EDGE Read Online Free PDF

with all of his love. But that had only intensified Saeko’s despair when her father had suddenly disappeared. It was as if a lid had been closed on her life, sealing her in darkness.
    Perhaps that was why Saeko sometimes found herself seized by the sensation of being trapped in a dark, constrictive space, unable to move. It wasn’t a dream, a hallucination, or sleep paralysis—it was much more real and immediate. It was as if she were enclosed in some sort of gelatinousmembrane; she could feel its rubbery walls. She huddled within it like a fetus, blind, unable to move her arms or legs, and in her stillness it was as if she were the last person on earth, wracked by a desolation that made her immobility worse. After a few minutes, Saeko usually recovered her ability to move, and the pounding of her heart gradually receded as well.
    Saeko crossed her hands over her chest and took steady breaths, trying to persuade the palpitations to subside. As the fingertips of both hands grazed her breasts, she suddenly became aware of a slight, unfamiliar discrepancy in their symmetry as her fingers encountered a hard, tiny lump on the outer side of her left breast.
    She drew her hand away quickly and lay motionless, gazing up at the ceiling. She had a habit of holding perfectly still and focusing inwards when faced with an ominous premonition—a condition she liked to call “going into a quantum superimposition state.” She wove together affirmations and denials both consciously and unconsciously until a single conclusion emerged. Then the message traveled from her mind to her body.
    Saeko unfastened two buttons on her pajamas, slipped a hand through the opening, and carefully explored both breasts—breasts that hadn’t been caressed by a man for a year. Beginning at the nipples and making three progressively larger circles, Saeko once more detected the lump on the underside of her left breast. She hadn’t imagined it. It was unmistakable and right where she’d felt it earlier.
    Oh, no
.
    Saeko didn’t know what breast cancer would feel like, but she focused inwards, straining to detect some sort of unfamiliarity. Her digestive system, respiratory system, circulatory system, urinary system, reproductive system, nervous system … She pictured each set of organs in turn, trying to perceive the birth and spread of a malignant tumor. But of course she didn’t feel anything. She gave up and instead tried to remember when she’d last had a check-up.
    Two years ago. Maybe three
. Her numbers had all been fine. In fact, the data had shown her to be almost too healthy for a woman in her mid-thirties.
    At the thought of breast cancer, and the realization that death might lurk just beyond it, a chill ran up Saeko’s spine. Just moments ago, she had denied to herself that she feared death at all, but that fearlessness evaporated with the eerie sensation of discovering an abnormality in her body.
    She had never had much libido, but as she stroked her breasts, she imagined her hands as belonging to some faceless man. In an instant,the possibility of death and sex seemed to converge in a single spot in her breasts.
    It’s probably mastitis
, she told herself. Banishing the fear of breast cancer with a convenient alternative, Saeko rose from her bed. Lying around gave her mind too much freedom to wander. Better to get up quickly and get to work. She had to keep moving if she wanted to forget her torments. Some people worked to make money. Saeko worked to live.
    Currently, she was assisting with a television program. She’d debated whether or not to get involved, but before she knew it she’d been drafted into the project as a de facto team member.
    Still seated on her bed, Saeko reached for the remote control and turned the TV on. As the sound came on, the words “breast cancer” evaporated from her mind, though her left hand continued unconsciously stroking her breast.
    The incident had been featured on a tabloid-style TV special