Calamity

In a disaster year, two children, a boy and a girl, aged 17 or 18, met on the official road where people were starving. There was lust in each other's eyes. People in disaster years, where there are still people, some eat bark; some eat roots. Occasionally, a paper-thin insect crawling on the ground will be caught and stuffed into the mouth. . . . . It was in such years that the two met for the first time, and in a sense, it was also the last time. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.