Pathway to Japanese Literature

Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.

MemoryAuthor: Umezaki Haruo

Original Title	記憶
Author	梅崎春生
Genre	Modern Short Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	A man stumbles through a hazy Tokyo night, his senses blurred by whiskey and war-echoing caution after a friend’s art exhibition. Determined to avoid his drunken habit of hugging walls at right angles, he boards a station taxi with Yagi—a younger painter—only to be abandoned thirty meters from home by a surly driver. Obsessively memorizing the taxi’s license plate, he files a complaint that spirals into an unsettling visit from the company’s apologetic director and a silent, unrecognizable driver. Days later, contradictions emerge: Yagi disputes their shared memories of rain and fruit shops, while chance reunions with the driver blur reality further. What begins as petty irritation unravels into a disquieting dance of unreliable recollections and unresolved tensions, culminating in a sweaty summer confrontation over shogi—where pride, guilt, and unspoken grudges simmer beneath glassy-eyed stares. As shadows of forgotten arguments and misremembered details linger, the line between principle and paranoia thins, leaving only the sticky residue of questions burned but never buried.