Spiral

People can endure almost anything, but there’s one thing they just can’t survive. Man is an animal that can’t stand boredom. And that’s what set the whole thing off. In order to escape boredom, humanity had to progress.

Ironically, playing with dead bodies released him from the death that had touched him.

Ando seated himself next to the backrest and picked up Mai's underwear. He brought them close to his face and sniffed them, then held them away, then sniffed them again. They smelled like milk.

She didn't want them to apologize. She wanted them to learn and grow from the experience. She wanted to see a man turn embarrassment into energy and engage in a genuine struggle toward maturity.

The cab jostled up and down until it was straddling the tracks. At the same time, Mai's body was bobbing up and down in Ando's mind.

The mother was Shizu Asakawa, age thirty, and the daughter was Yoko, only eighteen months old.

As always, he'd felt a tiny hand grasping at his shin. Every time he had the dream, he felt on his feet the touch of that little hand, those anemone-like fingers slipping away to vanish into the depths of the ocean. There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent it, and it tortured him. He stretched out his arms, sure that he should be able to reach the body, but he just couldn't get a grip on it. It eluded his grasp every time, leaving behind only a few soft, fine strands of hair.

faces, even their taste in clothes and their high voices, they were like two peas in a pod.

“Hey, I didn’t know you had a twin