Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,23

Onuma,” said Gorohachi’s wife as she pushed the control stick downwards. “We’ll have to land there. There’s a petrol station down there, anyway.”

I jumped up. “You can’t land on a national highway! You’ll hit the cars!”

“Nah. We’ll be all right there,” said Sticky Eye. “They’re doing road works up at Sejiri, so there won’t be many cars. And seeing as there’s a typhoon today, nobody’ll be on the road anyway.”

“How can you possibly know that?” wailed Hatayama. “There’s a plane flying up here, isn’t there?”

“In any case, we’ve no choice. We’ll have to land here. There’s too many trees in the primary school yard,” said Gorohachi’s wife, turning the plane wildly.

The aeroplane made a loud creaking noise and appeared about to break up. The cabin shook violently. Hatayama cried aloud. The inside of my mouth was parched.

Then the grey asphalt of the highway appeared right beneath us. Just before the plane touched down, a car raced towards us from the opposite direction. It sped under our right wing, missing us by inches. The plane hit the ground, bounced, and bounced again.

Through the front window I could see a dump truck heading straight for us.

“We’re going to crash!” I yelled, bracing myself.

“Oh, he’ll swerve all right,” said Sticky Eye.

The truck driver panicked and careered into a vegetable field next to the road.

The plane came to a halt right in front of the petrol station. Maybe Gorohachi’s wife is actually an expert pilot, I thought for the briefest of moments.

As soon as we’d stopped, Hatayama made a bolt for the exit and opened the door. Ignoring the ladder, he jumped straight out onto the asphalt, where he lay face down for several seconds. Just as I was wondering how long he’d stay there, I noticed that he was actually kissing the ground in utter delirium.

I followed Gorohachi’s wife down the ladder. The road skirted the foot of a mountain, which rose abruptly behind the petrol station. On the other side of the road, I could see nothing but vegetable fields.

“We’ve run out of petrol!” Gorohachi’s wife called out laughing to the young pump attendant, who looked at us with eyes agog. “Fill her up, will you? We need to get to Shiokawa.”

“I’ve never filled an aeroplane before,” the attendant said as he pumped petrol into the fuel inlet on the wing, under instructions from Gorohachi’s wife.

Sticky Eye and Red Nose climbed down after us. “Ready for another ride?” asked Red Nose. They laughed contemptuously.

I looked at the map on my timetable. Onuma was about twenty miles east of Shiokawa.

“Not me,” replied Hatayama, glowering at me as he came back out of the plane with his camera case.

“But there isn’t a railway station near here,” I said sinuously. “How else can we get to Shiokawa? Even if someone gives us a lift, we’ll never be there in time for the train.”

Hatayama widened his eyes in disbelief again. “You mean you’re planning to get back in that?” he raged. “You’re out of your mind! You’re just doing it for pride! Well, if you want to die so much, go and die on your own! Leave me out! I’m waiting here till the typhoon passes!” He nodded vigorously in determination. “All right? I’m staying here!”

I gave up trying to persuade him. Actually, I wasn’t that keen on getting back in myself. But considering how things would be if I lost my job, I had to accept a certain amount of risk. “Please yourself. I’ll take the plane. I’ll be back in the office by tomorrow morning.”

“Or maybe you won’t,” said Hatayama with a trace of a smile.

I was on the verge of hitting him.

“I will,” I said. “I’ll get back. You’ll see.”

“We don’t need that,” Gorohachi’s wife announced to the pump attendant. He’d finished filling the tank and was clambering onto the nose of the plane to wipe the front window. “We’d better be off. I’d be in real trouble if the law found me parked here.”

“I hear the typhoon’s approaching southwest of here,” said the attendant with a look of concern.

Gorohachi’s wife laughed it off. “Don’t worry. We’ll be all right,” she said breezily.

Rain started to pour in torrents. I climbed back into the plane with the farmers, leaving Hatayama standing alone outside.

We started to taxi along the highway. As we did, several cars swerved into the vegetable field to avoid us. Soon we were airborne once more, and turned westwards.

It wasn’t until the following morning, during the Chief ’s tirade on my return