This is a story I heard from an acquaintance of mine—let's call him A—who used to be a bit of a wild guy. About twenty years ago, A went on a trip abroad with five friends who were just as wild as he was. They were all guys in their early twenties, and the trip was packed with enough excitement to s…
"There's something wrong with this baby." When Ms. Hara (a pseudonym), an acquaintance of my mother's, got pregnant with her first child, that was the thought that struck her. She didn't kno…
This happened back when I was in elementary school. At the time, I lived in a municipal housing project out in the Tokyo suburbs. The rent was cheap, but the buildings were super run-down, and it wasn…
Whether I was born with a sixth sense or what, I've seen ghosts all over town ever since I was a little kid, and I've spent my entire life pretending I couldn't. Naturally, I knew that if I went aroun…
During the summer of my senior year in college, having wrapped up job hunting, I started working part-time at a local gas station. My reason for applying was simple: it was close to home and the pay w…
