Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales

by Yōko Ogawa

A bag has no intentions or desires of its own, it embraces every object that we ask it to hold. You trust the bag, and it, in return, trusts you. To me, a bag is patience; a bag is profound discretion.

“I never knew there were so many different kinds of bags,” she said.

“For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight.

In other words, my uncle never seemed to think twice about abandoning a job or a woman to start over from square one.

Everyone I know has died. My past is full of ghosts.”