The Untouchable Apartment
Kandagawa's relationship with Mano ended over four years ago, which is why she s surprised when he calls her, drunk, to tell her that their old apartment has been knocked down. As they walk through the city, Kandagawa relives moments of their relationship and questions their decision to be apart.
Lose Your Private Life
Waterumi Yano is a successful young novelist, her books winning prestigious prizes and the hearts of readers all over the world. However, Waterumi is herself a fiction, a penname for the 28 year old Terumi Yano, a woman struggling to hold on to her identity as she is increasingly recognized by her loved ones as Waterumi.
A Genealogy
A fable-like retelling which broadly sketches the evolution of mankind. Despite fictional / magical retellings ('The frog gave birth to the dinosaur'), the narrative begins with of a rock and ending with Kandagawa, sitting in a bath in her apartment, remembering how, in the past, she used to be a fish. Though the narrative appears to be summarizing thousands of years' worth of development, Kandagawa's closing memory of being a fish seems to imply that the whole evolution has simply taken place in the time it has taken for us to read the short story (which, because this evolution exists only as the short story, it technically has). Or, we are left wondering if Kandagawa is accessing a kind of collective memory.
Translated by Polly Barton.
Design by Nigel Aono-Billson.