Wind/Pinball: A Novel

by Haruki Murakami

That noise always reminded me of the Grim Reaper. Boom, boom. We were prone to so many disasters—lives lost to suicide, minds wrecked, hearts marooned in the backwaters of time, bodies burning with pointless obsessions—and we gave each other a hell of a lot of trouble.

If another person’s way of thinking was too different from mine, it made me mad; too close, and I got sad. That’s all there was to it.

Now I had a rare moment alone, and I still couldn’t get a handle on how to deal with myself.

Still, evil like that is everywhere in this world, mountains of it. I can’t understand it, you can’t understand it. But it’s there, no question. You could say we’re surrounded by it.

There was something that came out of nothing, and now it’s gone back to where it came from, that’s all.