Mountain Rat — Lulyang Nomin

ká-sióng, from the Taiwanese romanization of 假想, which means make-believe, imagine, hypothesise – derived from 假/ ká meaning 'false' and 想 'sióng' meaning 'thinking', so 'false thinking' / imagination / hypothesis – is the latest series of new translations from Strangers Press. 

ká-sióng 3:
Mountain Rat by Lulyang Nomin / tr. Yu Teng-Wei
 
"Yasu stopped what she was doing and caught a glimse of the wound as I rolled up my trousers to reveal the two purple-blue punctures on my right ankle. The knife in her hand slipped onto the cutting board and the clatter of metal hitting wood echoed through the kitchen."
 
A chilling, gothic fable in which the narrator is bitten by a mountain rat while out in the forest. Recalling his grandfather once told him of a bamboo hut where members of the tribe could quarantine for up to two years when they got ill, he rushes home to say goodbye to his wife Yu-Su and pack his bags as a troubling sickness takes hold.