Satoshi Iwai Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“I don't know how to be a surrealist when the real world is more absurd than my dreams. People boast their acts of vandalism on TikTok every day. Green Forests are destroyed to build solar power plants. Bluffing shouts redraw intricate border lines in bloody ink again and again. Maybe I shouldn't close my eyes while sleeping and shouldn't open my eyes while writing.”
— Satoshi Iwai
~~~
SPEED OF SOUND
I am a superhero. The invincible guy. I can stop a bullet with my chest. I can bend a samurai sword with a flick of my finger. However, I don’t have a chance to show my power here. In this seaside resort, no one carries a gun or a sword under the bathing suit.
My present enemies are battalions of sea cucumbers. The hotel guests detest treading on the slimy bodies while playing around on the beach. Every morning my manager orders me to get rid of the creatures from the sand. I pick them up and throw them away faster than the speed of sound.
I know the world is waiting for my help, but I can't leave here. I had my flying cape stolen by a group of bird-brained college students last year. My manager is stern and relentless. My enemies on the beach are innumerable. I must throw them away faster than the speed of sound every morning.
CHERRY TRUTH
When I was a little boy, I used to climb the cherry tree in the garden of my house. One day I hit my father’s hatchet into the tree for a lark and broke it. For fear of punishment, I fell headlong to the ground and ran away home.
Twenty years later, after building a successful career, I came back. There was no one inside the house. The wallpapers had mostly been peeled off. The table and chairs had been covered with dust. I walked out of the kitchen door and looked up at the cherry tree in the garden. It was in full blossom, and was holding the rusty, broken hatchet in the middle of its trunk.
I climbed the tree and pulled out the hatchet. When I jumped down and landed on my rear, a sudden wind whirled away hundreds of pink petals to the dark sky and a distant temple bell clanged. I realized that my successful years were nothing but a long hallucination caused by concussion.
TEN YEARS
Every afternoon I made love with her under the pine tree in the middle of the clover field. One day she told me that we had to part but would meet again in ten years. Soon after that, a massive earthquake occurred and a Hokusai-esque tsunami struck our village. In the raging black water, I managed to survive by riding on the back of a turtle. After the sea calmed down, I swam back to the shore. The clover field had been turned into a Piranesi-esque shopping mall. I walked into it and found her there. She was wearing a red bikini and standing under the plastic pine tree in the middle of the main concourse. Her body was FRP. Her eyes were glass balls. I realized that ten years had already passed. I started shooting the vending machines with my machine gun. The hallway was flooded with tons of Coke. I dove into the sparkling black water and held her stiff body. We met again.
SIGN OF TYPHOON
I don’t know why my scarecrow loses his left arm every Friday and loses his right arm every Saturday. Every Sunday, he even loses his head. Furthermore, I don’t know why he has taken back his head and two arms when I wake up on Monday mornings.
Standing in the middle of paddy fields, wearing a torn white shirt, my scarecrow keeps smiling under the perfect sun, though his narrow eyes have almost faded out. From somewhere, the radio news tells the crushing defeat of the centrists in the election.
Thousands of the rice ears start waving in the strong wind. Mother, what are you waiting by the river? The cicadas are unbearably noisy. Father, why don’t you come home? The radio tells nothing anymore, but my scarecrow never stops smiling. All I hear is cries, cries, cries.
FRAGILE SLEEP
I am working for a property development company. This morning I got a promotion. My first job as a vice manager is to destroy a tulip field and place a tulip field on it. I don’t know why the tulip field needs to be destroyed, but our client loves tulips very much. My predecessor told me that I must obey any order without any question before he killed himself by taking chocolate-flavored pesticides.
We build a tall steel tower at the center of the tulip field. Then we play a song through the loudspeaker on top of the tower. Look at the river flow, listen to the wind blow. Everyone goes where they want to go, leaving all memories behind. When a gloomy voice fills in the air, thousands of petals start falling one after another. We dig the bulbs out of the ground and find all of them changing themselves into broken glasses.
~~~
SATOSHI IWAI was born and lives in Kanagawa, Japan. He writes poems in English and in Japanese. His English work has appeared in Fairy Tale Review, Newfound, Into the Void, Phantom Drift, Outlook Springs, and elsewhere.
