Earthlings

by Sayaka Murata

As we drove up and up around endless bends, ears popping, I felt like I was gradually moving toward the sky. Granny’s house is high up, close to the universe.

Piyyut had taught me the magical power of invisibility. I didn’t actually become invisible. I just held my breath and could make myself go unnoticed. When I did this, they became a cozy family of three, all snuggled up together. I sometimes made use of the power for their sake.

The Baby Factory produces humans connected by flesh and blood. Eventually we children will also leave the factory and be shipped out.

It’s handy having a dumpster in the house. In this house, that’s my role. When Dad and Mom and Kise get so fed up they can’t bear it any longer, they dump everything onto me.

The person who had given birth to me said I was a dead loss, so I decided it really must be true.

It’s really hard to put into words things that are just a little bit not okay. I had the feeling that Mr. Igasaki was a little bit not okay.

From my family’s perspective I was worthless, so it was presumptuous of me to try to do anything positive. It took all my effort just to remain at my zero level without becoming a minus.

The switch in my heart was off, so I didn’t feel anything. I held my breath waiting for time to pass. I shut myself up in a pod, like a time capsule in the earth, and held myself absolutely still, barely managing to take my life forward into the future.

Seeing Mr. Igasaki holding my skull and using my head as a tool, I vaguely understood. I’d thought I wasn’t yet a fully fledged member of the Factory, but actually I was already one of its tools after all.

“When we grow up. Then we’ll be able to live.”

Even after all this time, I still wasn’t living my life so much as simply surviving.

“I don’t particularly love my wife, but I married her in order to divert the attention of the Factory. Unlike her, I’m terrified of being brainwashed. The Factory really is frightening, you know. It makes us into slaves.”

You’d begun to think that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t an Earthling. That’s why you didn’t really fit in, and of course you thought Earthlings were strange. After all, you’re a Popinpobopian.

“Plenty of people look squarely at things they don’t want to see and live with them.”

“What problems? Do better than what? Look, Yuu, I already explained it clearly to you. I told you about Tomoya and me. You’re just not listening. You’re too busy tuning into society’s noise. However much we talk, it’s just meaningless babble to you.”

I wanted to take all the words out from inside my body and show them to someone.

He let me speak my own language. Earthlings probably don’t realize it, but meeting someone like that is rare in life. That’s a miracle in itself.