Kesaran-Pasaran

When I walked into the village, white fur balls kept falling from the sky.

“What are they?” I asked a villager.

“They’re kesaran-pasaran.”

They floated through the air like dandelion spores. On sunny days, they fell and covered the ground. On rainy days they spread and multiplied. The dead ones fueled the city. Their spirits harvested crops and generated electricity.

“What do we know? Our livelihood totally depends on them,” the villager said, laughing.

One day I left the village. When I turned back, the village was gone. Instead, white fluff balls spread as far as the eye could see.

From Guest Contributor Yukari Kousaka

Translated by Toshiya Kamei

Born in Osaka in 2001, Yukari Kousaka is a Japanese poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Translated by Toshiya Kamei, her short fiction has appeared in New World Writing.