“But you haven’t seen the last of me,” he went on. “You can win as often as you like. But you can only lose once. Then it’s the end for you. And you will lose. The day is bound to come. I’ll be waiting, no matter how long it takes.”

“Why does it have to be me?” I shouted back. “Why can’t it be someone else?”

But the dwarf said nothing. He only laughed. The sound of his laughter floated in the air until the wind swept it away.

IN THE END, the dwarf was right. Every policeman in the country is out looking for me now. Someone who saw me dancing—maybe the old man—reported to the authorities that the dwarf had danced in my body. The police started watching me, and everyone who knew me was called in for questioning. My partner testified that I had once told him about the dancing dwarf. A warrant went out for my arrest. The police surrounded the factory. The beautiful girl from Stage 8 came secretly to warn me. I ran from the shop and dove into the pool where the finished elephants are stockpiled. Clinging to the back of one, I fled into the forest, crushing several policemen on the way.

For almost a month now, I’ve been running from forest to forest, mountain to mountain, eating berries and bugs, drinking water from the river to keep myself alive. But there are too many policemen. They’re bound to catch me sooner or later. And when they do, they’ll strap me to the winch and tear me to pieces. Or so I’m told.

The dwarf comes into my dreams every night and orders me to let him inside me.

“At least that way, you won’t be arrested and dismembered by the police,” he says.

“No, but then I’ll have to dance in the forest forever.”

“True,” says the dwarf, “but you’re the one who has to make that choice.”

He chuckles when he says this, but I can’t make the choice.

I hear the dogs howling now. They’re almost here.

—translated by Jay Rubin

THE LAST LAWN OF THE AFTERNOON

I MUST HAVE BEEN eighteen or nineteen when I mowed lawns, a good fourteen or fifteen years ago. Ancient history.

Sometimes, though, fourteen or fifteen years doesn’t seem so long ago. I’ll think, that’s when Jim Morrison was singing “Light My Fire,” or Paul McCartney “The Long and Winding Road”—maybe I’m scrambling my years a bit, but anyway, about that time—it somehow never quite hits that it was really all that long ago. I mean, I don’t think I myself have changed so much since those days.

No, I take that back. I’m sure I must have changed a lot. There’d be too many things I couldn’t explain if I hadn’t.