First Person Singular: Stories

by Haruki Murakami

I stared at it for a while, and as you might expect, the me in the mirror stared back. A sudden thought hit me, that somewhere I’d taken a wrong turn in life.

As is true of most people, I imagine, I had experienced a number of turning points in my life, where I could go either left or right. And each time I chose one, right or left. (There were times

when there was a clear-cut reason, but most of the time there wasn’t. And it wasn’t always like

was making a choice, but more like the choice i...

And now here I was, a first person singular. If I’d chosen a different direction, most likely I wouldn’t be here. But...

“What’s so enjoyable about doing things like that?” she asked.

is quite upset with you, and I am just as upset with you as she is. You must know what I’m talking about. Think about it. About what happened three years ago, at the shore. About what a horrible, awful thing you did. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

What she’d said struck me as totally unfair, something I had no memory of whatsoever. But somehow, I couldn’t. Why not? I think I was afraid. Afraid of learning that another me who wasn’t really me had, at a shore somewhere three years before, committed a horrendous offense toward a woman, someone I probably didn’t know. Afraid of having her drag out, into the light, something inside me, something completely unknown to me. Rather than face this, I chose to silently get up off my stool and make my getaway, all the while submitting to a torrent of what I could only see as groundless accusations.

When I got to the top of the stairs and out of the building, it was no longer spring, and the moon had disappeared from the sky. This was no longer the street I knew. I’d never before seen the trees lining the street. Thick, slimy

snakes wound themselves tightly around the trunks, like wriggling living ornaments. Their scales rustled drily as they rubbed against the bark. The sidewalk was ankle deep in whitish ash, and there were faceless men and women walking along, exhaling a yellowish, sulfurous breath from deep within their throats. The air was bitterly cold, almost

freezing. I turned up the collar of my suit. “You should be ashamed of you...