The Box Man by Kobo Abe

Author:Kobo Abe [Abe, Kobo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-81369-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

“I don’t like to see anyone hurt.”

“Hm. I wonder … When was it that I asked you …? If it were established that the world were going to end, I wanted to know if you would spend the last moment together with me. You answered that if you could you would like to spend it alone looking at the sea.”

“Liar! I must have said I’d like to be with as many people as I possibly could … someplace like a station, a department store … a bustling place.”

“It comes to about the same thing.”

“I can’t believe that the world will come to an end so simply.”

“Anyway I’ve got you to pay what you owe me. You don’t owe another yen.”

The yellow skirt became a tube and slipped to the floor at her feet. Standing over it on her left leg, she hooked it with the tip of her right foot and propelled it lightly into the air. The skirt described an unexpectedly heavy movement and fell to the floor on the near side of the examination couch. The buttons clicked against each other, making a sound as if someone were treading on little mussels. Incredibly tiny sheer blue panties cut into the flesh of her hips. She bent her legs slightly and put the flat of her hands on the outer sides of her thighs. It resembled the posture of one about to dive into water, but there was a more comical feeling to it. One by one her movements made creases in space, brought about a chiaroscuro, created currents, and carved out a whole new world. I was stricken by a wretchedness as if suddenly catching a cold. It was a kind of feeling of jealousy at seeing all these things for the first time.

“Just a minute,” interrupted the fake box man just as she put her fingers on the band of her panties. She stopped moving, looking somewhere into the distance beyond my head.

“Say, you’re almost not looking at her at all. After all you’re the one she took her clothes off for. Use those eyes of yours, man, and feel her up. Do you know those figurines made of white rice-flour paste? That’s the feeling I get from the stretch from her neck to her arms … it’s a flowing sensation as in the elongated paste just before it gets hard. But what I like best is the curve that runs from her waist to the swelling of her buttocks. Somewhere a little something still remains of a girl’s body before she blossoms into womanhood.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, I like her legs best.” As I said this, my jaw suddenly stiffened and my teeth ground together. My eyeballs were heavy, and I was unable to raise my eyes to her face. What, I wondered, would her expression be now? Nevertheless, I was suspicious about the fact that there was no sign of cigarette smoke rising from the box, nor did the fake box man even begin to cough.

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