Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

by Haruki Murakami

It’s not so strange that when your memories change, the world changes.”

I have been so long without music, I have not even known my own hunger.

“It’s not the best of all worlds,” says my shadow. “I make no promises, but it is the world where we belong. There will be good and bad. There will be neither good nor bad. It is where you were born and where you will live and where you will die. And when you die, I too will die. It’s the natural course of things.”

Some limited happiness had been granted this limited life.