Popular Hits of the Showa Era by Ryu Murakami Read Free Book Online

slow-motion death scene he’d ever seen, the knife was like an aluminum-foil-covered cardboard prop in a children’s play, the street less real than a middle school art-club wall mural, the little boys on the playground like hand-drawn animated figures out of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine , and the sun like the sun in a cartoon, with eyes and a smiling mouth. And now that the tip of a brand-new, gleaming sashimi knife had pierced the crepe-thin skin of his own throat and penetrated to a depth of nearly ten centimeters, he experienced the same sense of unreality. The blade rent asunder countless cells and hundreds of blood vessels, and it seemed to Sugioka that another, separate Sugioka was watching from some distance away as the crimson liquid, released from its normal course, issued from his neck in a spray so dense it obstructed his field of vision. This other Sugioka seemed to be laughing, saying not to take this too seriously, that it was nothing but a dream. But why was everything this time so much like that other time? Why was it that you got this weird feeling of unreality both when you murdered someone and when you were murdered? He wondered about this, trying for the first time in his life to reason. As his field of vision darkened from red to black, he was thinking how nice it would be to think about this some more, and talk about it with Nobue and Ishihara and the others, but what that really meant, he ultimately realized, was that he didn’t want to die. At the very end he was seized with absolute terror, but then of course it was all over anyway.
     
     
    The meeting of the Midori Society that night resounded as never before with peals of laughter and gleeful shrieks. The meeting was at Takeuchi Midori’s little house, a gift from her ex-husband, on the outskirts of Chofu City. It was a tiny prefab home made of new materials, and it shone from roof to rainspouts with an otherworldly sheen, like a house in a movie set or a diorama. The ground floor comprised only a cramped kitchen and the ten-mat living room, where they were gathered now.
    Iwata Midori had been given the seat of honor, and was comfortably elevated on three cushions, with an abundance of delicacies and drinks before her. The others bowed to her repeatedly, laughing and chanting, “Wataa-sama, Wataa-sama! Lead us into the Light!” and passing around the bottles of Château Latour 1987 and Chablis Premier Grand Cru they’d pooled their money to buy at a ritzy shop called Seijo Ishii. They all laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks. Astonishingly, their old habit of rambling on separately about unrelated topics was no longer in evidence; they were actually conversing.
    Suzuki Midori took a swig of chablis straight from the bottle. “Wataa, seriously,” she said, “was this Sugioka creep really in the middle of taking a leak when you did him?”
    Iwata Midori slurped up the slice of smoked salmon dangling over her lower lip, as if retracting a second tongue, and said, “How many times are you going to make me go over this? He had just opened his zipper and was taking out his thing, which was nothing to write home about, believe me, but, well, not that bad….” A blush mantled her cheek. “So it’s not technically correct to say that he was in the middle of a leak. The pee didn’t come squirting out until just after I stabbed him with the Duskin spear.”
    Henmi Midori, already red in the cheeks from the Château Latour, flushed a deeper red. “And did he…I mean, you know what they always say about prisoners who are hanged…. That it swells up when they…”
    My! Hemii! I don’t believe it! What a thing to say! And on a night when a promising youth just lost his life!
    They all leaned back and roared with laughter. Iwata Midori, with unflappable aplomb appropriate to her status as the star of the evening, fanned herself with a regal handkerchief and said, “If I had been looking down there I couldn’t very well have