Zoo by Otsuichi

Author:Otsuichi
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9784089600047
Publisher: Shueisha English Edition
Published: 2003-06-25T23:00:00+00:00

Kazari and Yoko

1

If Mom ever decided to kill me, how would she do it? She might just hit me over the head with something hard the way she always does. Or she might strangle me the way she sometimes likes to do. Or she might push me from the veranda of the apartment building to make it look like a suicide.

That was it. The best thing for her to do would be to make it look like I committed suicide. When someone asked my classmates and teachers about me, this is what they’d say:

“Yoko Endo was always troubled about something. Her troubles must have finally gotten to her, and she killed herself.”

No one would doubt that I killed myself.

Lately, Mom had gotten more direct about the way she abused me, and lots of times she caused me physical pain. When I was just a kid her torment was more roundabout. There would be cake for my younger sister, but none for me. She would buy new clothes for my sister, but none for me. Mom really went to work on my psyche.

“Yoko, you’re the older one, right? Learn to deal with it” is what she’d say.

Kazari and I were identical twins. Kazari was beautiful and active, and she smiled like a flower in bloom. At school, all the teachers and all the other kids loved her. I loved her too because sometimes she gave me the leftovers from her supper.

Mom never made supper for me, so I was always hungry. If I ever dared open the refrigerator, Mom would come running at me with an ashtray in her hand. I was so afraid of her I could hardly even eat snacks. Sometimes I was so hungry I thought I’d die. I’d be gasping, and Kazari would come to me with a plate full of her leftovers. Honestly, to me she looked like an angel. With a half-eaten plate of macaroni and cheese or some cut-up carrots, she was an angel with white wings.

Mom could see that Kazari gave me food, but she didn’t get angry. She never scolded Kazari. She treated Kazari very well.

I thanked Kazari as I ate her leftovers and thought to myself how valuable my sister was to me. I would even kill someone, if I had to, to protect her.

*

In our family there was no dad. By the time I realized this there was just the three of us—Mom and Kazari and me. That was the way we lived, right up to the time I was in my second year of junior high. I didn’t know what effect this had on my life, living without a dad. If I had a father, Mom might not break my teeth or stub out her cigarettes on me. Or maybe she would anyway. I didn’t know. Maybe I would have been bright and cheerful like Kazari. In the morning, when I saw Mom smiling, with a plate of toast and fried eggs, that was what I thought about. She put the plate in front of Kazari, of course.

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