Culture warrior

Yukio Mishima and the friction of past and present

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  • Published 20250506
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-07-4
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook, PDF

THERE IS A scene in the novella Star by Yukio Mishima wherein the eponymous celeb fantasises about the mass execution of his fans.

I was exhausted. The girls could scream like hell for all I cared – their shrill voices splashed over me like rancid oil. I could line them up and march them all into the mouth of an incinerator. Except they’d probably crawl out of the ashes gawking at me, so I’d have to pluck their eyes out first. 

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The blue room

FictionMum did not tell us that Sabina had tried to kill herself. She said that she was unwell, and because she was unmarried and her children lived interstate Sabina would stay with us while she convalesced. We figured it out after she arrived; she did not appear sick, but lively and plump. Nor was there any regularity to her medical appointments. Though Phoebe was irritated that she would have to share her bathroom we found the situation morbidly glamorous, the sick woman with the elegant name whose stay would end with recovery or its opposite. So many sibilant words: suicide, convalescence, Sabina. Having no knowledge of death or any conviction we would ever die, suicide seemed tinged with romance. That Sabina lived confirmed our belief that death was not serious.

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FictionMarty was my algorithm. He told me which internet plan to get. He researched the best conductive wall heater. He chose my clothes every night for the next day. He gave me a list of where I could go on my lunchbreak. Sometimes his decisions were arbitrary, or mysterious to me. But I did not care. It was, yes, like being a child again. And maybe Rachel was right; maybe there was something to that, something deep in my psyche. But all desire came from that deep, dark place of infancy. Your leather penchant is my life-coach-boyfriend-boss. None of us can take the high road here.

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