Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. And this particular chapter is called Eric. Are we ready?
Some years ago we had a foreign exchange student, someone who's come to study from another place, come to live with us. We found it very difficult to pronounce his name correctly, but he didn't mind, he told us just to call him Eric.
We had repainted the spare room, bought new rugs and furniture, and generally made sure everything would be comfortable for him. So I can't why say why it was that Eric chose to sleep and study most of the time in our kitchen pantry.
"It must be a cultural thing" said mum, "as long as he's happy". We started storing food and kitchen things in other cupboards so we wouldn't disturb him. There you go.
But sometimes I wondered if Eric was happy. He was so polite that I'm not sure he would have told us if something bothered him.
A few times I saw him through the pantry door gap studying with silent intensity and imagined what it might be like for him here in our country.
There's Eric studying a book, it's actually really small but he's reading.
Secretly I had been looking forward to having a foreign visitor, I had so many things to show him. For once I could be a local expert, a fountain of interesting facts and opinions. Fortunately Eric was curious and always had plenty of questions. However, they weren't the kind of questions I had been expecting.
So here are Eric's questions, and they are questions about electric power, about stamps, about water going down the plug hole and I'm not sure what this other one is about, the one up here
Anyway, most of the time I could only say "I'm not really sure" or "hmm that's just how it is". I didn't feel helpful at all.
I had planned for us to go on a number of weekly excursions together, as I was determined to show our visitor the best places in the city and it's surrounds. I think Eric enjoyed these trips but once again it was hard to really know.
Eric was having lots of experiences.
Most of the time Eric seemed more interested in small things he discovered on the ground. I might have found this a little exasperating but I kept thinking about what mum had said about the cultural thing then I didn't mind so much.
Nevertheless none of us could help but be bewildered by the way Eric left our home. A sudden departure early one morning with little more than a wave and a polite 'goodbye'. It actually took us a while to realise he wasn't coming back.
Out the window on a leaf in the wind. Eric's on his way.
There was much speculation, questions, over dinner later that evening. Did Eric seem upset? Did he enjoy his stay? Would we ever hear from him again? An uncomfortable feeling hung in the air like something unfinished, unresolved, that bothered us for hours, or at least until one of us discovered what was in the pantry. Go and see for yourself, it's still there after all these years thriving in the darkness. It's the first thing we show any new visitors to our house. "Look what our foreign exchange student left us!" we tell them, "It must be a cultural thing", says mum.
"Thank you for the wonderful time"
What did he leave? Do you think he left all these things? I do too.
Pretty good. Did you enjoy it?
Did you enjoy it?
Yeah I did too.
Thank you so much for joining me in this. This has been great fun.

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