The cell is baking hot now. Although I haven’t moved around much since returning from the infirmary—where could I go—sweat runs in rivulets down my bare chest and back, soaking the top of my shorts.

A guard in the corridor pokes his nose in through the small window and tells me to get my shirt back on.

“I’m sorry, but I was hot,” I say, taking out a fresh t-shirt from the yellow basket.

“Haven’t you got an uchiwa?” he asks. [1]

“An uchiwa? No. No I haven’t.”

The guard disappears for a moment, and returns with a round paper fan, which he feeds through the bars. It’s got a long plastic handle and an advertisement for Asahi Super Dry featuring a sylphlike Japanese woman in a blue bikini, holding frothy glass of pale yellow Asahi beer in her right hand.

“If this doesn’t constitute cruel and unusual punishment . . .,” I say, and start fanning myself with the uchiwa.

[1] An uchiwa (団扇) is a round paper fan.

The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.

Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.