My translation of 「良子」, a short story Chuya wrote about a six-year-old girl, will appear on BlazeVOX’s website next month or so under the title “Good Girl”. In anticipation of that and in honor Nakahara Chuya’s birthday, here’s some prose fiction of his. You can find the original Japanese version on Aozora here.
A large moon arose in haze above a single set of railway tracks in a snowy field, where the horizon turned into sky, right where they faded from view. To one side of the tracks, thick wooden posts were burning in a row, blazing against the pitch dark, as if for their amusement.
Running atop them at that moment was a cylindrical, pointlessly great steam train, roaring like a rocket fired at the stars. Its dining car was lit by white cane lamps hanging from the ceiling, their electric amber lights burning hot. And there I was, about to eat a dish of fried fish after dousing it with lemon juice. I glanced over my shoulder. A lone boy dressed in a white coat stood at the register, his stance fluidly taut as he swayed in step with the pitching of the train. There were no customers but me, nor, for some reason, a waitress in sight.
I ate, sumptuous, scrumptious, when a grinding rattled and an older American woman entered clad in a large white headpiece and new, Western, sheer olive-green stockings. My ears pricked up and I whipped my head around upon hearing the cry, “Who would eat that much lemon?”
Fear surged through me, chilling me, but the American woman wasn’t looking at me at all, she was staring out at the sky. The surface of the snowy field shone icy blue where somehow bears were making snowmen.
The train clattered on as always, I got lemon in my eye, I left my mother and father to journey toward the stars like so, but being pointlessly great as it was, the trip turned dull. Clatter went the train over the palest pale snowy plain, forever onward, never stopping. I steadily wearied, and soon lay my head upon the table and fell asleep, but in no time I was by the veranda next to the garden where sun dashes rocks, my tail flopping up and down, dreaming a the dream of a dog, one called Spot… Now, then, said a maid, to the post office with you to send a letter.
Translations from Japanese 