posted 2024-12-18
my translation of the first story of 夢で会いましょう [Meet Me in a Dream] by Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi, not garounteed to be accurate. see the intro post to read more!
PS: probably worth it to use your browsers reader mode. this site is hella under construction now
September 26, 1958, evening: it grows dark on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sonny Rollins is alone, practicing his scales on a tenor saxophone.
“Hey old man,” a child passing by asks him. “Whatcha up to?”
“Fightin the atomic beast,” Rollins says.
“I bet,” the child answers. “That’s a lie.”
…
At that very moment, President Eisenhower leads troops through the deserts of New Mexico, to struggle life and death against a repulsive and real atomic beast, which has four large, scissor-like pincers.
“Mr. President, if it keeps like this, the world will be destroyed,” the Secretary of the United Nation announces to the war room, exhaustion audible in his voice. “Our weapons cannot match it.”
“Lord, forgive us,” the president growls. “We’ve given birth to that which can’t be born.”
Snip snip snip snip snip: the beast advances. It crushes tanks and soldiers in its way.
…
“Hey, you got my donuts?” my nine-year-old self asks ask my mother. Her back is to me, in the kitchen, so I raise my voice.