All the Lovers in the Night

by Mieko Kawakami

Why does the night have to be so beautiful? As I walk through the night, I remember what Mitsutsuka said to me. “Because at night, only half the world remains.”

“Some writers are great, but not successful. Then you get other writers who are successful, but not so great. I’m sure there’s some sort of special principle behind it. Then again, I guess there are things like that everywhere. We get this all the time as women, right? Like, if you make plenty of money but don’t have any kids, you might get called successful. But unless you have kids, no one will ever call you a great woman. You know what I mean?”

“Their so-called spirituality is completely self-serving, designed to make them happy, or make the people around them think they’ve found some kind of happiness. It’s this shallow belief in immediate profit. They go around talking about seeing something big. As if everything they feel, everything they’re thinking, is so big, bigger than all of us. That’s what they do. They act like they’re all big, ready to share their happiness with everyone, when the only happiness they care about is their own. Like, why can’t they just keep all that stuff to themselves and leave the rest of us alone?

I mean, when someone says something stupid, don’t you want to tell them how stupid they sound?

They just look at me like I’m the saddest person they’ve ever seen. Then they tell me how they used to think like me, until one day everything clicked for them. Like, you know, the universe will tell you when the time is right. And I’m just like, who’s going to tell me what? I seriously have no idea what they’re talking about.”

At this point in life, I know better than to expect anything from men.

“It’s not like I want people to hate me. I’m just not about to go out of my way to make them like me, either. Being liked is wonderful and all, but that’s not what life is about, you know?”

“People act like feminism is a dirty word. As if being a strong, hard-working woman has fallen out of fashion. Not that these people have ever thought about any of that before.

Does it even matter what you pick? Stop overthinking things. Just pick one like you’re drinking a beer. Stop worrying. Let go and have some fun. Sure, it could be a waste of money, but you can always leave.

“When I was a kid, it always felt like summer vacation lasted forever,” I said, letting the words come out before I thought them over. I hiccupped, but I decided I wasn’t going to worry about that. I could hear my own voice, yet it didn’t sound like I was doing the talking. The kids reached the other side of the white-hot crosswalk and disappeared up the street. “Well, some people say it feels that way for kids because they haven’t been around for long, or had that much experience with time,” Mitsutsuka said. “Of course, there’s no way to prove that.” “Does that mean that the longer we live, the more it feels like time speeds up?” I asked. “I suppose so. That’s the idea, at least.”

“Memory’s funny, isn’t it? We remember some things out of nowhere, but so much of what happens, we never think about again.”

“Why is the sky blue?” I asked Mitsutsuka after a little while. “I mean, why does it look so blue?” “It has to do with wavelengths,” he said, gazing at the cloud while his hand shielded his eyes, the same as before. “The shorter the wavelength, the more it scatters. Blue is really short, which is why the sky looks so vast and far away.”

Oh, I always love the 'why is the sky blue?" explanation 🥰

“Of course, there comes a point when you have to stop looking. You have to let go, but the mistakes are still there, always.”

“It’s fine to like somebody, but that doesn’t mean they’ll feel the same way, and it’s not necessarily a good thing if they do.

As long as you’re living on this planet, you have to be serious about something, but it’s better to be serious about a limited number of things.”

“What really matters is how much of this I can get rid of . . . all these things that were decided for me,” Mizuno said, fixated on his hands. Beams of sunlight filtering through the curtains lit his body from behind as his face dipped into shadow. “I didn’t choose any of this. Not my family, not my house, not my parents, not my school. This town is overflowing with things I never wanted. But everyone goes around with blank expressions on their faces, like they’re wearing matching masks or something. It freaks me out. People here confuse boredom and stagnation with peace and safety. I swear, everyone in this town is pretty much a cow. They just huddle together and moo. Eat their grass and sleep. Then they have babies, and it starts over again. People spend their whole lives like that, never even thinking. It freaks me out . . . Once

But what can you do, right? If someone’s going to die, they’re going to die, right?”

I’d been on my own for ages, and I was convinced that there was no way I could be any more alone, but now I’d finally realized how alone I truly was.

Had I ever chosen anything on my own, made something happen? Not once. And that’s why I was here now, all alone.

I was so scared of being hurt that I’d done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.

Now that the light was gone, I closed my eyes softly, knowing it would only be a short time until the light came back in the morning.