Someone started to draw on two extra eyes with a felt-tip pen but stopped halfway
Ms Ice Sandwich
by Mieko Kawakami
translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai
I picked up this novella primarily because it’s Japanese and I am still excited about all things Japan. And the title is intriguing.
The story is narrated by a young man who, over his summer holiday, becomes slightly obsessed by the sandwich server at his local supermarket. She is aloof, never smiling, never engaging with customers, precise in all her movements. When he starts back at school, he hears rumours about his beloved “Ms Ice Sandwich” and they upset him.
“Ms Ice Sandwich’s eyelids are always painted with a thick layer of a kind of electric blue, exactly the same colour as those hard ice lollies that have been sitting in our freezer since last summer. There’s one more awesome thing about her – if you watch when she looks down, there’s a sharp dark line above her eyes, as if when she closed her eyes, someone started to draw on two extra eyes with a felt-tip pen but stopped halfway. It’s the coolest thing.”
Continue reading “Someone started to draw on two extra eyes with a felt-tip pen but stopped halfway”