South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Haruki Murakami

Being a bird, I imagined, must be wonderful. All birds had to do was fly in the sky. No need to worry about contraception.

“I’m scared,” she said. “These days I feel like a snail without a shell.”

But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

Even now, whenever I think of her, I envision a quiet Sunday morning. A gentle, clear day, just getting under way.

I knew my days in this sleepy town were numbered. If that meant the end of our relationship, so be it. If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn’t afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they’re seventeen.