall and ran all the way to the end of the corridor.
Kiyoshi stood midway through the queue.
Three or four people were scattered ahead of him, all walking slowly. Each carried an equipment bag, its strap digging into a shoulder. No one spoke.
The inspection station was at the end of the corridor: a long table with an examiner seated behind it.
The examiner kept his head down, his eyes fixed on the register on the table. It lay open to his left, his pen poised as he waited for the equipment to be set out.
A stack of unused paper weighed down one corner of the table, its edges lifting in the breeze. The examiner freed a hand to press it down, then continued writing.
A guard stood at either end of the corridor, arms folded, without so much as a flicker of the eyelids. When someone drew too close, one merely lifted his chin.
One person stepped up, one item was inspected. After the inspection came a stroke of the pen, the item was pushed back, and the person stepped aside.
The examiner never looked up.
The match chart hung at the other end of the corridor, half a courtyard away. The date of the finals was written on it, too far away to make out.
The wind lifted a corner of the chart, then let it settle back.
Someone rose onto tiptoe to look that way, then returned to position when the queue moved.
Beyond the enclosing wall, footsteps passed during a changing of the guard without stopping. No one in the corridor looked over.
The queue inched