Illustrations for the mysterious book
by Anayt Grigoryan
'Octopus'
...I heard a student in Ueno married a fox. Even NHK wrote about it. It’s an ordinary fox, she lived most of his life in a zoo, — Kisho explained in a casual tone, — she is unable to say anything except for “do: mo arigato: gozaimasu” , “hai, kasikomarimashita” and a few more phrases in keigo. She takes care of the house from morning till night, brushes the dust off the furniture and prepares tonkatsu like the most ordinary housewife. An educatorin the kindergarten once noticed the tip of the tail, sticking out from under the hem of the long skirt of the mother, who came to pick up the children. But out of politeness he did not point to it.
Izumi was lying on her side, looking out the window. Shadows of branches darted about in the light of street lamps and long drops of water flickered. Usually she was embarrassed by her nakedness and covered herself up to her chin, but now she didn’t notice how a thin blanket had slipped to the middle of her thighs, and Alexander silently admired her body hovering in the twilight, snatched out of the darkness by poor street lighting.Izumi's skin was as white as if she had been smearing it with some advertised bihaku cream from morning till night.
Furukawa said that they caught a hefty octopus, more than twelve kilograms in weight. He bought this octopus and put it into the aquarium, and in the evening of the same day, when he was about to leave, he saw this new waiter: the light in the hall, according to Furukawa, was already off, only the lamps were still burning above the aquarium, and this guy was standing there, put his hand on the glass, and said something in an undertone. He just said, an octopus swam up from that side and seemed to listen to the guy carefully, and touched his palm with his tentacle through the glass...
— Yasuda-san! — Alexander tightly wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away from the edge of the pier. — Yasuda-san, what are you doing!?
He felt anger engulf him along with the heat that surged over him, and he shook her vigorously. She turned out to be supple like a doll sewn from scraps of old clothes, her head tossed forward and threw back again: her wide-open motionless eyes gleamed wetly in the darkness, small mouth was parted in surprise.
He felt anger engulf him along with the heat that surged over him, and he shook her vigorously. She turned out to be supple like a doll sewn from scraps of old clothes, her head tossed forward and threw back again: her wide-open motionless eyes gleamed wetly in the darkness, small mouth was parted in surprise.
I was told that a woman named Ishii lived in the Higashigawa area a few years ago, — Kisho said. — She loved her husband so much that when he died, she never wanted to give him to the gods of death. She hugged him so tightly that the gods of death couldn't unclench her hands, and in the end they had to tear off Ishii-san's arms to take her husband to the realm of the dead...
