Summer Vacation

Japanese Title: 夏休み (Natsu yasumi)
Author: Kawakami Hiromi (川上弘美)
Taken From: 神様 (Kami-sama, 1998)

While I was picking pears in Genda-san’s orchard, three small creatures ran around my feet.

I noticed them because Genda-san had remarked, “Oh, they’ve come out.”

“They come out sometimes,” Genda-san said, tossing a scrap pear that wouldn’t be shipped out to the ground. Two of the three went over to the pear and gnawed at it. They were all about the same size as the pear. The two munched away at the pear hungrily, but the third just stood there without moving. “Here,” Genda-san said, picking a pear off of a tree and placing it in front of the third creature. It just stared at him, trembling.

After a moment, Genda-san left to go get a box for packing pears. I watched the creatures while I sorted the pears Genda-san had picked from the trees. The two that had sunk their teeth in immediately devoured the scrap pears as I looked on. The third was still trembling. It didn’t seem like it was going to move.

“That one is no good,” a voice said, startling me. One of the creatures voraciously chewing through the pears had spoken up.

“That one is no good.”
“That one is pretty bad.”
“Even though the pears are delicious.”
“Even though the pears are big.”

It said these things in a high, squeaky voice.

When Genda-san came back with a box, I asked him about the creatures.

“They occasionally appear. I’m not sure why, but they seem to come along with the pears. They disappear after awhile, so it’s okay if you ignore them.”

When I mentioned that one of them had spoken, Genda-san nodded as if he were annoyed.

“They’ll speak, but that’s it,” he said and began to pack the sorted pears into the box.

After the day’s work was finished, I put one of the creatures, which were still loitering around my feet, into my palm. It was warm. I felt as if my tired palm had grown bigger. When I asked if it was okay to take it home, Genda-san widened his eyes.

“What are you going to do with it?”

Nothing, really. Genda-san shrugged his shoulders, but he didn’t say anything else. I cupped the one that didn’t try to eat the pears in the palms of my hands and walked back to my apartment. The other two bounced after me.

*****

Since they didn’t eat my leftovers from dinner when I set them down for them, I gave them pears again. They quickly scurried over and ate them skin and all. This time the third one gnawed at the pears too. Between the three of them they demolished the pears in a flash. Just like that, six pears were eaten up.

“Pears!”
“More pears!”
“More, more!”

Since the two lively ones were making a fuss, I placed even more pears in front of them. The more withdrawn one didn’t try to eat any more. I wiped my back with a towel while watching the creatures eat away at the pears. Almost ten days had passed since I had started working in Genda-san’s pear fields.

Recently, when night falls, I get the feeling as if something has started to slip. When I wonder what exactly is slipping, I get the feeling that, since time is slipping, since space is slipping, and since sound is slipping, probably everything is slipping away together. That’s why I got someone to let me work in the pear orchard during the day.

I held out my hand, and the withdrawn one climbed onto it. It climbed to my shoulder and touched the nape of my neck with a tiny hand covered in white fur.

“I’m no good, you know.” I felt its breath on the nape of my neck.

“Everything is no good.” It scrunched up its body.

When I asked it what was no good, it started to explain fluently. Once it started to speak, it was unexpectedly loquacious.

“It’s no good that when I eat the pears the pears disappear.”
“It’s no good that whenever I move I become a little less of me.”
“It’s no good that everything will turn black.”
“It’s no good that things will change and become bright.”
“It’s no good that things will change no matter what I do.”

It fervently explained these various things to me.

The two lively ones had neatly consumed the extra pears. Now they slept while stretched out on the floor on their backs. At some point they had started to snore. When I asked the one still awake if it was sleepy, it shook its head.

“Is it okay if I am awake? Is it okay if I am always awake?” When I answered that I didn’t mind, it descended from my shoulder and plopped down on top of my desk. It watched me clean up after the meal.

When I looked at it again after washing the dishes, it was sound asleep and snoring louder than the other two.

*****

As I was getting ready to head out to the pear orchard the next day, the three creatures fidgeted while facing the foyer. It was going to be hot out. They scrambled outside when I opened the door in the foyer. When all three were together like this, I couldn’t tell which one was the withdrawn one. I walked towards the pear field, wiping away my sweat. The three creatures walked at my feet, sometimes in front of me and sometimes behind. They chattered about something in small, high voices, but I didn’t catch what they were saying.

I picked pears all day. Genda-san came in the afternoon to spray pesticide. The three creatures climbed up the trucks of the pear trees and stared at Genda-san’s hands.

“How did it go?” Genda-san asked. “Did anything happen when you took them home?”

When I answered that they just ate pears and went to sleep, Genda-san laughed.

As soon as Genda-san said, “Why don’t you just leave them here tonight?” the three started squeaking noisily.

“No!”
“No, no!”
“We’re going!”
“We’re going home!”
“We’re going to sleep at home!”

Genda-san laughed again.

“They’ve really gotten attached to you, haven’t they?” he said and sprayed pesticide onto the ground from the tip of a brass pole fitted onto a hose. Genda-san wiped away his sweat with a towel hung around his neck.

I wanted to ask Genda-san what the creatures were, but I hesitated to say anything right in front of them. When Genda-san had finished spraying pesticide, I stuck my head under a faucet attached to a water tank and poured water over myself. I scooped many handfuls of water and gulped them down one after another. Before long, it was evening. Bats flew around close to the ground. The three creatures yelled things I didn’t understand at the bats while stomping their feet.

When our work was done, Genda-san gave me a few more scrap pears than usual. Saying, “You can have these, too,” he also gave me corn and an eggplant.

I went back to my apartment and gave the pears to the three creatures. I boiled the corn that Genda-san had given me, but they wouldn’t eat anything other than pears. The two lively ones seemed to be more comfortable in my apartment than they were yesterday. They leapt up onto the cupboard and picked up the phone, putting it to their ears, but eventually they fell asleep on the floor. The withdrawn one sat on top of my desk with his eyes wide open.

