“I just didn’t know what to do with it,” admitted Shōji Suzuki. The 74-year-old bento factory worker from Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, was being questioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He had recently begun a new relationship and, while preparing to move in with his partner, encountered a dilemma. His wife had passed away some years earlier, and the urn containing her ashes—never interred—now seemed, to him, a barrier to his new life. In the fragile beginnings of romance, many will go to great lengths to avoid friction. The thought of arranging a proper service, with all its emotional and financial weight, must have felt beyond reach. So instead, he looked for another way to let go.

Japan has seen several cases of ashes abandoned in public—a box full in a toilet cubicle, a bin liner tossed into a river. Behind such headlines often lies a heartbreaking story: a person unable to afford a burial, yet unwilling to keep what remains of the one they lost. Suzuki’s actions, though, breached more than just the law—he also contravened the terms and conditions for coin lockers installed in JR East stations. In an act borne, perhaps, of desperation, or simply the absence of a better idea, he deposited his wife’s remains inside one at Tokyo Station.

JR East maintains a list of items forbidden from its coin lockers, including explosives, firearms, animals, narcotics, and human remains. Whether or not Suzuki had read the rules, he was unmistakably in breach. These lists, like the ones we glance over when checking luggage at the airport, can seem like routine formalities. Yet their contents are rarely hypothetical. If it’s on the list, it’s because someone, somewhere, has once tried to leave it in a coin locker.