The Corpse, “An Irrelevant Death”
This is story about a man who comes home one day to find he has an unexpected houseguest. A man lying face down on the floor, dead as a door nail. After quick assessing the situation, he comes to the conclusion that somebody has broken into his home to place the corpse there with the intent of making him a pawn in a plot to murder somebody and lay the blame elsewhere. Very little is conveyed about the man as most the narrative is spent describing his thoughts directed toward the dead body and how to dispose of it.
Common, “Dendrocacalia”
The opening line of the story lays out the simplest language what the subject of the tale is going to be: “This is the story of how Common became a dendrocacalia.” That title object is a very unique type of daisy which is native only to one of Japan’s islands. That opening line and the subject itself of Common transforming into a rare flower who winds up placed on exhibition inside a botanical garden should immediately call to mind the word “Kafkaesque” and a certain story of transformation about a guy named Gregor.
Noah, “Noah’s Ark”
In this case, Noah is an old man who simultaneously holds the offices of mayor, headmaster, tax collector and chief of police. He rides a bicycle of many colors from home to home and office to office and the bike generally inspires fear at its appearance because the first thing Noah is likely to do is collect the taxes one owes. His most important job, however, is maintaining the perfect balance of population: he had also been charged with regulating the death rate.
S. Karma, “The Crime of S. Karma”
This entry is noted to be an excerpt taken from a larger work and takes the form of a first-person account by the title character. The story begins, however, with the narrator realizing that everything which identifies him by name no longer includes that name. He meets up with doppelganger which instead of explaining the mystery, only serves to widen it into the world of the surreal: he has apparently been turned into a business card.
The Squatters, “The Intruders”
The squatters are the titular figures in this story narrated by another of the multitude of nameless characters populating the stories. The narrator calls Room 10 home and is surprised in the middle of the night to find strangers knocking insistently at his door. They have placed a claim of possession upon the narrator’s apartment which they initially intend to enforce through brute force. The narrator makes the decision to take it to authorities in charge since he clearly has the force of the law on his side. Or, then again, maybe he doesn’t since his “guests” are proving to be such interesting people.