When I told it that it was really snoring last night, it made an angry face.

“Don’t say embarrassing things like that!”
“It’s okay if I snore.”
“It’s fine!”

It angrily repeated “it’s fine” over and over. It got a little annoying. The feeling that everything was slipping crept up on me as the night got later. It had been easier to fall asleep after I had started working in the pear fields, but maybe because the three creatures excited me so much, I couldn’t sleep. The sense of slipping was a little more terrible than usual. Thinking that I couldn’t stand it, I got up and dried the dishes, but the feeling still didn’t pass. I went outside and decided to walk to the pear field.

I felt the creature that was still awake following me. Maybe because it was dark, or maybe because of the slipping, I didn’t really know if the creature was actually there. I walked quickly. A bit of the daytime heat remained, and it was tepid outside. I got the feeling that several of my shadows were overlapping one another in the night.

When I got to the field, I started digging in the ground with a hoe. I got a bit used to the dimness, and I could clearly see that the one creature had followed me. Its white fur shone in the light of the moon. Each time I swung the hoe, the creature, scared, made its body smaller.

Heh! I dug into the ground, putting power into each stroke. Heh! Heh! I gathered my strength and dug.

“Why are you digging like that?” the creature asked after awhile. When I kept digging without answering, it asked the same question again. Since I remained silent, it just kept asking. Finally I yelled at it to go away.

Opening its mouth in a little o of surprise, it looked up at me. Its body wavered, and it disappeared into the night.

*****

The withdrawn one didn’t come back the next day and then the next. I worked harder than ever in the pear orchard. The two remaining creatures ran through the pear trees. When the sun went down and work was over, I went back to my apartment with the two creatures. They ate a ton of pears, as always. When I asked them what had happened to the other one, they answered indifferently.

“Well now.”
“I wonder.”
“He probably went back.”
“He went back, he went back.”
“He’s probably off crying somewhere.”
“He’s probably crying.”

A third and a fourth day passed, but it still didn’t come back. Since I had been working harder, Genda-san increased my daily wages.

“You should take it a little easier. The pears aren’t going to grow any faster,” he said, adding a thousand yen to my wages.

“Speaking of which, aren’t there only two now?” Genda-san asked. I looked down and saw the two lively ones running around. Genda-san didn’t say anything else about them.

“Would you like to take a day off?”

When I answered that I didn’t want to take time off, since I wouldn’t get any pears if I didn’t come to work, Genda-san laughed. “You’re taking quite good care of them, aren’t you?” The two creatures ran extremely quickly.

*****

I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. My chest felt painfully heavy. A ray of moonlight shone into the room from a crack in the curtain. The two creatures were stretched out on the floor sleeping. The outlines of the things in my room were sharply defined. I could see the outline of the lampshade and the pear box and an empty bottle on top of my desk. My chest was terribly heavy.

When I touched my hand to my heart, I felt something there. I sprang up, and an outline that looked like the creature that had disappeared jumped off of me.

When I spoke up, the creature bit into my pillow.

“I’m home.”
“I came back.”
“Are you mad?”
“Are you still mad?”

I gently hugged it and rubbed my cheek against its tiny face. It obediently allowed me to pet it. Its white hair tickled me.

“So you’re not mad.”
“Thank goodness.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”

It apologized over and over again. When I answered that I wasn’t mad at all, it poked its fingers, which were about as big as chickweed leaves, into my cheek. When I said that I was the one who was sorry, it poked a little harder.

“I was a little sad.”
“I cried a little.”

It kept poking me as it spoke. Since I just let it poke me, the pressure quickly became stronger, as if it wasn’t restraining itself. When I said that it was starting to hurt, it stopped poking me and whispered.

“I’m hungry.”
“I want a pear.”
“Pear!”
“Pear!”

I pointed to the box of pears, and in one movement it jumped in. It ate the pears voraciously, scattering them about.

*****

“We’re about done here,” Genda-san broke the ice. August was almost over.

“Since the peak season has already passed, I can handle the rest by myself. We still have a bit of time until the strawberry season.”

Genda-san leaned against the trunk of a pear tree and lit a cigarette. He looked at the three creatures running around and narrowed his eyes.

“So they’re still alive,” Genda-san said. When I jerked my face up, Genda-san seemed surprised at my reaction.

“Didn’t I tell you? They disappear when the pear season is over.”

I got the feeling that things had slipped, even though it was broad daylight. I felt like another me, just the same size as me, had flicked into existence and started to walk away from where I was standing.

“They’re just like insects. Did you ever keep a beetle for a pet when you were a kid? They die when summer is over, right? These guys are the same.”

While rubbing his cigarette out inside an empty can, Genda-san lightly kicked at one of the creatures running around his feet. The one that had been kicked at bounced up. As if it found it interesting, it bounced again. The other two, imitating it, bounced up as well.

“It’s nothing to worry about, they’re just stupid little things,” Genda-san said, selecting ten large and especially juicy-looking pears from the shipping carton.

“I’d like you to take these. Please come work here again. You really helped me out.”

I took the wages for my last day and went home. When I got back to my apartment and opened the envelope, three thousand yen more than usual was enclosed. I set the pears on the floor, and the three creatures came squirming up. Splashing the juice on their fur, they gobbled up the pears with gusto.

*****

An intense slipping came in the night. It wasn’t a subtle slipping like it usually was. It was a slipping like the one I felt in Genda-san’s orchard. It wasn’t a feeling like space or the earth’s axis was slipping. It was a feeling like I had completely slipped out of my body.

Having slipped out, I stood beside my body. The three creatures were bouncing around my sleeping body. They should have been the same three creatures that were sound asleep and snoring earlier, but here they were bouncing around energetically in the middle of the night.

“Let’s go!”
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“To the pear trees!”
“To the pear trees! To the pear trees!”

