Excerpt from Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawada, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I don't know where I came from. Don't know who my birth parents are, either. Maybe I'm from far, far away from here. Maybe I was born on a wandering star, and dropped down onto Earth. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, I was the only son of a couple of teachers who live near Copenhagen. Birth parents, surf parents, makeshift parents, fake parents, foster parents, helicopter parents, parents-in-law. There are many kinds of parents, they told me. Munun is the name my foster parents gave me. And ever since I left school I've been working in this gigantic hospital. Vita was hired around the same time as me. She's not my sister but when we stand side by side in front of the mirror, we look alike.

The tray full of plates is sucked into the machine through a square mouth. Right next to it is a stamped name plate  —  the name of the company that made the machine, maybe. A company that collects dirt and washes it away. I like looking at the letters of the alphabet. R is sure of itself, with a plump little belly and one leg stuck out in front. Small i looks like a little kid, and I worry about his tiny head, floating above his shoulders that way. G got fat from eating too much. Small e is all curled up with a stomachache. Hope it isn't really sick. Small t looks like a cross in the churchyard.

When Vita and I are taking it easy after we're finished with the lunch dishes, our dinner comes. Today it's fresh frikadellers, crispy on the outside but juicy inside, so when you bite into them your mouth fills up with the taste of meat.

Thin slices of cucumber, sour and watery. I lick my plate clean so as not to leave any traces of my soul on it.

Once our counselor told us that since Vita and I aren't sick like the patients, we get to eat lots of tasty things. The patients can't have too much fat, or sugar, or salt, so their meals are awful boring. I feel sorry for them, never getting anything sugary, or salty, or buttery. Seems they can have mayonnaise, though. While I'm washing the plates, I always wonder what they had to eat that day.

Vita and I have a counselor. She comes here every day to ask us if anyone touched us in funny places, or told a nasty joke, or tried to force us to do extra work, or took our pictures, and lots of other things. Then Vita asked her one time: "Is what we eat different from the patients?" Vita just says whatever pops into her head, but our counselor got real worried and called Food Services to make sure.

We're so busy every day we don't have much time to think. As soon as we finish breakfast, the patients who are fast eaters are already done, and the first dirty plates of the day come down to us on the dumbwaiter. We finish washing them, then we have our lunch, and then we daydream until the patients' dirty lunch dishes start coming.

Things get slow late in the day. My arms feel heavy. I grab the silver snake hanging from the ceiling to squirt the plates with hot water, but it wriggles around on its own and I can't make it do what I want. Seems the patients had something with brown sauce tonight. Oily brown messages are easier to read than the yellow ones, written in mayonnaise. But when I saw that one, I was so surprised I dropped the plate. It crashed on the floor, and broke into white bits that flew everywhere.

"What's wrong-bong?" asked Vita, putting her hand on my arm.

"I read the plate-mate."

"What did it say-pay?"

"My brother-other's coming today."

"Your brother-other? You have a brother-other?"

"Seems I do-boo. And he's coming today."

"Today? How do you know-go?"

"I saw the plate-mate."

"It said so there-care?"

"That's right-white. He's coming from Arles."

"Arles? Where's that-cat?"

"In France-chance. No matter how many plates I washsquash, the past is always there. It's always Arles."

Talking made me more and more excited. My cheeks started twitching. Vita thought I was laughing, and giggled along with me. But I didn't feel good at all, and I kept on twitching. I was scared, but glad, and I knew something big was about to happen. But I didn't know what to do, so I yelled, "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! It's raining outside. But, but . . ."

Excerpted from Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawanda. Copyright © 2024 by Yoko Tawanda. Excerpted by permission of New Directions Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.