The City and Its Uncertain Walls

by Haruki Murakami

As I sat down beside you, I had an odd feeling, as if thousands of invisible threads were finely tying your body to my heart. The minute movement of your eyelids and the slight flutter of your lips were enough to stir my heart. At that time neither you nor I had names. The radiant feelings of a seventeen-year-old and a sixteen-year-old on the grass of a riverbank, in the summer twilight, were the only things that mattered. Stars would soon be twinkling above us, and they had no names either. The two of us sat there, side by side, on the riverbank of a nameless world.

As long as you really are seeking the real me. These were the words you didn’t venture to say.

But truly wishing for something, from the heart, isn’t that simple. It might take time. In the meanwhile, you might have to give up all sorts of things. Things that you treasure. But don’t give up, no matter how long it takes. The town isn’t going anywhere.”

All you need to do is read all the old dreams collected on the shelves of the library.”

And so another day in the town drew to a close. The days passed, the seasons changed. Yet days and seasons are but temporary things. The real time of the town is found elsewhere.

And we went on to create and share a special, secret world of our own—a strange town surrounded by a high wall.

For you, dreams were almost on the same level as events in the real world, not something that you’d easily forget or something that would vanish so easily. Dreams were like a crucial water source nurturing your heart, conveying something vital.

I think everyone in the world has secrets. They’re necessary for people to survive in this world.

No, I said silently to myself, there’s nothing in this world that’s perfect. If it has shape and form, it’s got to have a weak point, a blind spot. But I didn’t say this out loud.

The world was, day by day, becoming a more convenient, and unromantic, place.

However—there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.