Dark Water by Kôji Suzuki

still seemed to have mental images of the things she wanted to say and was simply having a hard time enunciating them. Then one day, she abruptly gave up trying to speak at all. Haruna had always been an odd child and had been experiencing difficulties at school. Since losing her ability to speak, she'd stopped attending school altogether. Whenever they had time on their hands, she and her grandfather would sit together devouring jam buns. All you had to do was give her a jam bun to keep her occupied. The family soon discovered that a great deal of trouble could be avoided by simply stocking up on jam buns and giving her more than she could eat. Hiroyuki was gradually losing the vitality, motivation, whatever else it took to set his family right.
    As he observed his daughter and his father, sitting opposite each other eating jam buns in silence, the sight depressed him anew. How irritating it was not to be able to ask either of them whether his wife had returned while he had been out. Irritation was not the word; he was beginning to feel as if two dark walls were closing in on him from above and below to crush the life out of him.
     
    One he had given life; the other had given him life. Now he was trapped between the two.
    He closed the sliding panel, unable to watch them any longer. Hiroyuki was partially resigned to suffering some kind of brain impairment himself in the future, but this was one reality he naturally preferred not to contemplate.
    … Just where on earth has she gone?
    Hiroyuki folded his arms on his chest, baffled.
    As five o'clock approached, his irritation was aggravated by hunger. He felt an overpowering resentment at his wife for having left the family to fend for themselves. With no one to take out his rage on, it only grew and grew.
    The one possibility he could think of was that she had suddenly left him. Hiroyuki himself had felt tempted to leave home and desert his family. His emotions rose to an explosive level as he imagined himself saying it: 'Leave, you bitch, if that's what you want. But before you do, make sure you kill the kids and the old man.'
    He relived in that instant his own hunger for affection as a child and wiped tears from his face with the back of his hand, which clutched a can of beer.
    He suddenly remembered the bankbook that was kept in the drawer of the kitchen cupboard. Upon locating the bankbook, he flipped through the pages, but found nothing unusual. No large sums of money had been withdrawn lately. If his wife had indeed left him, she had done so on an impulse.
    In that case, she'd just as likely be back as fast as she'd left. She'd succumbed momentarily to temptation, that was all.
     
    Feeling somewhat better, he decided to go out. He knew a bar called Marie where he could get something to eat.
    'Have some of those jam buns,' he told his son, put on a pair of sandals, and went out.
    Hiroyuki made his way along the road by the fishing port toward the park. The gray water in the enclosed harbour was tinged with the crimson of the cloudy dusk sky. There was neither wind nor waves, and the boats moored along the wharf stood motionless side by side. Hiroyuki looked where his own boat was moored.
    Even from where he was standing, he could clearly see the name of his boat, Hamakatsu, on the hull. He halted. It felt like his heart was in his mouth and he didn't know why. His pulse began to race; the blackest fear welled up from some pinprick in his heart and spread through his body. He swallowed hard. A low-pitched drone seemed to fill his inner ear.
    Hiroyuki had no idea what was causing the attack. He looked towards the harbour. As soon as he spotted his own boat, he felt his chest constrict. No one knew that boat better than he did, he had used it for years. He had spent more time on that boat than at home. What could be bothering him? His forgetfulness had been pronounced of late. He sometimes couldn't recall events from the day before.
    Maybe there was something he'd left