Your piece should have an introduction that presents your argument (thesis) and provides context for your discussion of the essay topic. You should introduce the concept of constructive ambiguity––or a central ambiguity that is functioning in a constructi

from: After the Quake (2003), by Haruki Murakamiafter the quake The plane reached cruising altitude and the FASTEN SEAT BELT

sign went out. So, thought Satsuki, I'm going back to Japan.

She tried to think about what lay ahead, but soon gave up.

"Words turn into stone;' Nimit had told her. She settled deep

into her seat and closed her eyes. All at once the image came to

her of the sky she had seen while swimming on her back. And

Erroll Garner's "I'll Remember April:' Let me sleep, she

thought. Just let me sleep. And wait for the dream to come.

9 0

super-frog saves tokyo

Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It

was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs.

A skinny little man no more than five-foot-three, Katagiri was

overwhelmed by the frog's imposing bulk.

"Call me 'Frog;" said the frog in a clear, strong voice.

Katagiri stood rooted in the doorway, unable to speak.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not here to hurt you. Just come in and

close the door. Please:'

Briefcase in his right hand, grocery bag with fresh vegetables

and tanned salmon cradled in his left arm, Katagiri didn't dare

move.

"Please, Mr. Katagiri, hurry and close the door, and take off

your shoes:'

The sound of his own name helped Katagiri snap out of it.

He closed the door as ordered, set the grocery bag on the raised

wooden floor, pinned the briefcase under one arm, and unlaced

his shoes. Frog gestured for him to take a seat at the kitchen

table, which he did.

9, l

after the quake

"I must apologize, Mr. Katagiri, for having barged in while you

were out;' Frog said. "I knew it would be a shock for you to find

me here. But I had no choice. How about a cup of tea? I thought

you would be coming home soon, so I boiled some water:'

Katagiri still had his briefcase jammed under his arm. Some-

body's playing a joke on me, he thought. Somebody's rigged

himself up in this huge frog costume just to have fun with me.

But he knew, as he watched Frog pour boiling water into the

teapot, humn1ing all the while, that these had to be the limbs and movements of a real frog. Frog set a cup. of green tea in

front of Katagiri, and poured another one for himself

Sipping his tea, Frog a~ked, "Calming down?" But still Katagiri could"not speak.

"I know I should have made an appointment to visit you,

Mr. Katagiri. I am fully aware of the proprieties. Anyone would

be shocked to find a big frog waiting for him at home. But an

urgent matter brings me here. Please forgive me:'

"Urgent matter?" Katagiri managed to produce words at last ..

"Yes, indeed;' Frog said. "Why else would I take the liberty

of barging into a person's home? Such discourtesy is not my

customary style:'

"Does this 'matter' have something to do with me?"

"Yes and no;' said Frog with a tilt of the head. "No and yes:'

I've got to get a grip on mysel£ thought Katagiri. "Do you

mind if I smoke?" ·

"Not at all, not at all;' Frog said with a smile. "It's your home. You don't have to ask my permission. Smoke and drink

as much as you like. I myself am not a smoker, but I can hardly

impose my distaste for tobacco on others in their own homes:'

9 2

super-frog saves tokyo

Katagiri pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and

·struck a match. He saw his hand trembling as he lit up. Seated

qpposite him, Frog seemed to be studying his every movement.

"You don't happen to be connected with some kind of gang

by any chance?" Katagiri found the courage to ask.

"Ha ha ha ha l;ia ha! What a wonderful sense of humor you

have, Mr. Katagiri!" he said, slapping his webbed hand against

his thigh. "There may be a shortage of skilled labor, but what

gang is going to hire a frog to do ;heir dirty work? They'd be

made a laughingstock:'

"Well, if you're here to negotiate a repayment, you're wast-

ing your time. I have no authority to make such decisions. Only

my superiors can do that. I just follow orders. I can't do a thing

for you:'

"Please, Mr. Katagiri;' Frog said, raising one webbed fing~r. "I have not come here on such petty business. I am fully aware that

you are assistant chief of the Lending Division of the Shinjuku

branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank. But my visit has noth-

ing to do with the repayment of loans. I have come here to save

Tokyo from destruction:'

Katagiri scanned the room for a hidden TV camera in case

he was being made the butt of some huge, terrible joke. But

there was no camera. It was a small apartment. There was no

place for anyone to hide.

"No;' Frog said, "we are the only ones here. I know you are

thinking that I must be mad, or that you are having some kind

of dream, but I am not crazy and you are not dreaming. This is

absolutely, positively serious:'

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Frog-"

9 3

atter the quake.

