Shinya Tanaka

You won’t be able to. He’s never hit you.”

“Want a Coke?”

“I’m good.”

“All right then. Come stop by soon.”

You want me to shove that tongue down to your stomach?

a broken bicycle that looked as though even if someone tried to ride it, it could do nothing but turn right for eternity

The algae were evidence of the tide, proof that this was not fresh water.

Jinko-san was Toma’s birth mother, and a woman called Kotoko-san lived with him and his father, Madoka.

Apparently she asked, perfectly calm, You want me to shove that tongue down to your stomach?

When she left, Toma’s younger brother or sister was already growing inside her, but it was never born. I was past forty so I figured it’d be my last child, but one child from that man was plenty, I went and had ‘em go scrape it out of me at the hospital, she said.

It seemed his father was in the business of buying or selling, or temporarily holding on to, and occasionally disposing of, this wide range of products.

Maybe it feels good for you, but for me it just hurts.