Pathway to Japanese Literature
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TaxidermyAuthor: Makino Shinichi
| Original Title | 剥製 |
|---|---|
| Author | 牧野 信一 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A reclusive man plagued by a fragile heart and haunting dreams of his mother spends his days crafting taxidermy birds in a decaying waterwheel hut. His wife, Tona, hunts weasels that prey on their poultry, her gunshots echoing over the river as he clutches half-finished specimens. Shelves overflow with lifeless birds—kingfishers, owls, pheasants—their stilled wings crowding every surface. When a letter summons him home for ancestral rites, he embarks on a perilous mountain journey, tormented by visions of his mother’s scorn and the specter of moxibustion treatments he dreads. Accompanied by a resentful horse and wary companions, each step unravels his resolve: labored breaths mirror the river’s murmur, frostbitten paths echo with shrike cries, and the weight of familial duty blurs into delirium. Between flickers of survival—tickling himself awake with crow feathers, flinching at a horse’s rancid breath—he teeters on the edge of dissolution, a fragile specimen in a world where life and artifice collide. |
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