They shook my sleeping body, chirping in unison.

When I spoke up and told them that I had already left it and was standing right here, the three all looked up.

“You left it.
“You left it! You left it!”
“Let’s go.”
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”

All three of the creatures scrambled up my leg. They pointed to the door. Leaving my sleeping body behind, I went outside with the three riding on my shoulders. The heavy summer air flowed slowly around me. The pear trees stood in front of me in the night.

“Let’s go!”
“Let’s go!”
“Hurry, hurry!”

The two lively ones jumped to the ground together. They quickly scrambled up a pear tree and stood still at its highest point, staring. The withdrawn one was still on my shoulder. I asked it if it was going too, but it shook its head.

“I’m no good.”
“It’s scary.”
“I’m scared.”
“I don’t want to.”

The two in the tree started eating the pears that had been left on the branches as a good luck charm. They didn’t eat them in the messy way they usually did. They ate them quietly, as if savoring the flavor. I turned my face toward the one still on my shoulder and asked it once more if it was going to go too.

“No!”
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to become something that isn’t me.”

I told it that that we could go back to the room if it didn’t want to go into the tree, but it was silent.

I asked again if it was sure that it didn’t want to go back, and this time it shook its head.

Well then, what should we do?

It didn’t answer. The two lively ones had completely finished all the remaining pears. Their shapes, which were attached perfectly to the trunk, looked like knotty lumps in the wood of the pear tree.

My body was light, and it was becoming even lighter. I felt like I would be swallowed up into the atmosphere if I wasn’t careful. I would be drawn into someplace I didn’t know, and I wouldn’t be able to come back. The creature on my shoulder was trembling, just like it was when I first saw it. Each part of me that its trembling touched became warm and relaxed. The feeling of looseness gradually spread from my shoulder to my chest to my stomach to my arms to my feet. It was like stepping into warm water.

“Let’s go deeper into the trees.”

Following the creature’s suggestion, I walked with it sitting on my shoulder. After hesitating a bit, it jumped from my shoulder onto the trunk of a tree and hurriedly began to eat the pears left on the branches. As if to catch up with the other two, it chomped down on the pears as quickly as it could. It ate with a vacant face no different than before.

“It’s still no good,” it turned to me and said after it had finished eating.

I spoke up again. “If it’s no good…” Then I stopped. If we were talking about being no good, I was the same. I couldn’t say anything like “if it’s no good” to another living creature.

“I don’t want to, but I’m going,” the creature said with a pained, serious expression after a long silence. The light of the moon sparkled on its small mouth and nose and eyes.

When I asked if it was time for it to leave, I became lonely. Being left behind is terribly lonely. I cried out, asking it not to go.

“Goodbye,” it said, softly closing its eyes. As I watched, it became a lump in the wood. It became a white lump on the pear tree. When I touched the lump, it was no longer moving. As I was touching it while thinking that it had already become a knot of wood, my body became lighter, and I felt like I was being sucked into the middle of the lump.

I was being sucked in. I felt like I was being carried along.

At that instant, I instinctively hit the lump and drew myself away from it. I felt like I could hear its voice saying, let’s go. I screamed, no! no! When I cried out, my body lost its weight, and I flew back to my room with incredible speed.

I returned to my sleeping body, which was breathing regularly in its bed.

I was covered with sweat.

*****

The next day I went to see Genda-san. I was wearing clothes for going into town instead of my usual work clothes. Genda-san said “Oh!” and made me tea.

I thanked him for employing me and informed him that I intended to look for other work as I drank the tea.

“The summer is going to end soon.” While smoking a cigarette, Genda-san looked up at the sky.

“Occasionally I’ll notice that that I’m not seeing kids playing around anymore, and I wonder if maybe they’re doing homework. I wonder if they waited until the end of the summer to start doing the homework they were assigned for the vacation.”

Genda-san kept gazing at the sky as he said this.

I passed by the pear orchard as I was leaving, but I could no longer tell which trees had the white lumps on them.

Thank you for everything, I mumbled, knocking on one of the pear trees with my fist. I had a sudden feeling that three running creatures crossed the edge of my field of vision. I turned around, but nothing was there. A small dragonfly darted around the bases of the tree trunks. After rubbing my hand against the pear tree once more, I started walking.

Zombie

Japanese Title: ゾンビ (Zombie)
Author: Murakami Haruki (村上春樹)
Taken From: TV ピープル (TV People, 1993)

A man and a woman were walking down a road next to a graveyard. It was midnight and even foggy. They didn’t particularly want to be walking in such a place in the middle of the night, but due to various circumstances they had to pass by that way. They held each others’ hands tightly and walked at a quick pace.

“It’s almost like a Michael Jackson music video,” the girl said.

“Yeah, the gravestones are moving,” the boy said.

Just then, they heard a groan, giiiiii, that sounded like something heavy moving somewhere. The two stopped walking and, without thinking, turned to look at each other.

The boy laughed. “It’s okay. There’s no reason to get so nervous. Some tree branches were scraping against each other. It was the wind or something.”

But the wind wasn’t blowing. The girl gulped and looked around the area. She felt really bad. She had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen.

It was a zombie.

But they couldn’t see anything. There wasn’t any indication that the dead had risen. The two started walking again. The girl sensed the boy’s face growing strangely rigid.

“Why do you have such a sloppy way of walking?” he asked abruptly.

“Me?” the girl asked, surprised. “Do I really walk in such a sloppy way?”

“It’s terrible,” the boy said.

“Really?”

“You’re bowlegged.”

The girl bit her lip. She probably was a little bowlegged. The bottoms of her shoes tended to wear down a little bit more on the outside, but it wasn’t bad enough for anyone to come right out and say so to her deliberately.

But she didn’t say anything. She loved the boy, and the boy even loved her. The two were planning on getting married next month. She didn’t want to get into a stupid fight. I’m probably a bit bowlegged, she thought. Isn’t that okay?

