Disclaimer: The short story is set in modern Japan, specifically Osaka. The readers should approach the book with this knowledge in mind.

"It was Osaka, the city where it was easy to lie half-dead on the street and difficult to smile at strangers. It was the city of rowdy young girls in their anime costumes and of public shaming for not matching your shoes to your bag. It was the city of hanging lanterns drenched in the smell of Dotonbori sake and all-night partygoers. It was the city of shut-ins of thirty years claiming human connection was overrated, of long hours and no extra pay, of Kamagasaki’s cheap internet cafes and flophouses with no permanent address where the homeless people squat in. And it was the city of a dust-specked book in an antique shop while the owner tried to finish it without the pages falling out."

Kyousuke was craving. He had been working for fifteen years without leave; working was his second nature. He had forgotten what it felt like to have a happy marriage, a happy family, a happy life. He had forgotten how to live. But there was one thing he would never forget.

Alcohol.

To get away from everything, the man fell back to his daily routine: getting dead drunk. As he did, the memory of his past came to haunt him. Would he ever find a way out?

'The Thirst' is literary fiction done right, a well-written short story that highlights a potentially life-changing moment in the middle of a path to destruction. A very short, but guaranteed satisfying read.