Long Dream

[cyberghostface]

Here's a story courtesy of Japan's master of horror Junji Ito. Remember to read from right to left. Also, this is 1/3 of a 34 page story.





It turns out the patient that was walking through the halls is Tetsuro Mukodo, who's been suffering from "long dreams".



He goes on to say that the dreams have increased in length, now lasting years at a time. The doctor thinks he's lying or is suffering from a mental disorder that makes him believe the lie. He decides to observe the man's sleeping patterns.



The man's dreams grow increasingly longer--now he's dreaming for ten years at a time. One dream is him spending years studying for an exam, the other is ten years in the jungle fighting a war.




Soon his body begins to physically change as if he is evolving over an extended period of time:




He believes that he's been married to Mami (the girl from the opening scene) for thousands of years. When she sees him, she screams, thinking that it's death come back to claim her.




Later:




Soon his body begins to crystallize and break down.




From the crumbled remains of his brain, they discover small crystals of unknown properties. They attempt to analyze them to discover the link between the long dreams but to no avail.

Soon the girl, Mami, tells the doctors that she is experiencing long dreams of her own--dreams that last months at a time.

Comments

[espanolbot]

Main Doctor: Sure, I've been injecting a terrified young woman with an unknown chemical that slowly mutates her in body, mind and soul, but really, is that so wrong?

Other Doctor: ...YES! YES IT IS!

MD: *Sigh* Fine! I'll just back to my other projects, like the cure for death thing I was working on with Dr Herbert West from America, the cooking course with Dr Lector, or help Dr Channard with his puzzle box.

[velshtein]

I love Junji Ito's stuff so fucking much. ♥♥♥

[fungo_squiggly]

All things considered, she seems pretty happy at the end there, though.

Tetsuro Mukodo once had that dream where he went to work and realized he had forgotten to put on his pants. Only in his dream, he continued forgetting to wear his pants to work every day, for the next fifty years, until he eventually retired.

[icon_uk]

The design for Tetsuro Mukodo as he appears at the start reminds me of perhaps the most famous sleepwalker in film - Cesare from "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari"

[sindra]

In a sick, disturbing way....it's kind of romantic. Here's the poor guy who's been in the dreams so long, he believes he's her husband of thousands of years and loves her. When he "dies" (I don't even know if that's what happened here), his remains are put into her in order to give her the long dreams and (by her perception) prolong her life indefinitely. He basically "saves" her life.

Romance, Junji Ito style. o_O