“This is the first time I’ve dated a bowlegged woman.”

“Really?” the girl said with a stiff smile on her face. Was he drunk? No, he can’t have had anything to drink today, she thought.

“And then there are the three moles inside your ear,” the boy said.

“Oh really?” the girl said. “Which ear?”

“The right one. Right inside your right ear, there are three moles. They’re really ugly.”

“Do you hate moles?”

“I hate ugly moles. What planet would you have to come from to like something like that?”

She bit her lip much, much harder.

“And then there’s your body odor,” the boy continued. “It’s been bothering me for awhile. If I had met you for the first time in summer, I wouldn’t have dated someone like you.”

The girl sighed and withdrew her hand from the boy’s.

“Hey, hold on a second. Do you have to say it to me like that? That’s really terrible. It’s that what you’ve been thinking all this time?”

“The collar of your blouse is dirty. The one you’re wearing today, right now. Why are you so filthy? Why can’t you do even one thing right?”

The girl was silent. She was so angry that her mouth wouldn’t work.

“You know, I have a whole ton of things I want to say to you. Your bowlegs, your stink, your dirty collar, the moles in your ear, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That’s right, why are you wearing earrings that look so bad on you? You look just like a prostitute. No, a prostitute would be much classier. If you’re going to wear something like that, why don’t you just put a ring through your nose? It would go perfectly with your double chin. Right, your double chin made me remember – your mother is a real pig. She’s a real oinking pig. That’s what you’re going to look like after twenty years. You’re so greedy, just like your mom. You’re a pig. You really eat shit up. Your dad is terrible too. He can barely write kanji, you know? He recently wrote a letter to my parents, right, and everyone laughed at it. They were saying how it was like he was almost illiterate. Did that asshole not even graduate from elementary school? Your house sucks. It’s a cultural slum. It would be better if someone threw oil on it and set it on fire. All the pig fat would sizzle while it burned, you bet.”

“Hey, if you don’t like me that much, why are you marrying me?”

The boy took no notice of her. “You’re a pig,” he said. “And then your thing. It’s really terrible down there. I just give up and do you, but your thing is like a cheap rubber band that’s already been stretched out too much. If I had your thing, I would die. If I were a girl, and something like that was stuck on me, I would die of shame. It wouldn’t even matter how I died. I would just die as quickly as I could. Living would be too embarrassing.”

The girl stood there in a daze. “How could you….”

Suddenly, the boy clutched his head. His face contorted painfully, and he sunk to the ground. He scratched at his temples with his fingernails. “It hurts!” he said. “My head feels like it’s tearing apart. I can’t stand it. It’s too much!”

“Are you okay?” the girl spoke up.

“I’m not okay. I can’t bear it. My skin feels like it’s burning up into pieces.”

The girl touched the boy’s face with her hand. It was feverish, as if it were burning. The girl tried to stroke it gently, but the skin slipped off in a film. As it peeled away, slimy red flesh appeared. She gasped and jumped back.

The boy stood up and cackled. He peeled off his skin rapidly with his own hands. His eyeballs plopped out of his head and dangled down. His nose became nothing more than two black holes. His lips disappeared, and his teeth stuck out. Those teeth grinned at her.

“The reason I was with you before was to eat your piggy meat. Do you think there would have been any other reason for me to date someone like you? But you were too stupid to get it. Are you an idiot? Are you an idiot? Are you an idiot? Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…”

And then that lump of exposed flesh came chasing after her. She broke into a run. But she couldn’t escape from the shambling mass of meat behind her. At the edge of the graveyard a slimy hand clutched her collar. She screamed and screamed.

…..

The boy held the girl’s body.

Her throat was dry. The boy looked at her, grinning.

“What’s the matter? Did you have a bad dream?”

The girl roused herself and looked around her. The two were sleeping on a bed in a hotel by a lake. She shook her head.

“Did I yell?”

“A whole lot,” he said, laughing. “Your scream was really loud. I bet everyone in the hotel heard it. It hope no one thinks there was a murder.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” the boy said. “You had a bad dream?”

“You can’t even imagine what a bad dream it was.”

“Would you tell me about it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“It would be better if you talked about it. If you tell someone, then all the bad vibrations will disappear.”

“That’s all right. I don’t want to talk about it now.”

The two were silent for a moment. She hugged the boy’s naked chest. She could hear frogs croaking in the distance. The boy’s heartbeat thudded solidly.

“Hey,” the girl said, remembering. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Are there any moles in my ears?”

“Moles?” the boy asked. “Are you talking about the three ugly ones in your right ear?”

She shut her eyes. It wasn’t over….

Normally

Japanese Title: ふつう (Futsū)
Author: CLAMP
Taken From: わたしのすきなひと (Watashi no suki na hito, 1995)

I wonder if the person who is reading this manga is married? Or maybe you’re unmarried?

Everyone in CLAMP still isn’t married, but really, like all girls of a certain age (and we’ll always be girls of a certain age), we yearn to be brides.

This manga was written when three friends of us CLAMP members got married one after the other. These three women are different ages, and the men who became their husbands have different jobs and come from different parts of the country, so each of the three women is a part of a different type of couple. When we saw these three all at once, though, they all said the same thing about marriage, and this made a really strong impression on us.

“What made me want to get married? It was because I thought, ‘Somehow we’ll be able to live normally.’”

There is nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the three newly married women who said this, but I found their words to be quite interesting. For me, being the single person that I am, marriage is an uncharted territory.

I’m not married (and I’ve never been married), so I don’t understand the worries of a wife, nor can I imagine the burdens of a husband. To me, as an unmarried person, marriage is something rather special. Since I thought that marriage was something that you couldn’t do if you didn’t have the appropriate passion or determination, I was really surprised when I heard the three newlyweds say, “Somehow we’ll be able to live normally.” But, at the same time, I realized something.

