“A strange job”

Abstract

I was heading toward the clock tower along the broad pavement leading to Tokyo University Hospital and had reached the intersection where the view suddenly opens up to a wide vista, when I heard a lot of dogs barking. The sound came from somewhere near a building under construction, its steel framework jutting up against the sky behind the swaying tops of the saplings lining the avenue. Each time the wind shifted, the sound of the dogs swelled violently as if the terrible clamor were rising to the sky itself. Then the sounds would trail off, the echoes lingering persistently in the distance. Every time I'd walk along this road, head bent, shoulders hunched forward, I'd strain my ears as I came to the intersection, half-expecting to hear the dogs, although there were many times I never heard them at all. But anyway, it wasn't because these howling dogs aroused any particular concern in me.

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Notes on contributors

Kenzaburo Öe

This story, translated by permission of the author, was Öe's first published short story and appeared originally in the Tokyo University News in 1957. It was awarded the Gogatsusai Prize (May Day Award).