Koji Suzuki - Birthday

Mai found herself completely devoid of the joy and awe that motherhood was supposed to bring. The thing was finally born—that fact alone gradually spread across her body. Relief at having expelled the foreign object won out over all other emotion.

As her eyes adjusted, she could see the little form more clearly.

Covered with amniotic fluid, its skin glistening in the starlight, the baby was grabbing furiously at some rope-like thing with both hands. A wrinkly rope, extending from Mai's body... The baby had in its grasp the umbilical cord.

The thing had been born, but it was not yet fully separate from Mai's body. The umbilical cord still connected them. Just as the sash-rope still hung down into the rooftop crevice. Mai wanted to sever the cord and be done with it. Yet, powerless, she was forced to just lie there and let happen what might.

The baby was as active as Mai was enervated. It stretched out the ropy umbilical cord with its hands and then placed it in its mouth. It was trying to sever the cord. Naturally, its teeth hadn't come in yet; the way it clamped the cord between its red gums and shook its head from side to side, the thing was a far cry from an infant: its little face was demonic.

In the end, the process was like ripping apart sausage links. Having cut the cord, the baby took a wet towel from the plastic bag lying at Mai's feet and started to wipe off its body.

Mai herself must have prepared the wet towel at the same time she'd made the sash-rope. The bag had probably landed at her feet when she'd fallen into the hole.

She hadn't seen it from the way her head lay.

She'd been preparing to give birth without realizing it. She must have been taking commands from the embryo growing in her womb. Not that that made any sense.

Mai's uterus continued to contract. She pushed a little more, and thought she could feel the placenta coming out. Once the placenta and fetal membranes had been expelled, her belly was flat again.

Now that she could see over herself, she had a much clearer view of the baby.

It was wiping off its body, slowly, as if trying to get the wrinkles out of its skin. It had known in the womb what it had to do once it got out. It moved with alarming dexterity.

After it had finished wiping itself off, the baby assumed a relaxed, crouching pose and started moving its mouth.

What's it doing?

From the way it moved its face and hands, it looked to be eating something. Its ravenous expression stimulated Mai's own appetite, and she raised her head.

Dark, discolored blood clung to its tiny lips. She could hear it chewing flesh.

It was eating the placenta.

Stuffing its cheeks with the placenta—no doubt extremely nutritious—the baby seemed to surge with vitality. As it ate this piece of Mai, who herself was hungry and weak, it wore a satisfied smile.

Their eyes met in the darkness. For a moment, the little face took on an expression of pity.

Mai managed to speak.

"Are you Sadako Yamamura?"

The baby's gaze was steady as it bowed a head plas-tered with downy hair. The thing was apparently affirming that it was Sadako.

The sash-rope dangled just above the baby, caressing its shoulder.

Like one determined, the baby grabbed the end of the rope. Then it stood there like that for a while, staring at Mai. Mai could tell that it meant to go up into the world outside—to climb up the rope and to make its escape.

Just as she'd thought, the baby started to pull itself up the rope. Partway up, however, it stopped and looked down at Mai. It blinked and gave her a meaningful look.

Was it trying to tell her something? Its face was expres-sionless—she saw no hostility there, no sympathy, no hatred, nothing, perhaps because it wasn't possible to read any kind of expression into such a tiny, wrinkled face.

Finally it reached the rim of the exhaust shaft. It stood there, silhouetted against the stars. Mai could see the outline of its poorly severed umbilical cord—it looked like the tail of an animal or the horn of a demon.

The baby stood there at the rim for a while, looking down at her. Mai found herself clinging to that black shape.

Help me.

There was no one else around. The only one she could turn to for help was this being she'd given birth to. She would normally be caring for it, but their posi-tions were reversed.

But her wish was in vain. The baby began to pull the rope up just as it had forcibly shredded the umbilical cord. If it allowed the connection to remain, perhaps it couldn't truly stand on its own.

Mai understood, but she wished it would just leave the rope, at least. Why did it have to take away her only conduit to the outside world? Don't cut the spider's thread, I'll never be able to crawl up out of hell!

Mai begged, implored; she hated the baby's cruelty.

But its movements were calm and measured. Perhaps it, too, was acting under the compulsion of some tragic sense of duty. It gave no indication, in any case, that it would heed Mai's request.

I beg of you, don't abandon me.

The rope finished its ascent, and the baby's face disappeared from the rim of the exhaust shaft. What was it doing now? Mai could hear it doing something; it hadn't left yet.

The baby peeked back over the edge again, and then, with a quick movement of its left arm, tossed something down to Mai. Against the dim sky it looked like a snake twisted in a spiral. It was the sash-rope, all coiled up. It landed weightlessly on Mai's midsection and lay there in rings. Just a prank? Mai could detect no meaning in it, only the stench of malice.

The baby flashed her a grin. Then, without a trace of reluctance, it disappeared into the night.

Where was it going and what did it desire to become?

Mai kept seeing the umbilical cord hanging from its belly. The image resonated with her and would not leave. It reminded her of a demon—no image fit it better.

She heard the horn of a ship on Tokyo Bay. The sound was like a wolf's howl, a creature's vivid wail. In response came the faint yapping of a dog from somewhere in the residential neighborhood farther inland.

The sea was near, and there were people living surprisingly close by, but Mai was in a place governed by the laws of another world.

The tide was at its fullest, she figured: it would begin to recede now. It didn't matter. Life and death were not at odds; they coexisted snugly right where she was.

Mai gave a wan laugh and looked around at the darkness the baby had left behind, and allowed herself to think about its future.

She hoped, of course, that morning would come soon, but she had a feeling that night would continue for quite some time yet. She wasn't sure if her consciousness could hold out until dawn.

Suddenly she had the feeling that the stars had come right down close to her. Or was it that her body had started to float? It didn't feel too bad.

Death was almost there.

November 1990

............................................................, and

his dream was set in a theater, one that seated about four hundred people, the kind he was so used to, and had been for so long. He wasn't in the audience seating or onstage, but in a sound booth overlooking the stage from behind the seats; evidently he was in charge of sound effects. In front of him, illuminated by a work light, were the mixer in its cabinet and a reel-to-reel tape deck. He was seated on a chair, the index finger of his right hand on the tape recorder's play button and his left hand on the mixer, adjusting sound levels; his gaze was fixed on the play onstage. He knew, all too well, that this was a dream. And he knew, roughly, what was going to happen next, if he didn't wake up first, which didn't look like it was going to happen...and it was this self-awareness that he found so mystifying. He couldn't figure out what to call this neither/nor state he was in, as he crossed and recrossed the border between sleep and wakefulness.