"Please," Frog said, raising one finger agam. "Call me 'Frog:"

"To tell you the truth, Frog;' Katagiri said, "I can't quite

understand what is going on here. It's not that I don't trust you,

but I don't seem to be able to grasp the situation exactly. Do

you mind if I ask you a question or two?"

"Not at all, not at ail;' Frog said. "Mutual understanding is of

critical importance. There are those who say that 'understanding'

is merely the sum total of our misunderstandings, and while I do

find this view interesting in its own way, I am afraid that we have

no time to spare on pleasant digressions. The best thing would

be for us to achieve mutual understanding via the shortest pos-

sible route. Therefore, by all means, ask as many questions as you wish:'

"Now, you are a real frog, am I right?"

"Yes, of course, as you can see. A real frog is exactly what I

am. A product neither of metaphor nor allusion nor decon-

struction not sampling nor any other such complex process, I

am a genuine frog. Shall I croak for you?"

Frog tilted back his head and flexed the muscles of his huge

throat. Ribit! Ri-i-i-bit! Ribit-ribit-ribit! Ribit! Ribit! Ri-i-i-bit! His

gigantic croaks rattled the pictures hanging on the walls.

"Fine, I see, I see!" Katagiri said, worried about the thin

walls of the cheap apartment house in which he lived. "That's

great. You are, without question, a real frog:'

"One might also say that I am the sum total of all frogs.

Nonetheless, this does nothing to change the fact that I am a

frog. Anyone claiming that I am not a frog would be a dirty liar.

I would smash such a person to bits!"

9 4

super-frog saves tokyo

Katagiri nodded. Hoping to calm himself, he picked up his

· ct.tp and swallowed a mouthful of tea. "You said before that

you have come here to save Tokyo from destruction?"

"That is what I said:'

"What kind of destruction?"

"Earthquake;'. Frog said with the utmost gravity.

Mouth dropping open, Katagiri looked at Frog. And Frog,

saying nothing, looked at Katagiri. They went on staring at

each other like this for some time. Next it was Frog's turn to open his mouth. . ..

"A very, very big earthquake. It is set to strike Tokyo at

eight-thirty a.m. on February 18. Three days from now. A much

bigger earthquake than the one that struck Kobe last month.

The number of dead from such a quake would probably exceed

a hundred and fifty thousand-mostly from accidents involv-

ing the commuter system: derailments, falling vehicles, crashes,

the collapse of elevated expressways and rail lines, the crushing

of subways, the explosion of tanker trucks. Buildings will be

transformed into piles of rubble, their inhabitants crushed to

death. Fires everywhere, the road system in a state of collapse,

ambulances and fire trucks useless, people just lying there,

dying. A hundred and fifty thousand of them! Pure hell. People _

will be made to realize what a fragile condition the intensive

collectivity known as 'city' really is:' Frog said this with a gentle

shake of the head. "The epicenter will be dose to the Shinjuku

ward office:'

"Close to the Shinjuku ward office?"

"To be precise, it will hit directly beneath the Shinjuku

branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank:'

9 5

atter the quake

A heavy silence followed.

''.And you," Katagiri said, "are planning to stop this earth-

quake?"

"Exactly;' Frog said, nodding. "That is exactly what I pro-

pose to do. You and I will go underground beneath the Shin-

juku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank to do mortal

combat with Worm:'

As a member of the Trust Bank Lending Division, Katagiri had

fought his way through many a battle. He had weathered six-

teen years of daily combat since the day he graduated from the

university and joined the bank's staff He was, in a word, a col-

lection officer-a post that carried little popularity. Everyone

in his division preferred to make loans, especially at the time of

the bubble. They had so much money in those days that almost

any likely piece of collateral-be it land or stock-was enough

to convince loan officers to give away whatever they were asked

for, the bigger the loan the better their reputations in the com-

pany. Some loans, though, never made it back to the bank: they

got "stuck to the bottom of the pan:' It was Katagiri's job to

take care of those. And when the bubble burst, the work piled

on. First stock prices fell, and then land values, and collateral

lost all significance. "Get out there;' his boss commanded him,

"and squeeze whatever you can out of them:'

The Kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku was a labyrinth

of violence: old-time gangsters, Korean mobsters, Chinese mafia,

guns and drugs, money flowing beneath the surface from one

murky den to another, people vanishing every now and then

like a puff of smoke. Plunging into Kabukicho to collect a bad

9 6

super-frog saves tokyo

debt, Katagiri had been surrounded more than once by mob-

sters threatening to kill him, but he had never been frightened.

What good would it have done them to kill one man running

around for the bank? They could stab hi~ if they wanted to. They could beat him up. He was perfect for the job: no wife,

no kids, both pa~ents dead, brother and sister he had put

through college married off So what if they killed him? it

wouldn't change anything for anybody-least of all for Kata-

giri himself

It was not Katagiri but the thugs .. surrounding him who got

nervous when the-y saw him so calm and cool. He soon earned

a kind of reputation in their world as a tough guy. Now,

though, the taught Katagiri was at a total loss. What the hell

was this frog talking about? Worm?

"Who is Worm?" he asked with some hesitation.

"Worm lives underground. He is a gigantic worm. When he

gets angry, he causes earthquakes;' Frog said. "And right now

he is very, very angry:'

"What is he angry about?" Katagiri asked.

"I have no idea;' Frog said. "Nobody knows what Worm is

thinking inside that murky head of his. Few have ever seen him.

He is usually asleep. That's what he really likes to do: take long,

long naps. He goes on sleeping for years-decades-in the

warmth and darkness underground. His eyes, as you might

imagine, have atrophied, his brain has turned to jelly as he

sleeps. If you ask me, I'd guess he probably isn't thinking any- thing at all, just lying there and feeling every little rumble and

reverberation that comes his way, absorbing them into his body,

and storing them up. And then, through some kind of chemical

9 7

after the quake.

process, he replaces most of them with rage. Why this happens I

have no idea. I could never explain it:'

Frog fell silent, watching Katagiri and waiting until his

words had sunk in. Then he went on:

"Please don't misunderstand me, though. I feel no personal

animosity toward Worm. I don't see him as the embodiment of

evil. Not that I would want to be his friend, either: I just think

that, as far as the world is concerned, it is in a sense all right for a

being like him to exist. The world is like a great big- overcoat,

and- it needs pockets of various shapes and sizes. But right at

the moment Worm has reached the point where he is too dan-

gerous to ignore. With all the different kinds of hatred he has ~

absorbed and stored inside himself over the years, his heart and

body have swollen to gargantuan proportions-bigger than

ever before. And to make matters worse, last month's Kobe

earthquake shook him out of the deep sleep he was enjoying.

He experienced a revelation inspired by his profound rage: it

was time now for him, too, to cause a massive earthquake, and

he'd do it here, in Tokyo. I know what I'm talking about, Mr.

Katagiri: I have received reliable information on the timing and

scale of the earthquake from some of my best bug friends:'

Frog snapped his mouth shut and closed his round eyes in

apparent fatigue.

"So what you're saying is;' Katagiri said, "that you and I

have to go underground together and fight Worm to stop the

earthquake:'

"E 1" xact y.

Katagiri reached for his cup of tea, picked it up, and put it

9 8

super-frog saves tokyo

back. "I still don't get it;' he said. "Why did you choose me to

go with you?"

. Frog looked straight into Katagiri's eyes and said, "I have

always had the profoundest respect for you, Mr. Katagiri. For

sixteen long years, you have silently accepted the most danger-

ous, least glamo~ous assignments-the jobs that others have

avoided-and you have carried them off beautifully. I know full

well how difficult this has been for you, and I believe that neither

your superiors nor your colleagues properly appreciate your ac-

complishments. They are blind, the whole lot of them. But you,

unappreciated and unpromoted, have never once complained.

"Nor is it simply a matter of your work. After your par-

ents died, you raised your teenage brother and sister single-

handedly, put them through college, and even arranged for

them to marry, all at great sacrifice of your time and income, and at the expense of your own marriage prospects. In spite of

this, your brother and sister have never once expressed grati-

tude for your efforts on their .behalf Far from it: they have

shown you no respect and acted with the most callous disre-

gard for your loving-kindness. In my opinion, their behavior is

unconscionable. I almost wish I could beat them to a pulp on

your behalf But you, meanwhile, show no trace of anger.

"To be quite honest, Mr. Katagiri, you are nothing much to

look at, and you are far from eloquent, so you tend to be

looked down upon by those around you. I, however, can see what a sensible and courageous man you are. In all of Tokyo, with its teeming millions, there is no one else I could trust as

much as you to fight by my side:'

9 9

a t t e r t h e q u a k e.

"Tell me, Mr. Frog-" Katagiri said.

"Please," Frog said; raising one finger agam. "Call me 'F "' rog.

"Tell me, Frog;' Katagiri said, "how do you know so much about me?"

"Well, Mr. Katagiri, I have not been frogging all these years

for nothing. I keep my eye on the important things in life:'

"But still, Frog;' Katagiri said, ''I'm not particularly strong,

and I don't know anything about what's happening under-

ground. I don't have the kind of muscle it will take to fight

Worm in the darkness. I'm sure you can find somebody a lot

stronger than me-a man who does karate, say, or a Self- Defense Force commando:' .

Frog rolled his large eyes. "To tell you the truth, Mr. Kata-

giri;' he said, "I'm the one who will do all the fighting. But I

can't do it alone. This is the key thing: I need your courage and

your passion for justice. I need you to stand behind me and say,

'Way to go, Frog! You're doing great! I know you can win!

You're fighting the good fight!"'

Frog opened his arms wide, then slapped his webbed hands down on his knees again.

"In all honesty, Mr. Katagiri, the thought of fighting Worm in the dark frightens me, too. For many years I lived as a paci-

fist, loving art, living with nature. Fighting is not something I

like to do. I do it because I have to. And this particular fight

will be a fierce one, that is certain. I may not return from it

alive. I may lose a limb or two in the process. But I cannot-I

will not-run away. As Nietzsche said, the highest wisdom is

to have no fear. What I want from you, Mr. Katagiri, is for you

l 0 0

super-frog saves tokyo

to share your simple courage with me, to support me with your

·whole heart as a true friend. Do you understand what I am try-

ing to tell you?" None of this made any sense to Kat.agiri, but still he felt

that-unreal as it sounded-he could believe whatever Frog

said to him. So~ething about Frog-the look on his face, the

way he spoke-had a simple honesty to it that appealed directly

to the heart. After years of work in the toughest division qf the

Security Trust Bank, Katagiri possessed the ability to sense

such things. It was all but second ~ature to him. "I know this must be difficult for you, Mr. Katagiri. A h~ge

frog comes barging into your place and asks you to believe all

these outlandish things. Your reaction is perfectly natural. And

so I intend to provide you with proof that I exist. Tell me, Mr.

Katagiri, you have been having a great deal of trouble recover-

ing a loan the bank made to Big Bear Trading, have you not?"

"That's true;' Katagiri said.

"Well, they have a number of extortionists working behind

the scenes, and those individuals are mixed up with the mob-

sters. They're scheming to make the company go bankrupt and

get out of its debts. Your bank's loan officer shoved a pile of

cash at them without a decent background check, and, as usual,

the one who's left to clean up after him is you, Mr. Katagiri. But

you're having a hard time sinking your teeth into these fellows:

they're no pushovers. And there may be a powerful politician

backing them up. They're into you for seven hundred million

yen. That is the situation you are dealing with, am I right?"

"You certainly are:'

Frog stretched his arms out wide, his big green webs opening

l 0 l

after the quake

like pale wings. "Don't worry, Mr. Katagiri. Leave everything to

me. By tomorrow morning, old Frog will have your problems

solved. Relax and have a good night's sleep:'

With a big smile on his face, Frog stood up. Then, flattening

himself like a dried squid, he slipped out through the gap at

the side of the closed door, leaving Katagiri all alone. The two

teacups on the kitchen table were the only indication that Frog

had ever been in Katagiri's apartment.

The moment Katagiri arrived at work the next morning at

nine, the phone on his desk rang.

"Mr. Katagiri;' said a· man's voice. It was cold and busi-

nesslike. "My name is Shiraoka. I am an attorney with the Big

Bear case. I received a call from my client this morning with

regard to the pending loan matter. He wants you to know that

he will take full responsibility for returning the entire amount

requested by the due date. He will also give you a signed mem-

orandum to that effect. His only request is that you do not

send Frog to his home again. I repeat: he wants you lo ask Frog

never to visit his home again. I myself am not entirely sure what

this is supposed to mean, but I believe it should be clear to you,

Mr. Katagiri. Am I correct?"

"You are indeed;' Katagiri said.

"You will be kind enough to convey my message to Frog, I

trust:'

"That I will do. Your client will never see Frog again:'

"Thank you very much. I will prepare the memorandum for

you by tomorrow:'

"I appreciate it:' Katagiri said.

l 0 2

super-frog saves tokyo

The connection was cut.

Frog visited Katagiri in his Trust Bank office at lunchtime.

'.'That Big Bear case is working out well for you, I presume?"

Katagiri glanced around uneasily.

"D ' "F 'd "V h nl h on t worry, rog sa1 . iou are t e o y one w o can see m~. But now I ari:i sure you realize that I actually exist. I am not

a product of your imagination. I can take action and produce

results. I am a real, living being:'

"Tell me, Mr. Frog-" .. "Please;' Frog said, raising one finger. "Call me 'Frog:"

"Tell me, Frog;' Katagiri said) "what did you do to them?"

"Oh, nothing much;' Frog said. "Nothing much more com-

plicated than boiling Brussels sprouts. I just gave them a little

scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once

wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel toward their imagi-

nation. But never mind that, Mr. Katagiri. Tell me about the Big

Bear case. It's going well?"

Katagiri nodded and lit a cigarette. "Seems to be."

"So, then, have I succeeded in gaining your trust with regard

to the matter I broached to you last night? Will you join me to

fight against Worm?"

Sighing, Katagiri removed his glasses and wiped them. 'To

tell you the truth, I'm not too crazy about the idea, but I don't

suppose that's enough to get me out of it:'

"No;' Frog said. "It is a matter of responsibility and honor.

You may not be too 'crazy' about the idea, but we have no

choice: you and I must go underground and face Worm. If we should happen to lose our lives in the process, we will gain no

one's sympathy. And even if we manage to defeat Worm, no ·

l 0 3

after the quake

one will praise us. No one will ever know that such a battle

even raged far beneath their feet. Only you and I will know, Mr.

Katagiri. However it turns out, ours will be a lonelY. battle:'

Katagiri looked at his own hand for a while, then watched

the smoke rising from his cigarette. Finally, he spoke. "You

know, Mr. Frog, I'm just an ordinary person:'

"Make that 'Frog; please;' Frog said, but Katagiri let it go.

'Tm an absolutely ordinary guy. Less than ordinary. I'm

going bald, I'm getting a potbelly, I turned forty last month.

My feet are flat. The doctor told me recently that I have dia-

betic tendencies. It's been three months or more since I last

slept with a woman-and· I had to pay for it. I do get some

recognition within the division for my ability to collect on

loans, but no real respect. I don't have a single person who likes

me, either at work or in my private life. I don't know how to

talk to people, and I'm bad with strangers, so I never make

friends. I have no athletic ability, I'm tone-deaf, short, phi-

motic, nearsighted-and astigmatic. I live a horrible life. All I

do is eat, sleep, and shit. I don't know why I'm even living. Why

should a person like me have to be the one to save Tokyo?"

"Because, Mr. Katagiri, Tokyo can only be saved by a person like you. And it's for people like you that I am trying to save

Tokyo:'

Katagiri sighed again, more deeply this time. "All right then,

what do you want me to do?"

Frog told Katagiri his plan. They would go underground on

the night of February 17 (one day before the earthquake was

scheduled to happen). Their way in would be through the base-

I 0 4

super-trog saves tokyo

ment boiler room of the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Secu-

rity Trust Bank. They would meet there late at night (Katagiri

wm;Ild stay in the building on the pretext of working overtime).

· Behind a section of wall was a vertical shaft, and they would

find Worm at the bottom by climbing down a 150-foot rope

ladder.

"Do you have a battle plan in mind?" Katagiri asked.

"Of course I do. We would have no hope of defeating an

enemy like Worm without a battle plan. He is a slimy creature:

you can't tell his mouth from his anus~ And he's as big as a com- muter train:'

"What is your battle plan?"

After a thoughtful pause, Frog answered, "Hmm, what is it

they say-'Silence is golden'?"

"You mean I shouldn't ask?"

"That's one way of putting it:'

"What if I get scared at the last minute and run away? What

would you do then, Mr. Frog?"

"'F "' rog. "Frog. What would you do then?"

Frog thought about this a while and answered, "I would fight

on alone. My chances of beating him by myself are perhaps

just slightly better than Anna Karenina's chances of beating

~·that speeding locomotive. Have you read Anna Karenina, Mr.

Katagiri?" When he heard that Katagiri had not read, the novel, Frog

gave him a look as if to say, What a shame. Apparently Frog was

very fond of Anna Karenina.

"Still, Mr. Katagiri, I do not believe that you will leave me to

I 0 5

atter the quake.

fight alone. I can tell. It's a question of balls-which, unfortu-

nately, I do not happen to possess. Ha ha ha ha!" Frog laughed

with his mouth wide open. Balls were not all that Frog lacked.

He had no teeth, either.

Unexpected things do happen, however.

Katagiri was shot on the evening of February 17. He had fin-

ished his rounds for the day and was walking down the street in

Shinjuku on his way back to the Trust Bank when a young man

in a leather jacket leaped in front of him. The man's face was a

blank, and he gripped a small black gun in one hand. The gun

was so small and so black it hardly looked real. Katagiri stared at

the object in the man's hand, not registering the fact that it was

aimed at him and that the man was pulling the trigger. It all

happened too quickly: it didn't make sense to him. But the gun in fact went of£

Katagiri saw the barrel jerk in the air and, at the same

moment, felt an impact as though someone had struck his right

shoulder with a sledgehammer. He felt no pain, but the blow

sent him sprawling on the sidewalk. The leather briefcase in his

right hand went flying in the other direction. The man aimed

the gun at him again. A second shot rang out. A small eatery's sidewalk signboard exploded before his eyes. He heard people

screaming. His eyeglasses had flown off, and everything was a

blur. He was vaguely aware that the man was approaching with

the pistol pointed at him. I'm going to die, he thought. Frog

had said that true terror is the kind that men feel toward their

imagination. Katagiri cut the switch of his imagination and

sank into a weightless silence.

1 0 6

super-trog saves tokyo

When he woke up, he was in bed. He opened one eye, took a

moment to survey his surroundings, and then opened the other

eye. The first thing that entered his field of vision was a metal

stand by the head _of the bed and an intravenous feeding tube

that stretched from the stand to where he lay. Next he saw a

nurse dressed in white. He realized that he was lying on his

back on a hard bed and wearing some strange piece of clothing,

under which he seemed to be naked.'

Oh yeah, he thought, I was walking along the sidewalk when

some guy shot me. Probably in the shoulder. The right one. He

relived the scene in his mind. When he remembered the small

black gun in the young man's hand, his heart made a disturbing

thump. The sons of bitches were trying to kill me! he tho~ght. But it looks as if I made it through OK. My memory is fine. I

don't have any pain. And not just pain: I don't have any feeling

at all. I can't lift my arm ...

The hospital room had no windows. He could not tell

whether it was day or night. He had been shot just before five

in the evening. How much time had passed since then? Had the

hour of his nighttime rendezvous with Frog gone by? Katagiri

. searched the room for a dock, but without his glasses he could

see nothing at a distance.

"Excuse me;' he called to the nurse.

"Oh, good, you're finally awake;' the nurse said.

"What time is it?"

She looked at her watch.

"Nine-fifteen:'

1 0 7

arter the quake

"P.M.?"

"Don't be silly, it's morning!"

. "~ine-fifteen a.m.?" Katagiri groaned, barely managing to hft his. head from the pillow. The ragged noise that emerged

from his throat sounded like someone else's voice. "Nine~fifi:een a.m. on February 18?"

"Right," the nurse said, lifting her arm once more to check

the date on her digital watch. ''Today is February 18, 1995:'

"Wasn't there a big earthquake in Tokyo this morning?" "I Tc k ,,, n o yo. "I Tc k " n o yo.

The nurse shook her.head. "Not as far as I know:'

He breathed a sigh o.f relie£ Whatever had happened, the earthquake at least had been averted.

"How's my Vl;'Ound doing?" "V d" h 1 our woun ? s e asked. "What wound?" "Where I was shot:'

"Shot?"

"Yeah, near the entrance to the Trust Bank. Some young guy

shot me. In the right shoulder, I think:'

The nurse flashed a nervous smile in his direction. ''I'm

sorry, Mr. Katagiri, but you haven't been shot:'

"I haven't? Are you sure?"

"A s s~r~ as I am that there was no earthquake this morning:' Katagm was stunned "Then what the hell I d · · · am omg ma

hospital?"

"Somebody found you lying in the street, unconscious. In

the Kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku. You didn't have any

I 0 8

s u p e r - f r. o g s a v e s t o k y o

e~~ernal wounds. You were just out cold. And we still haven't

found out why. The "doctor's going to be here soon.You'd better

talk to him:' Lying in the street unconscious? Katagiri was sure he had

seen the pistol go off aimed at him. He took a deep breath and

tried to get his head straight. He would start by putting all the

facts in order.

"What you're telling me is, I've been lying in this hospital

bed, unconscious, since early evening yesterday, is that right?"

"Right;' the nurse said. "And you had a really bad night, Mr.

Katagiri. You must have had some awful nightmares. I heard

you yelling, 'Frog! Hey, Frog!' You did it a lot. You have a friend

nicknamed 'Frog'?"

Katagiri dosed his eyes and listened to the slow, rhythmic

beating of his heart as it ticked off the minutes of his life.

How much of what he remembered had actually happened,

and how much was hallucination? Did Frog really exist, and

had Frog fought with Worm to put a stop to the earthquake?

Or had that just been part of a long dream? Katagiri had no

idea what was true anymore.

Frog c~e to his hospital room that night. Katagiri awoke to

find him in the dim light, sitting on a steel folding chair, his

back against the wall. Frog's big, bulging green eyelids were

dosed in a straight slit.

"Frog!" Katagiri called out to him.

Frog slowly opened his eyes. His big white.stomach swelled

and shrank with his breathing.

1,0 9

a.fter the quake

"I meant to meet you in the boiler room at night the way I

promised;' Katagiri said, "but I had an accident in the evening-

something totally unexpected-and they brought me here:'

Frog gave his head a slight shake. "I know. It's OK. Don't

worry. You were a great help to me in my fight, Mr. Katagiri:'

"I was?"

"Yes, you were. You did a great job in your dreams. That's

what made it possible for me to fight Worm to the finish. I have

you to thank for my victory:'

"I don't get it;' Katagiri said. "I was unconscious the whole

time. They were feeding. me intravenously. I don't remember

doing anything in my dreams:'

'That's fine, Mr. Katagiri. It's better that you don't remem-

ber. The whole terrible fight occurred in the area of imagina-

tion. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there

that we experience our victories and our defeats. Each and every

one of us is a being of limited duration: all of us eventually go

down to defeat. But as Ernest Hemingway saw S<? clearly, the

ultimate value of our lives is decided not by how we win but by

how we lose. You and I together, Mr. Katagiri, were able to pre-

vent the annihilation of Tokyo. We saved a hundred and fifty

thousand people from the jaws of death. No one realizes it, but

that is what we accomplished:'

"How did you manage to defeat Worm? And what did

Ido?"

"We gave everything we had in a fight to the bitter end. We-"

Frog snapped his mouth shut and took one great breath, "-we

used every weapon we cotild get our hands on, Mr. Katagiri. We

used all the courage we could muster. Darkness was our enemy's

1 1 0

super-frog save·s tokyo

:iµ.y .. You brought in a foot-powered generator and used every

ounce of your strength to fill the place with light. Worm tried to frighten you away with phantoms of the darkness, but you

stood your ground. Darkness vied with light in a horrific battle,

and in the light I grappled with the monstrous Worm. He

coiled himself around me, and bathed me in his horrid slime. I

tore him to shreds, but still he refused to die. All he did was

divide into smaller pieces. And then-"

Frog fell silent, but soon, as if dretlging up his last ounce of

strength, he began to speak again. "Fyodor Dostoevsky, with

unparalleled tenderness, depicted those who have been forsaken

by God. He discovered the precious quality of human existence

in the ghastly paradox whereby men who had invented God were

forsaken by that very Go?. Fighting with Worm in the darkness, I found myself thinking of Dostoevsky's 'White Nights: I .. :•

Frog's words seemed to founder. "Mr. Katagiri, do you mind if

I take a brief nap?. I am utterly exhausted:'

"Please;' Katagiri said. "Take a good, deep sleep:'

"I was finally unable to defeat Worm;' Frog said, closing his

eyes. "I did manage to stop the earthquake, but I was only able

to carry our battle to a draw. I inflicted injury on him, and he

on me. But to tell you the. truth, Mr. Katagiri .. :•

"What is it, Frog?"

"I am, indeed, pure Frog, but at the same time I am a thing

that stands for a world of un-Frog:'

"Hmm, I don't get that at all:' "Neither do I;' Frog said, his eyes still closed. "It's just a

feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily

real. My enemy is, among ~ther things, the me inside me.

1 1 · 1

after the quake

Inside me is the un-me. My brain is growing muddy. The loco-

motive is coming. But I really want you to understand what I'm

saying, Mr. Katagiri:'

"You're tired, Frog. Go to sleep. You'll get better:'

"I am slowly, slowly returning to the mud, Mr. Katagiri.

And yet. .. I .. :'

Frog lost his grasp on words and slipped into a coma. His

arms hung down almost to the floor, and his big wide mouth

drooped open. Straining to focus his eyes, Katagiri was able to

make out deep cuts covering Frog's entire body. Discolored

streaks ran through his s~in, and.there was a sunken spot on his

head where the flesh had been torn away.

