Translated by Toshiya Kamei
“Oh, how cursed am I in love?” My neck stretches like a rubber band. My head snakes through moonlit autumn air toward your window. Beyond the screen door, you lie asleep beside your wife. Her serene countenance makes my blood boil. “That should be me. She’s taking my place,” I whisper as the incessant hum of crickets drowns out my words. I smother my own breathing and strain my ears to catch yours. “I’m here, darling. Look at me!” “I can see you,” the moon overhead answers. But by the time the words reach Earth, daybreak arrives as another curse.
~
Yuki Fuwa is a Japanese writer from Osaka. In 2020, she was named a finalist for the first Reiwa Novel Prize. In the same year, her short story was a finalist in the first Kaguya SF Contest.
Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas. His translations have appeared in such venues as Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons.