Shinya Tanaka

a broken bicycle that looked as though even if someone tried to ride it, it could do nothing but turn right for eternity

The algae were evidence of the tide, proof that this was not fresh water.

Jinko-san was Toma’s birth mother, and a woman called Kotoko-san lived with him and his father, Madoka.

Apparently she asked, perfectly calm, You want me to shove that tongue down to your stomach?

When she left, Toma’s younger brother or sister was already growing inside her, but it was never born. I was past forty so I figured it’d be my last child, but one child from that man was plenty, I went and had ‘em go scrape it out of me at the hospital, she said.

It seemed his father was in the business of buying or selling, or temporarily holding on to, and occasionally disposing of, this wide range of products.

Maybe it feels good for you, but for me it just hurts.

He was not drunk, and no matter how rough his tone when scolding Toma, he would never raise a hand to him. Toma had never been struck by his father

If he’s with a real woman, he hits them. He can’t be a man if he doesn’t.”

Toma finished eating

The blood of the unagi would make its way to Kotoko-san’s belly and begin to grow. After it
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scraped out the child in her stomach, and Kotoko-san’s blood and flesh and bones, all of it, it wanted to shove in its organ and fill her. It wanted to rub up against Kotoko-san stretched into the shape of that organ