Without a doubt, marriage is a special thing. Becoming a married couple with someone who has been a separate person up until that point is a mysterious event that’s hard to imagine (well, maybe). However, what awaits the couple from the moment after this event is their everyday life, which hasn’t changed much at all. It’s the same as before they were married: morning still comes, they still wake up, they still eat breakfast, they still have to go to work.

I realized that it is precisely because of this that the three newlyweds chose a partner with whom they’d “be able to live normally.” This manga is an expression of this realization.

That being said, it still seems like the day when I experience this for myself is pretty far away…

The Princess Who Loved Insects

Japanese Title: 虫愛ずる姫君 (Mushi mezuru himegimi)
Author: Unknown
Taken From: 堤中納言物語 (Tsutsumi Chūnagon Monogatari, Late Thirteenth Century?)
Published By: 角川文庫ソフィア (1963)

Next door to the princess who loved butterflies, there lived the daughter of the Grand Counselor of Regional Inspection. She was not of ordinary elegance, and, since her parents took great care in raising her, she had no equal.

This princess said, “People who love things like flowers and butterflies are foolish and strange. People are able to comprehend the inner nature of things, so it is tracing something to its origins and understanding its essence that is truly amusing.” She thus collected various types of insects with great passion. Saying, “I want to see the way they change,” she put them into several small boxes. Among them, she declared that “It is the profundity of the caterpillars that is elegant.” So, day and night, tucking her bangs behind her ears, she placed them in her palms and watched them carefully.

Because her ladies in waiting were afraid of insects, she summoned young boys of low social standing to catch them for her. She would ask the names of the insects and delight in naming her newest acquisitions.

Proclaiming that “It’s not good to fuss over one’s appearance,” she completely neglected to shave her eyebrows. Also, saying that “It’s annoying and dirty,” she did not blacken her teeth. Smiling with her blindingly white teeth, she would play with her insects lovingly.

Her ladies in waiting, thinking that her behavior was quite strange, would flee in fear and raise a great fuss. To these frightened young women, she would say, “You’re being rude and indecent,” all the while glaring at them from under her coarse black eyebrows, and they would become all the more perplexed.

Her parents would think “How extremely strange that she is so different.” And yet such thoughts were followed by embarrassed musings, such as, “Perhaps there may be some sense to her way of thinking. It’s strange. Whenever we think to say something to her, she becomes irritated. She’s a very intense child.”

They would say to her, “Well, that may be, but you’re getting a bad reputation. What people like is a pleasing appearance. If you keep amusing yourself with those creepy caterpillars, and people were to get wind of it, that would be terrible.”

In response, she would say, “That doesn’t bother me. It is in inquiring about everything in this world and seeing how it ends up that is important. What you’re saying is immature. After all, caterpillars become butterflies.”

She would take out some caterpillars that were entering metamorphosis and show them to her parents.

“What people call silk and wear on their bodies comes from silkworms that haven’t grown wings yet; and, when these silkworms become butterflies, it’s as if they had put on mourning clothes, since they become worthless.”

When she would say things like that, her parents had nothing to say in response and would give up. Of course, the princess was careful not to show herself to them, thinking that it is better for demons and women not to be seen. She would roll up the bamboo blinds in the dim interior of the main house just a little; and, screening herself off behind multiple blind frames, address her parents in this clever way.

32-Year-Old Day Tripper

Japanese Title: ３２歳のデイトリッパー (Sanjū-sai no Deitorippā)
Author: Murakami Haruki (村上春樹)
Taken From: カンガルー日和 (Kangarū no hiyori, 1983)

I’m 32, and she’s 18…. If you think of it like that, it’s kind of ridiculous.

I’m only 32, and she’s already 18…. Maybe that’s better.

We’re friends, nothing more, nothing less. I’ve got a wife, and she’s got six boyfriends. On weekdays, she goes on dates with her six boyfriends, and once a month, on a Sunday, she goes on a date with me. On the other Sundays, she sits at home and watches TV. When she watches TV, her face is cute like a walrus.

In 1963, when she was born, President Kennedy was assassinated. Also, I asked a girl out on a date for the first time. Was the song that was popular then maybe Cliff Richard’s “Summer Holiday”?

Ah, whatever.

In any case, she was born that year.

In 1963, I would never have thought that I would be going on dates with a girl who was born in that year. It still seems a little strange to me now. I feel like I’m smoking a cigarette on the dark side of the moon.

The consensus among my friends is that dating a teenage girl is boring. Despite that, they go on dates with teenage girls all the time. Is it that they’ve managed to find a girl who isn’t boring? No, that’s not it. Simply put, it is the very boringness of these girls that they find so appealing. While buckets full of boring are being dumped over their heads, they try not to let a drop fall on the girl. It’s a complicated game they enjoy wholeheartedly.

At least, that’s what I think.

The truth is, nine out of ten teenage girls are boring. Of course, they haven’t noticed this. They’re young, beautiful, and full of curiosity. They think that something like “boring” has nothing to do with them.

Good grief.

This doesn’t mean that I blame them, and it doesn’t mean that I hate them. I like them. They make me remember the time when I was a boring teenage boy. How would you put it, it’s a pretty awesome thing.

“Hey, have you ever thought that you’d like to be 18 again?” she asked me.

“Not really,” I answered.

“You don’t want to be 18 again… Really?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“I guess I’m fine the way I am now.”

Putting her elbows on the table, she rested her chin in her hand. Deep in thought, she twirled her spoon around in her coffee cup with a clacking sound. “I don’t believe you.”

“You’d better believe me.”

“But isn’t it cooler to be young?”

“Probably.”

“Then why are you fine the way you are now?”

“Because being 18 once was enough.”

“It’s still not enough for me.”

“But that’s because you’re still 18.”

“Hmmm.”

I flagged down a waitress and ordered my second bottle of beer. It was raining outside, and I could see Yokohama Harbor through the window.

“Hey, when you were 18, what did you think about?”

“Sleeping with girls.”

