The man knew they had been valued for their meat, for their pelts and for one more thing besides: the stones that could be found in their stomachs – exactly two in each hare. These little gastroliths, about the size of a chickpea, were used by the hares in digesting plant matter. They were perfectly smooth, jet-black spheres, polished by long months of rolling around the animals’ stomachs. It was thought that the stones had medicinal properties and this had hastened the extinction of the hares. The townspeople had gone on shooting them and cutting open their stomachs for the stones until the last Harmonica Hare was no more. - Harmonica Hare, a new story by 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted author Yoko Ogawa granta/New-Writing/Harmonica-Hare
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 13:39:33 +0000
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