Katagiri stared long and hard at Frog, who sat there now

wrapped in the thick cloak of sleep. As soon as I get out of this

hospital, he thought, I'll buy Anna Karenina and "White Nights"

and read them both. Then I'll have a nice long literary discus-

sion about them with Frog.

Before long, Frog began to twitch all over. Katagiri assumed

at first that these were just normal involuntary movements in

sleep, but he soon realized his mistake. There was something

unnatural about the way Frog's body went on jerking, like a big

doll being shaken by someone from behind. Katagiri held his

breath and watched. He wanted to run over to Frog, but his

own body remained paralyzed.

After a while, a big lump formed over Frog's right eye. The

same kind of huge, ugly boil broke out on Frog's shoulder and

side, and then over his whole body. Katagiri could not imagine

what was happening to Frog. He stared at the spectacle, barely

breathing.

l l 2

s u p e r - f r o g s a v. e s t o k y o

. Then, all of a sudden, one of the boils burst with a loud

pop. The skin flew of£ and a sticky liquid oozed out, sending a

horrible smell across the room. The rest· of the boils started

popping, one after another, twenty or thirty in all, flinging skin

and fluid onto the walls. The sickening, unbearable smell filled

the hospital room. Big black holes were left on Frog's body

where the boils had burst, and wriggling, maggotlike worms of

all shapes and sizes came crawling out. Puffy white maggots.

After them emerged some kind of small centipedelike crea-

tures, whose hundreds of legs made a creepy rustling sound.

An endless stream of these things came crawling out of the

holes. Frog's body-or the thing that must once have been

Frog's body-was totally covered with these creatures of the

night. His two big eyeballs fell from their sockets onto the

floor, where they were devoured by black bugs with strong jaws.

Crowds of slimy worms raced each other up the walls to the

ceiling, where they covered the fluorescent lights and burrowed

into the smoke alarm.

The floor, too, was covered with worms and bugs. They

climbed up the lamp and blocked the light and, of course, they

crept onto Katagiri's bed. Hundreds of them came burrowing

under the covers. They crawled up his legs, under his bedgown,

between his thighs·. The smallest worms and maggots crawled

inside his anus and ears and nostrils. Centipedes pried his

mouth open and crawled inside one after another. Filled with

an intense despair, Katagiri screamed.

Someone snapped a switch and light filled the room.

"Mr. Katagiri!" called the nurse. Katagiri opened his eyes

to the light. His body was soaked in sweat. The bugs were

z .z 3

after the quake

gone. All they had left behind in him was a horrible slimy

sensation.

"Another bad dream, eh? Poor dear:' With quick, efficient

movements the nurse readied an injection and stabbed the needle

into his arm.

He took a long, deep breath and let it out. His heart was

expanding and contracting violently.

"What were you dreaming about?"

Katagiri was having trouble differentiating dream from real-

ity. "What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real;' he

told himself aloud.

"That's so true;' said the nurse with a smile. "Especially

where dreams are concerned:'

"F "h cL rog, e murmure "Did something happen to Frog?" she asked.

"He saved Tokyo from being destroyed by an earthquake.

All by himself'

"That's nice;' the nurse said, replacing his near-empty intra-

venous feeding bottle with a new one. "We don't need any more

awful things happening in Tokyo. We have plenty already:'

"But it cost him his life. He's gone. I think he went back to

the mud. He'll never come here again."

Smiling, the nurse toweled the sweat from his forehead.

"You were very fond of Frog, weren't you, Mr. Katagiri?"

"Locomotive;' Katagiri mumbled. "More than anybody:'

Then he closed his eyes and sank into a restful, dreamless sleep.

I I 4

honey pie

I

"So Masakichi got his paws full of honey-way more honey

than he could eat by himself-and he put it in a bucket, and

do-o-o-wn the mountain he went, all the way to the town to

sell his honey. Masakichi was the all-time Number One honey

bear:'

"Do bears have buckets?" Sala asked.

"Masakichi just happened to have one;' Junpei explained.

"He found it lying in the road, and he figured it would come in

handy sometime:'

"And it did:'

"It really did. So Masakichi the Bear went to town and

found a spot for himself in the square. He put up a sign: Deee-

licious Honey. All Natural. One Cup ¥ 200:'

"Can bears write?"

"No, of course not;' Junpei said. "There was a nice old man

with a pencil sitting next to him, and he asked him to write it:'

"C b ~ an ears count money.

I 5