by Akira Tatehata

Godzilla of the Distance

        Because you cannot sleep adequately, remain in the
embrace of the sad shadow of a tree that is me. There is a
distance, says everyone. Everybody picks up a video camera and
goes to the plaza. Just as I thought, my back is a passage. Let
me concoct something like the conversations they're having
there. Aura's Paradox, Godzilla's Counterattack are fun stories
which, if explained, can lead to swearing and curses. "Sarcasm
is an art." "I've met you at a time in my life when I'm neither
here nor there."
        I once read a "how-to book." After love, you should
sleep a little. "Doesn't this look funny?" "That's the sound of
the wind. An awfully regular sound."Yes, that's the sound
of the wind that blows at a time in your life when you're neither
here nor there. Everybody picks up a video camera and goes to
the plaza to ascertain styles of life, and that's called Aura's
paradox. "Everyone wants to erase the distance." "Well, I am
Godzilla, then. I like the distance."Ah, that's why you can't
sleep well. Small Godzilla, Godzilla of the distance, for now
remain in the embrace of the shadow of a tree that is me.

The Structure of the Eggplant

        Goddamn! I had told you eggplant isn't a "color,"
hadn't I? Born between formalist and imagist, the eggplant
must have gone through its own painful experiences. In the
event, if you knowingly explain it as "structurally, the
camouflage of a leisurely shrimp," I can't dismiss the matter as
simple ignorance. To be sure, the eggplant has never had
bones in its insides. But what about it? Because it doesn't have
bones, it must camouflage itself with adornmentswith that
kind of short-cut thinking, how do you propose to understand
the troubles the eggplant had to go through for so long? I'm
too appalled for words is what I am. You all observe only the
surfaces with the "good eyes" of which you are so proud and
simply delight in describing them. And with that, you think
you saw through the eggplant's inner mechanisms. You feel
you've conferred corporate status upon it. Before you know it,
you switch a vegetable to fish or shellfish. Listen, fellows,
despite its appearance, the eggplant is an individualistic
vegetable. Each of them has its own "good history." If a
vegetable were no more than a "color" or a "form," as you say
it is, Tokyo Tower would be a carrot, Rokuharamitsuji Temple
a tomato. If you brandish the myth of the eye and say
everyone's the same, goddamn, you might as well destroy me
with straw arrows and lotus guns!

Vanished Flowers, Dreams and Sacrifices

        To me, vanished flowers. To you, dreams and sacrifices.
The afternoons are extremely simple. Therefore, you can even
repeat them with ink and pen. To us in a small gray room,
unfinished novel, and music.

                 *

        But. Suppose there was a man as handsome as, for
example, a movie star, who announces that unfinished is the
beginning of an end! Sum up eccentricities from there, and we
"can't get beaten by anybody." Like an old religious sect, or
like a tall housemaid, we know, we know everything. What lies
beyond that, further than that, and far beyond that: vanished
flowers, dreams and sacrifices.

                 *

         Saffron in the market. I rejected the sweet talk and
selected a cheap one, and also selected beautiful wrapping
paper. These old men who once carpeted the streets with
flowers of various colors and held their eccentric weapons
ready beyond them. That afternoon (when the bells began to
ring in the midst of silence, they say) also, had it been
announced that it would be unfinished? Was a picturesquely
handsome man lying beside them? La Rambla of flowers. Late
dreams on the peninsula.

                 *

        When the sun sets, we turn into soft statues and go out
for a walk. In a suburban town, blending into the imagined
crowds. If we follow our dream, we may be able to carpet this
town without bell towers with vanished flowers. But now, I'm
not that old, nor a picturesquely handsome man, either.
"That's yellow saffron." Yes, beyond that, and further beyond,
to me, vanished flowers, to you, dreams and sacrifices.

Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato