Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness. I’m glad you watch everything so carefully, Klara.’

I’d begun to understand also that this wasn’t a trait peculiar just to Josie; that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn’t be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.

Before us, marked into the road’s surface, were muddy parallel lines made by earlier wheels, and there were trees pressing in on us from both sides, like buildings in a city street.

At the same time, what was becoming clear to me was the extent to which humans, in their wish to escape loneliness, made maneuvers that were very complex and hard to fathom, and I saw it was possible that the consequences of Morgan’s Falls had at no stage been within my control.

‘Yes. Until recently, I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.’

I saw more insects hovering before me in the air, nervously exchanging positions, but unwilling to abandon their friendly clusters.

But I’d accepted now that I would soon fall into the ground, that the Sun was angry with me, and perhaps unkind, and that Josie was disappointed with me.

the thought returned to me with more certainty than ever that, even accounting for the Sun’s great generosity, what I was about to do carried risk, and would require all my concentration. I heard behind me the breeze in the grass and the cries of distant birds, and ordering my thoughts, I walked across the cut grass

So I gathered my thoughts and began to speak. I didn’t actually say the words out loud, for I knew the Sun had no need of words as such. But I wished to be as clear as possible, so I formed the words, or something close to them, quickly and quietly in my mind.

I saw then how the field continued into the mid-distance until it met a line of trees – a kind of soft fence – and behind it, the Sun, tired and no longer intense, was sinking into the ground. The sky was turning into night, with stars visible, and I could tell that the Sun was smiling towards me kindly as he went down for his rest.

‘Sufficiently generous and liberal to be open to all students of high caliber, even some who haven’t benefited from genetic editing.’