The Box Man by Kōbō Abe

Author:Kōbō Abe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780307813695
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1973-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“When all’s said and done, what do you mean?”

“If you take a half pace forward, you’ll be right on that line.”

“So what?”

“You’re a vacillating fellow, aren’t you. You’ve gone to the trouble of getting the girl to make you out a laissez-passer over the demarcation line, haven’t you? If you go another half pace forward, like it or not, you will be asked to present that laissez-passer. It’s a free pass, of course. Naturally when you use it, you at once waive any pretext, any right to go back to the box. You’re frightened of recognizing that. You’re marking time because you’re afraid. You’ve got her tied hand and foot, there, see? You’ve sealed off time.”

When I considered what he had said, I could see that it was quite true. She had made almost no movement from the tentative position in which she had poised her fingers on the elastic of her panties. Her eyes, vaguely fixed in space as if seeking something beyond my head, remained wide open like artificial ones.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah … ‘There’s no villain among those who hate news’? I wonder,” snorted the fake box man, slurring the ends of his words. “Aren’t you, who don’t believe in change, being inconsistent? You’re afraid of getting what you yourself asked for, and so you’re stopping time.”

“Such a feat is impossible, I should say.”

“I read the story of the fellow who stuffed his mistress and lived with her that way. He says that a stuffed mistress is a lot more faithful than a real live one and a lot more sexy.”

“Unfortunately I don’t have those tastes.”

“That’s perfectly all right. That’s the conclusion we have come to, isn’t it? Anyway the only thing that’s clear is that you don’t want to get out of the box.”

“I’ve told you, I disposed of the box before I came here.”

“Well, then, let me just ask, at this very moment what are you doing and where are you doing it?”

“As you yourself can see. I’m chatting with you … here.”

“I see. If that is true, who is writing these notes and where are they writing them? Then it wasn’t someone writing in a box by the light of a naked bulb in a dressing room by the sea?”

“Oh, that’s something better left unsaid. If you talk about it you yourself will admit that you two are merely figments of my imagination.”

“Hm … I wonder.”

“It’s indisputable.”

“Of course, only one of the three of us really exists. The one who is in fact continuing to write these notes. Everything that has happened is merely the monologue of that someone. Even you must recognize that. At the rate things are going, this someone intends to go on writing forever and ever in order to cling desperately to the box.”

“You’re too suspicious. I’m just waiting for my underclothes to dry. As soon as they are, I intend to leave at once. I scrubbed myself so hard that when the wind blows on my skin it tingles. I’ve just stayed in the box to get out of the wind for a while.

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