“Besides that.”

“Just that.”

She giggled and took a small sip of coffee.

“So, were you successful?”

“There were times when I was successful and times when I wasn’t. Of course there were probably more times when I wasn’t.”

“About how many girls did you sleep with?”

“I never counted.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“If I were a guy, I would definitely end up counting. Don’t you think it would be kind of fun?”

I’ve had times when I’ve thought that it wouldn’t be so bad to be 18 again. But, when I try to think of the first thing I’d do when I turned 18 again, I can’t come up with anything.

I’d probably end up dating a charming 32-year-old woman. That wouldn’t be so bad.

“Have you ever thought that you’d like to be 18 again?” I would ask her.

“Let’s see,” she would grin at me while pretending to think about it. “Nope. Well, probably.”

“Really.”

“Yup.”

“I don’t get it,” I would say to her. “You know that everyone says that it’s awesome to be young.”

“That’s right, it is pretty awesome.”

“Well then, why don’t you want to be 18 again?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

But really, I’m 32 years old, and I’ve reached the point where fat sticks out around my belly if I’m lazy about jogging for a single week. I can’t go back to being 18. I guess that’s only natural.

When I get back from running in the morning, I drink a can of vegetable juice, plop down into a chair, and listen to the Beatles song “Daytripper.”

“Daaaaaay-ay Tripper…”

When I listen to that song, I feel like I’m sitting in the window seat on a train. Outside, stuff like telephone poles and train stations and railway bridges and cows and horses and chimneys and piled-up garbage quickly passes by. No matter where you’re going, the scenery doesn’t change much. And I used to think that scenery was pretty amazing, too.

“Would you like to change seats with me?” I ask.

“Thanks,” she says. “That’s really kind of you.”

It’s not that I’m kind, I smile bitterly. It’s just that you’re not yet used to how boring it is.

Tired of counting telephone poles,
I’m a 32-year-old
Daytripper.

Homecoming

Japanese Title: 帰還
Author: Kanai Mieko (金井美恵子)
Taken From: 金井美恵子全短編, Volume I

Having returned from a long journey, she was approached by a young man, who said he had come to meet her. She was extremely surprised. She turned towards the young man and asked, “Are you sure you don’t have the wrong person?”

“No, that’s not the case. I’ve heard all about you. Because your husband is ill and can’t come to meet you, I came in his stead. Wow,” the young man said with a sigh, “it’s really gotten hot. Let me take your luggage.”

She was forced to repeat herself. “I’m afraid you have the wrong person. You seem to know my name, but I don’t have a husband. Besides, I didn’t tell anyone that I was coming home today. Please excuse me, but I’m in a hurry.”

As she said this, a smile spread across the young man’s face, as if to say that he knew she must be pretending to be serious in order to joke with him. He made a gesture urging her to pass her bags to him. “You husband is sick, and he wants to see you as soon as possible.

“You received a telegram from him at your destination. Don’t you remember? The telegram went, ‘COME HOME SOON. I LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER. YOUR HUSBAND.’ We received your reply last night. It said, ‘I WILL ARRIVE AT 2PM ON THE 7TH. YOUR LOVE.’ So I came to meet you. Since I asked your husband about you, I knew you immediately. Black hair, black eyes, skin that’s probably been tanned in the sun… I think the image of you that your husband gave me fits you perfectly! I knew you at first sight!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! The person you’re looking for is someone completely different. I didn’t receive a telegram from my husband, and I didn’t send one back. This is as it should be, since I’m single. I don’t have a husband!”

Finally, the young man seemed to begin to realize the extraordinary nature of the situation. An embarrassed expression crossed his face, and he stammered, “Your address is 446 N. Street, right?” Although she didn’t understand why, when she heard him say her address, she felt her anger rise. “Yes, that’s definitely it, but I don’t understand why in the world you’re teasing me with a cruel joke like this. To go so far as to look up my address, are you some kind of police dog?” she said quickly, without pausing for breath.

The man, surprised at her fierce look, said, “As for you, please stop teasing me. Your husband is waiting at your house at 446 N. Street. He told me not to tell you, but his illness is fatal. So, when you tell me that you’re unmarried, it’s too cruel, even for a joke.”

She was bewildered. It was almost as if she couldn’t even begin to understand what was going on. Apparently, there is a man with a fatal illness at her house on 446 N. Street who is calling himself her husband and saying that he will always love her! Since she had never been proposed to, much less married, how could there be a husband waiting for her at her house on N. Street? She wondered if perhaps she had gone crazy, or if perhaps she had lost her memory. She felt sick, as if she had suddenly found herself lost in the midst of a nightmare.

“In any case,” she proclaimed to the man in a domineering tone, “since 446 N. Street is my house, I intend to return there. When we get there, I imagine that everything will become clear. Because, heaven knows, I don’t have a husband. I don’t know if maybe something has happened to my head, but, if not, you’re crazy!”

While they drove toward her house in the young man’s car, she was dead silent. She had a lot of things she had to think about, but she didn’t know where it would be best to start thinking. What in the world had happened while she was away? No sooner had a young man – whom she had never seen before in her life – appeared, then he starting talking about her husband. And, on top of that, the husband had become bedridden with a fatal illness and wished to see her.

The feeling was grotesque. When she opened the door to her house (or, more properly speaking, when it was opened from inside by a young woman, who appeared to be a nurse, when the young man rang the doorbell), there was some sort of unpleasant smell, and she felt the bile rise in her throat. She and the young man entered the living room and sat down on the sofa. This was definitely her house, and everything was set up just the way it had been when she left. However, on top of a table, there was a silver frame that she had never seen before, and in it was a photograph. In the picture, a man and a woman were sitting in a chair on a terrace against a setting of the sea at sunset with a cloudy sky. The outline of the couple sparkled faintly in the light of the setting sun. The man was looking straight ahead, and the woman’s face was hidden by a large white hat. The couple had drawn their bodies close together. The man’s arm was wrapped around the woman’s shoulder, and one of the woman’s hands was placed on the man’s leg. The woman picked up the photograph and gazed at it. She seemed as if she would ask the young man who the people in the picture were, but she thought she already knew the answer. This is a picture from your honeymoon, she thought that the young man would answer, definitely. And then, just as the thought passed through her mind, the man said exactly that. “That’s a picture from your honeymoon.”

She scowled. “You’re saying that this woman is me? What on earth? I’ve never seen this woman, and I haven’t ever seen this man, not even once!”

The young man gazed at her intently with a surprised expression. “How can you say that? You’re probably exhausted. You must be feeling ill again. If you rest, perhaps you’ll calm down.”

When he said this, she made up her mind to not listen to anything more. “Stop it. I will not be ticked by these petty little details. I’m sure that the woman in the photo resembles me. Look at the dirty trick you used. Can’t you see how her face is hidden by this big hat? You’re quite mistaken if you think that will fool me. Show me this person who you’re calling my husband, so I can say it to him – I’ve never seen you before, and you need to get out of here right now!”

She said all of this in a voice trembling with anger. She burned with rage. Even if she didn’t understand the meaning of this idiotic state of affairs, for the time being, she needed to get these men out of her house. She stood up from the sofa, glared at the young man directly, and said, “Fine. Take me to where that person is! Surely, he can’t be using my bedroom.”

The young man, astonished by her furious look, led her to the room of her so-called husband. When she saw that it was indeed her bedroom, she became so extraordinarily angry that she almost felt dizzy. When she entered the room, a strange, rank stench clogged her throat.

The man laying in her bed raised his face insidiously, and, smiling weakly, said, “So you’ve come home. I knew that you would surely return. I knew you couldn’t betray our love. Let’s forgive each other for everything. I love you so much.”

The creepiness of the whole situation made her shiver. She gagged at the stench that seemed to emanate from the man’s disease-ravaged body, and said, “Who are you? Who the hell are you?”

“Your lover, forever.”

He answered in a faint, low voice, but the woman was strangely able to hear him clearly. As a faint smile floated over his lips, he slowly closed his eyes. Those were that man’s last words, for he had died as he smiled.

Julio Iglesias

Japanese Title: フリオ・イグレシアス
Author: Murakami Haruki (村上春樹)
Taken From: 夜のくもざる

After he had stolen away our mosquito-repellent incense, we no longer had any means left to protect ourselves from the attacks of the sea turtle. We had attempted to send away for more incense from a mail-order company, but, just as we thought, the telephone lines had been cut, and our mail had stopped coming to us a few weeks ago. When you think about it, there’s no way that wily turtle would have allowed such a thing – up until now, we had been able to stave him off solely on account of the incense. Now, however, he must be contentedly napping in preparation for tonight at the bottom of the blue-green sea.

“This is it for us, isn’t it,” she said. “When night comes, we’ll both be eaten.”

“We can’t lose hope,” I said. “We just need to come up with a plan.”

“But the sea turtle stole every last stick of the incense.”

“We’ve got to try to think about this logically. If the turtle hates mosquito-repellent incense that much, then there must be something else he hates just as much.”

“Such as?”

“Julio Iglesias,” I said.

“Why Julio Iglesias?” she asked.

“I don’t know, it just suddenly popped into my head. Like a hunch or something.”

Following my intuition, I set the turntables of the stereo system to Julio Iglesias’s “Begin the Beguine” and waited for nightfall. When darkness fell, the sea turtle would attack, and the final showdown would begin. Will we be eaten, or will the turtle go hungry?

When I heard wet, squishy footfalls close to the door a little after midnight, I lost no time in dropping the needle onto the record. As Julio Iglesias started to croon “Begin the Beguine” in his sugar-water voice, the footsteps came to a dead halt, and we heard the turtle moaning painfully. We had triumphed.

That night, Julio Iglesias sang “Begin the Beguine” one hundred and twenty-six times. I myself rather dislike Julio Iglesias, but fortunately not as much as the sea turtle.

Pandora’s Box

Japanese Title: パンドーラーの壺
Author: Kurahashi Yumiko (倉橋由美子)
Taken From: 大人のための残酷童話

Zeus was feeling spiteful because Prometheus had stolen fire from the heavens and given it to mankind, so he made up his mind to take out his anger on man and on Prometheus’s younger brother Epimetheus, as Prometheus was somewhat hard to deal with. Zeus therefore sent orders to the skilled blacksmith Hephaestus to create Pandora out of kneaded mud. Pandora was equal to her name, for the gods gave her all manner of gifts. Starting with a beauty rivaling that of a goddess, they provided her with absolutely everything that a woman could desire. Only Athena, who had grown weary of Zeus’s childish games, put off giving Pandora intelligence. Besides, she wouldn’t admit that her gift is necessary for a woman.

Well then, Epimetheus was a character who was certainly equal to his name, which means “thinking afterwards.” When he saw the alluring Pandora, he made her his wife at once, oafishly ignoring his older brother’s advice that one should not accept gifts from the gods.

Pandora had an abundance of curiosity to make up for her lack of wisdom, and she ended up removing the lid of a box that everyone told her should absolutely not be opened because she wanted find out what was inside. When Prometheus noticed Pandora lifting the lid from the box, he let out a horrible shriek and made a desperate attempt to clamp it down, but the damage had already been done.

Some people say that all kinds of misfortune flew from the box and spread throughout the world, leaving only a thin glimmer of hope. According to another explanation, only unsympathetic “hope” was left behind after all the joys of the world flew from the box for destinations unknown. The truth, however, is that something a bit more troublesome occurred.

