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Authors: Daniel H. Wilson, John Joseph Adams
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you.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I had simply wanted to express my gratitude to the man who was doing all he could for what once had been my body, and now in death was just a thing. His attempt to rescue me in the beef bowl restaurant may have ended with my death, but he had risked his one—and only—life for me. Out there in the world were people like him, far too good. He was my opposite: a human being of a different kind, one that deserved deep admiration.
The woman asked me, “What’s wrong?”
I shook off her hand and brushed aside her attempts to stop me as I walked away on my own. After a while, my cell phone started to buzz persistently, so I threw it on the ground and crushed it with my shoe.
All I wanted was to return to being me, a man whose face was already becoming hazy in my memory. I didn’t want to be anyone else. My job at the beef bowl joint may have been monotonous, but at least I had done it myself, and not under the command of some other me. But that body—my body—was long since cremated and put into a grave. I would have to force myself to let go of the past. I wanted to be without a past. Death would never smile upon me, and so I could have nothing of substance, nothing to tie me down, nothing at all.
Then a realization came to me. I’m powerless. I’m not anyone. I’m just a lousy dog crawling through the dirt to my death. No, not even a dog. I’m a bone or a broken stick for the wandering dog to find. I’m a stick that hits any dot that comes toward me just because I feel like it. In the Old Testament, didn’t man evolve from a stick? Or do I have that wrong? Whatever. It doesn’t matter right now. Because this world is occupied almost entirely by my kind. Ninety percent—no, maybe even 99 percent—are the same as me, with nothing of their own, no past, no ties, no hopes for the future. Despite this—or because of it—they and I are invincible.
I found myself standing in front of a beef bowl joint in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the place where I had worked, but like my store, it was bright and warm and clean, if only a feeding trough with dingy, mass-produced decor.
Adjacent was a vacant lot. On the other side of a wire fence, a single stick stood in the earth. In the past, the stick had provided support for a sign of some sort, but the plywood sign had fallen to rot in the dirt.
For some reason, I couldn’t help but feel excited. The time had come to begin my next worthless life. At least that’s how I felt. The feeling came as no surprise—I’ve been the same all along. The me who served up beef bowls, the me who was a robber, the me who was a convict and a killer, they were all me.
I roared at the night sky and pulled up the stick.
Inside the beef bowl joint, a lone charmless man interchangeable with my former self was serving up beef bowls.
Resting the stick on my shoulder, I strode inside.
My nose only itches in critical moments.
“Give me your money,” I said.
Taking aim at this good-for-nothing world, I swung my stick as hard as I could.
----
Hiroshi Sakurazaka was born in Tokyo in 1970. After a career in information technology, he published his first light novel,
Modern Magic Made Simple.
With 2004’s
All You Need Is Kill,
Sakurazaka earned his first Seiun Award nomination for best Japanese science fiction. His 2004 short story, “Saitama Chainsaw Massacre,” won the 16th SF Magazine Reader’s Award. In 2009,
All You Need Is Kill
was the launch title for Haikasoru, an imprint dedicated to publishing Japanese science fiction and fantasy for English-speaking audiences. The book also formed the basis for the international hit film
Edge of Tomorrow
, starring Tom Cruise. Sakurazaka’s other novels include
Characters
(cowritten with Hiroki Azuma) and
Slum Online
, which was published in English by Haikasoru. In 2010, Sakurazaka started an experimental digital magazine,
AiR,
with Junji Hotta. He
“Huh?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I had simply wanted to express my gratitude to the man who was doing all he could for what once had been my body, and now in death was just a thing. His attempt to rescue me in the beef bowl restaurant may have ended with my death, but he had risked his one—and only—life for me. Out there in the world were people like him, far too good. He was my opposite: a human being of a different kind, one that deserved deep admiration.
The woman asked me, “What’s wrong?”
I shook off her hand and brushed aside her attempts to stop me as I walked away on my own. After a while, my cell phone started to buzz persistently, so I threw it on the ground and crushed it with my shoe.
All I wanted was to return to being me, a man whose face was already becoming hazy in my memory. I didn’t want to be anyone else. My job at the beef bowl joint may have been monotonous, but at least I had done it myself, and not under the command of some other me. But that body—my body—was long since cremated and put into a grave. I would have to force myself to let go of the past. I wanted to be without a past. Death would never smile upon me, and so I could have nothing of substance, nothing to tie me down, nothing at all.
Then a realization came to me. I’m powerless. I’m not anyone. I’m just a lousy dog crawling through the dirt to my death. No, not even a dog. I’m a bone or a broken stick for the wandering dog to find. I’m a stick that hits any dot that comes toward me just because I feel like it. In the Old Testament, didn’t man evolve from a stick? Or do I have that wrong? Whatever. It doesn’t matter right now. Because this world is occupied almost entirely by my kind. Ninety percent—no, maybe even 99 percent—are the same as me, with nothing of their own, no past, no ties, no hopes for the future. Despite this—or because of it—they and I are invincible.
I found myself standing in front of a beef bowl joint in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the place where I had worked, but like my store, it was bright and warm and clean, if only a feeding trough with dingy, mass-produced decor.
Adjacent was a vacant lot. On the other side of a wire fence, a single stick stood in the earth. In the past, the stick had provided support for a sign of some sort, but the plywood sign had fallen to rot in the dirt.
For some reason, I couldn’t help but feel excited. The time had come to begin my next worthless life. At least that’s how I felt. The feeling came as no surprise—I’ve been the same all along. The me who served up beef bowls, the me who was a robber, the me who was a convict and a killer, they were all me.
I roared at the night sky and pulled up the stick.
Inside the beef bowl joint, a lone charmless man interchangeable with my former self was serving up beef bowls.
Resting the stick on my shoulder, I strode inside.
My nose only itches in critical moments.
“Give me your money,” I said.
Taking aim at this good-for-nothing world, I swung my stick as hard as I could.
----
Hiroshi Sakurazaka was born in Tokyo in 1970. After a career in information technology, he published his first light novel,
Modern Magic Made Simple.
With 2004’s
All You Need Is Kill,
Sakurazaka earned his first Seiun Award nomination for best Japanese science fiction. His 2004 short story, “Saitama Chainsaw Massacre,” won the 16th SF Magazine Reader’s Award. In 2009,
All You Need Is Kill
was the launch title for Haikasoru, an imprint dedicated to publishing Japanese science fiction and fantasy for English-speaking audiences. The book also formed the basis for the international hit film
Edge of Tomorrow
, starring Tom Cruise. Sakurazaka’s other novels include
Characters
(cowritten with Hiroki Azuma) and
Slum Online
, which was published in English by Haikasoru. In 2010, Sakurazaka started an experimental digital magazine,
AiR,
with Junji Hotta. He
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