Mar 11, 2026
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