Blueberry Ice Cream, by Haruki Murakami
my translation of the seventy-eighth story (out of 99) of 夢で会いましょう [Meet Me in a Dream] by Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi, not guaranteed to be accurate. see the intro post to read more!
I want blueberry ice cream, my girlfriend said at 2AM.
What makes a woman think of such a thing at such an hour? I found myself, conversely, thinking of Xie Jishi in Manchuria at the end of the war, who knows quite why. I pulled a white shirt on anyway, and called a car.
Take me somewhere with blueberry ice cream, I told the cabbie. Then I let my eyes shut with a yawn.
Fifteen minutes later we reached an unfamiliar street, beneath the façade of an unfamiliar building. It was ancient-looking and three stories, and its roof flew unfamiliar flags.
So this place has blueberry ice cream? I asked the driver.
Why else would I drive you here? he said.
The perfect reply, dramaturgically speaking. I paid then went inside.
The receptionist there couldn’t have been a day past twenty. She sat behind her desk completely idly, yet she appeared overwhelmed.
Do you carry blueberry ice cream? I asked.
Annoyed, face seeming in fact to say aloud why now of any hour?, she handed me a clean, pastel-tone form.
Name and address, she said. And then door 3.
I borrowed a pencil and filled in my name and address. Door 3 was up a coffin-like wooden step. Behind it, at at desk so large it could have been used as a court for table tennis, a young man sat with papers in each hand. He was reading closely.
Blueberry ice cream? I said, with the cautious cadence of clearing my throat. I handed him my form and he took it, not looking, in fact analyzing me instead. He stamped its back.
Door number 6, he said.
Door number 6 was across a mighty river. White searchlights reflected from its surface. In the distance, over its roar, gunfire echoed.
Between doors 6 and 8 a church was used as an ersatz hospital. Soldiers lay askew in the grass outside it, many missing arms and legs. The mess hall, near, in what had been the narthex, had a freezer with three drums of ice cream: all rum raisin.
Blueberry’s door 14, a canteen man said.
Door 14 was shattered by gunfire though. Only the frame remained. Taped to it, typed, a printed notice said, Door 14 temporarily unavailable. Use door 17 until otherwise notified. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
War camels, though, had mutinied outside door 17. They filled the night with camel screams and smells of camel urine. With time though I discovered a friendly camel, and he let me pass to use the door.
Door 17: my final door.
Behind it a pair of beautiful old men attacked an ant-eater. They beat it, legs and hands, till its blood bubbled up to bruises. They were after blueberry ice cream as well.
Goddamned blueberry ice cream.
I couldn’t be the sentimental type. No: as in The Tragedy of Y—, with a mandolin across their backs, I killed both men and their ant-eater. I went to the freezer and pulled some ice cream out: blueberry now.
Would you like dry ice? the woman behind the counter asked me.
Thirty minutes worth, I told her, cool.
By the time I got home, it was already five in the morning. My girlfriend had fallen back to sleep.
translator's note: ever heard of kobo abe? murakami has! personally i'm an abe fan as well, to the point of naming my grad school thesis partially after him, so hey, i get it too. i find it wonderful. this kinda shit is why i wanted to try this translation here: literary shitposts. i just had to pull my own voice back in this (as much as possible). god, i wanted such longer paragraphs
how bout you ray? (2026-10 weekly post)
look: i have finished a first good draft of Scott and Bianca
look: the snow has melted and allergies occur
no matter events otherwise this week will have been sad. a good friend moved back to florida literally yesterday, as to shadow over all other events. time and change are noticed most when sad. etc etc.
let’s leave it then as that: representation
Beer, by Haruki Murakami
-- In honor of
Jingu Stadium
Matsoka's home runs are not
hit for me
—— So the unhappy
beer vendor tells us
1981/5/16
from “An Anthology of Yakult Swallows Poetry”
my translation of the seventy-fifth story (out of 99) of 夢で会いましょう [Meet Me in a Dream] by Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi, not guaranteed to be accurate. see the intro post to read more!
basically an answer to a question (2026-09 weekly post)
arrange your lifes events by alphabetical. does it change how you experience life?
last week was, unremarkably, full of snow: the blizzard monday, snowmen that night (i need to learn a way to upload pictures), walking many nights out thru the cold to ie bars, skating rinks, dropping off medicine at train stations, karaoke. men yelling: monday to thank snow shovelers (who didnt care), sunday at low-wage workers at wendy’s, for making him wait a whole half hour, for which knocking down plastic shelves seemed proper payment
im having fun writing this-like. not incidentally, reading Djuna Barnes
but the worlds been very bad this week. you know this. you and me both live in it. in addition a very good friend is moving out of town and i dont want this. shouganai
writing
new translation post. getting deep into Scott and Bianca. wrote the chapter of the Human Fuck House. futzing with failure at interactive poems. one day ill get there (or die first)
etc
Xerox, by Shigesato-Itoi
my translation of the forty-seventh story (out of 99) of 夢で会いましょう [Meet Me in a Dream] by Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi, not guaranteed to be accurate. see the intro post to read more!
It’s kinda wild that a guy who gets mad at a girl for putting her ass on the copier ends up being the guy who turns the same copier on my colleague’s telling me while shredding a vulgar result of this down into the trash but both are just as guilty of it is my complete thoughts on it and thinking on this while I talk I ask him hey want a copy of mine like my mouth’s gone rouge and made this decision its own and god almighty the shame that I’m suddenly bathed in but what’s that phrase ye who’s without sin throw the first stone and it’s all the Xerox’s fault anyway but again what’s that other old phrase love the sinner hate the sin and who says this wisdom can’t be held to the machine also and yeah I’m annoyed and completely embarrassed but its my place to yell out or complain but already the guys and the girls in the office have overheard this and they’ve all come around to laugh and throw insults and film me falling completely apart and I swear somewhere near very near I hear babies cry out and I have to wonder certainly this is a dream but then what do you know some new asshole’s come over and squashed down my dream in the copier too and the cops have been called and they’re here with the judge and the jury’s already come back and I’m sentenced death on a mimeograph cross in the company break room.
Translator's Note:
In the original Japanese, they spell it _Zerox_. I did _not_ respect this decision.
If you've read my original stuff (in English), you know I'm a lover of the long sentence, so as a challenge to myself I tried to maintain the original's lack of punctuation—something much harder to do in English, lacking particles to indicate parts of speech. In their place I _attempted_ to use rhythm to offer a little guidance, in imitation of spoken language. Did it work? I don't know.
Also: italics is _technically_ cheating, but god did I feel i needed it.