translated by LK Nithya
 
“The stench intensified further, far beyond a bearable pungency, and Kazue began to feel a piercing pain in her temple. The stench swirled through the air, aggressively noxious, as Kazue turned to Misa, who was dazed with fear.”

In this disorientating, surprising, and intriguing story, a strange, organ-like creature is discovered in a styrofoam box before being taken in to be cared for by a family over many years, with ultimately bizarre consequences.
 
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Haneko Takayama is a writer, born in 1975 in Toyama prefecture, Japan. In 2010, she won an honorable mention in the Sogen SF Short Story Prize for UDON (Unknown Dog of Nobody); in 2016, she won the Fumiko Hayashi Literary Prize for "The Island on the Side of the Sun"; and in 2020, she won the Akutagawa Prize for A Horse from Shuri. Her works include Where I Was, "Come Gather ‘Round, People," and Lenses in the Dark.