The Fracture: and Other Stories of Modern Japan

"He woke from a disturbed night's sleep, having felt a certain kind of oppression, as if a body were smothering him. He had not had one of his sleep-paralysis episodes for some time-that uncanny sense of another presence in the bedroom, other than Kate or their daughter Pippa, who at her age sometimes crept in after a nightmare.

No, this was different: as though something, or someone, was enveloping him. Yet he could not tell whether this presence carried menace or comfort. He realised he wa...