Excerpt from Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A silver sea.

I couldn't help laughing. This too was a fine view, I told myself. And this time, nobody could take the sea away.

'It's beautiful, it's like a star.' My daughter gazed in admiration at the silvery roof.

It was the following night that Fujino called. The only things I could manage to say just aggravated his feelings. I couldn't understand why my legs shook every time I heard his voice.

That same night I dreamed I was sitting in a silver, star-shaped receptacle. It was spinning, gradually turning faster and faster, until I found my body plastered flat against its wall by centrifugal force. When I begged aloud for forgiveness, an old classmate from middle school looked up at my star and said: Why are you such a loser?

We'd been in the same class, certainly, but she was an A student, and we'd never been close. She was always elected class president and, what's more, she was good-looking and popular with the boys. While thinking how absurd it was to dream of her after all these years, I was defending myself tearfully: Can I help it if I'm a loser? And even if I am, there are people who won't give up on me, who'll stick around. There are, there must be.

The classmate shook her head sadly and walked away, still the same beautiful girl.

Copyright © 1979, 1993 by Yūko Tsushima
English translation copyright © 2018 by Geraldine Harcourt