Icing and salt

Featured in

  • Published 20101207
  • ISBN: 9781921656187
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

AFTER THE INITIAL impact, Eiji’s feet slide backwards, carving tracks through the salted clay until his toes grip the straw bales at the edge of the ring. Everything stops, as if he has thrown out an anchor. His skin is wet with sweat. Cameras flash at the edge of his vision, and the air shudders with the cheers of ten thousand people.

The two wrestlers pause. Their bellies jam against each other and their chests heave. Fat undulates across the muscles in their backs and thighs. Their cauliflower ears are mashed together. The sweet stink of his opponent’s perfumed hair fills Eiji’s nostrils. He cannot see very much, just flashes of colour. He concentrates on the position of his hands. One grips his opponent’s belt behind the man’s kidney but the other is flailing in space, trying to grab hold of something.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Slow burn

MemoirI WAS INITIATED into the Japanese investment-banking scene in a murky Tokyo izakaya in early 1988. Selling Japanese stocks to international investors was a new game...

More from this edition

Return of the moonbirds

EssayTHE WIND OFF the sea blows hard and it is savagely cold, despite it being midsummer. It is 8 pm, but here at the...

The sun rising

Fiction'THIS IS HOW it was, when I saw you for the first time.'When Mackenzie Lachlan butted up against the side of Australia he was...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.