What left the box and spread throughout the world was misfortune for women. This misfortune was envy, and the women of the world were consumed by the desire to scratch at their hearts with jealousy when they realized that Pandora was the most beautiful woman to ever live. From then on, women rated each other’s beauty against their own and gradually came to hate one another. Prometheus was troubled by this situation, so he took self-knowledge from what was left in the box and scattered it among women. This elixir was too potent, however, and women, now aware of their own ugliness, started committing suicide one after another. It seemed that women would continue killing themselves until not one remained, and it would not do for Pandora to be left as the last living woman. Prometheus looked into the box once more and saw that “hope” still remained inside. Pleased with the clarity of his foresight, which he had put aside until that point, Prometheus sprinkled this “hope” over the women on the earth. As a result, the suicides stopped. Although women still hated each other, they stopped hating their own ugliness. Over time, women were able to exist by not thinking entirely of themselves.

Meanwhile, Epimetheus, completely unconcerned with the painstaking care of the human race that tortured his brother Prometheus, enjoyed his marriage to the childlike and innocent Pandora as if nothing had ever happened, and the two of them lived happily ever after.

Moral:
The gods gave women jealousy and conceit.

The Demons of the Adachi Moor

Japanese Title: 安達ケ原の鬼
Author: Kurahashi Yumiko (倉橋由美子)
Taken From: 大人のための残酷童話

Once upon a time, a monk who had set forth from the capital for spiritual training passed through the desolate Shirakawa barrier gate into the far north of Japan. He found himself in a place called the Adachi Moor just as the short autumn day had begun to grow quite dark. The monk was weary after a day of ceaseless walking. He thought to beg lodging for the night if he could find even a poor farmer’s cottage, but he could see no thread of smoke rising into the sky above the field of abundant autumn grasses. Just as the monk felt himself beginning to despair in the midst of a gathering wind, he suddenly saw the will-o’-the-wisp flicker of a mysterious light in the distance.

Could it be that the legend of the demon lair on the black hill of the Adachi Moor in the northern reaches of Japan is no mere story . . . ?

The monk thought that the house was probably the lair of a demon, just like in the old songs, but he was pulled in by the light and hurried towards it. Before long the rotting shack was there before him.

Peeping through a hole in a shōji screen, the monk saw a solitary old woman squatting in the shadows thrown by a floor lamp. She was mumbling an evil-sounding spell deep in her throat as she wound thread. As the monk watched the lazy rotations of the spinning wheel, he felt a string of drowsiness wrap around the length of his body. The old woman turned in his direction, and the monk came to himself with a start. He found his voice and begged her to give him lodging for the night. The old woman was reluctant, protesting that she could provide him with neither a good meal nor adequate bed clothes in her isolated house in the middle of a moor. When the monk persisted, claiming that he merely sought shelter from the rain and the dew, the old woman readily complied, as if she had been waiting for this earnest request. Happy to have stumbled upon such an obviously kind-hearted old granny, the monk accepted her offer of accommodation with an untroubled mind.

The old woman threw firewood into the back of a sunken fireplace and boiled some millet porridge for the monk. When dinner was finished, the monk recounted a few tales of his journey. The old woman nodded as she listened to his stories, turning her spinning wheel all the while.

Before long, the fire at the back of the sunken fireplace had grown thin and weak, and the piercing night wind blew into the shabby house. Seeing the monk rearrange his robes with trembling hands, the old woman stood up.

“If I had known that I would be receiving a guest, I would have put away more firewood. Could you kindly do me the favor of looking after the place while I step out to the nearby mountain to gather some?”

“What are you talking about?” protested the monk. “There’s no reason for you to go through such trouble so late at night. Please let me go instead.”

The old woman laughed. “What would a traveler know about where to find firewood in these parts? Besides, since I couldn’t provide you with a good meal, please at least consider a roaring fire as a substitute for a proper dinner.” With these words, the old woman cheerfully prepared to set out.

The monk suddenly became uneasy. “Hasn’t it been said since ancient times that a demon dwells on the Adachi Moor?” he asked, bringing up a certain old song.

“I wonder,” the old woman replied. “But not even a demon would go outside on a night like this! Anyway, I have a favor to ask of you. Even if I take some time getting back, please don’t look into the back room. Please, could you be sure to do this one thing for me?”

After the old woman had departed into the wind, leaving behind her request, the monk began to wonder about the mysteriously gleeful mood in which she had set out. Why did she repeat her request about the back room as she left? The fear that perhaps this was the lair of a demon after all reared its head. Maybe he was imagining things, but the monk started to hear various wailing voices intermingled with the sound of the wind. He froze and covered his ears unconsciously. It was as if the voices of a host of lost souls, crying mournfully in complaint, had been set free. Even worse, it sounded as if these voices were somehow emanating from the room that he was told he must not open. The monk, in an ecstasy of terror, found himself pulled uncannily closer to the forbidden room. He placed his hand on the door.

He decisively pulled the door open, and a bloody stench poured out. In the middle of the room, things resembling human corpses were piled up almost to the ceiling. There were things stained red with blood, things tinged green with decay, things flowing with yellow pus. The corpses within this dead mountain of myriad colors seemed to be disintegrating as they moved their hands and feet while emitting terrible moans. One pushed itself out from the middle of the pile and rose to its feet. It bared the teeth of its rotting face and laughed.

“Demon!” The monk dashed out of the old woman’s shack and ran for his life. The field of rich autumn grasses overflowed with an otherworldly luminescence. All around the shining grass undulated like the back of a running beast. The multitude of carcasses rose and lurched out of the house. While emitting sounds that were neither laughter nor wails but could have been both, they all came together and pursued the monk as one body. The monk fled before them while chanting sutras in a voice filled with desperation. Suddenly he saw the shape of the old woman on top of a hill in the distance. She seemed to be shouting something in his direction while laughing maniacally. As the monk returned her screams, he felt an immense power take hold of him from behind. His legs were captured by a hideous tidal wave, which dragged him down into a bloody sea.

Nothing was left of the monk except a stain of black blood on the earth of the Adachi Moor.

Moral:
There are other demons besides old women.