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He put his hand on what remained of the scaffolding and began attempting the ascent. Before he could start, Yoriko let out an unearthly scream that was so loud her heart might have leapt out from her throat.

  Kanda froze.

  He looked up with eyes open wide. The rabbit had grabbed Yukiko’s head and was twisting it as if she were a doll. By the time he looked up, the rabbit had already wrenched her head around more than ninety degrees.

  The rabbit’s shoulders rose as he put even more force into his hands, turning Yukiko’s head fully backward.

  Kanda’s face went pale.

  Unable to bear the sight of such madness and cruelty, Yoriko covered her face with both hands and slumped to the concrete.

  The rabbit kept on turning her head right and left and right again until it popped clear off. He swung her head against the water tower over and over and over, cackling as he did so. Then he tossed Yukiko’s head up into the sky. It traced a tall arc until it gradually gave way to gravity, slowing down and beginning its descent.

  The head crashed into the concrete roof exactly halfway between Kanda and Yoriko. It landed with a heavy thunk and crumbled into course powder.

  Yoriko stared at the dust in blinking disbelief. She leaned over what had become of Yukiko’s head.

  “This,” she said, “is this…plaster?”

  Yukiko, dressed only in her underwear, came running out from the other side of the water tower.

  Kanda and Yoriko cried her name in unison, but she held up a palm to quiet them. She beckoned the two over and handed them a rope that hung down from the platform atop the tower. Speaking only through looks and gestures, she signaled for them to pull the rope as hard as they could.

  Kanda nodded in understanding, and Yoriko tightened her grip on the rope, whispering, “That was the replica, wasn’t it?”

  Yukiko nodded.

  Above them, the rabbit screeched, “Yu…ki…ko!”

  As if that were their cue, the three put all their combined strength into pulling the rope. They pulled it with all their focus and all their weight.

  The supports beneath the platform hadn’t been sturdy in the first place, and they collapsed as readily as if they were made of taffy. The platform began to tilt, and the rabbit rolled forward.

  Yukiko’s replica was the first to slide off, and the rabbit came tumbling down immediately after, as if still in pursuit. As they both fell, the rabbit caught the life-size doll in his arms and drew it into a deep embrace.

  Speed increasing, he slammed against a water valve jutting from the side of the tower. He rebounded out and over the rooftop’s guardrail and then down toward the street below in an unwitting dive toward his death.

  Yukiko patted Yoriko on the back with a rope-burned hand. Yoriko embraced her, covering the singer’s unclothed body.

  “It’s over,” Yoriko said. “It’s over, Yukiko-chan.”

  In her arms, Yukiko nodded several times.

  Yoriko took off her jacket and gave it to Yukiko, then walked to the rooftop’s guardrail and leaned out to look down below.

  Yukiko’s life-size twin figure had fragmented against the pavement directly in front of the department store’s entrance. Several hundred curious onlookers were gathering around the doll’s remains.

  But somehow, inexplicably, the rabbit suit was gone.

  “I can’t believe it,” Yoriko said. “What could have happened? He was dead. He had to be.”

  Yoriko and Yukiko’s eyes met.

  As if to herself, Yukiko said, “What was he?”

  Kanda looked off into the clouds floating far in the distance. Softly, he said, “Maybe he was a phantom. Maybe that’s what he was all along—a monster conjured by jealousy and obsession.”

  Yukiko simply nodded.

  AFTERWORD

  To tell the truth, the opening story, “Wake Me from This Dream,” is something of a test piece I wrote while I was still a novice fiction writer. After starting my career in publishing (as a publishing producer), I became a columnist at age twenty-nine. As I recall, this story was written when I was around thirty.

  When I reread the story now, what I find most deeply interesting is how the inextricable relationship between pop idol and stalker established itself as a central theme in my works from the very start. My second story, “Cry Your Tears,” and my third (and first full-length novel), Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, both shared the theme. My fourth story, “Even When I Embrace You,” did too. My fifth, Simple Red, didn’t have an idol for the protagonist. Instead, the novel followed a woman who was an anime voice actor. But, like idols, voice actors are also afflicted by stalkers among their fans.

  Why am I so fascinated by the conflict between idol and stalker? One reason that comes to mind is my belief that the very concept of an idol includes an element of stalking in its makeup.

  Let me explain what I mean. Everyone, man and woman alike, has some degree of a stalker somewhere in their nature. I suggest that idols act as a catalyst that radically heightens and intensifies that common trait. The existence or absence of this perhaps detrimental power is directly connected to whether or not that person is truly an idol. No matter how some advertisers might promote a new talent as “a twenty-first century idol,” if that idol doesn’t have the associated power, then they’re not an idol. Conversely, if someone not generally considered to be an idol—for example, an assistant on a cooking show, or a local TV newscaster—does possess that power, then they’re as much an idol as anyone.

  I didn’t write “Wake Me from This Dream” with the intention of publishing it as a professional writer. At the time, I was with a couple friends when one said, “We should try to write something as a competition.” Being interested in writing as a profession, I immediately agreed. I finished the piece and handed it over before the deadline. That in itself gave me a sense of accomplishment, but even still, I only had two readers. I remember feeling vaguely unfulfilled. But now that story has been published in this book—and the cover of that book (the Japanese edition) is graced by an original painting by the world-renowned artist, Martiros Manoukian. On top of that, the story is being made into a live-action movie coming to theaters this summer (2002). What a world of difference that is from only being read by two people.

  “Wake Me from This Dream” was the starting point of my career as a writer, and as its creator, I feel deeply and genuinely happy to be able to watch it grow.

  —Yoshikazu Takeuchi

  Thank you for reading!

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