Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

Keeping to a set routine has always been a key point when I write a long novel.

It sounds a little like a fairy tale. But it’s no fairy tale, believe me. No matter what sort of spin you put on it.

there is no way I’m going to leave that photo with my father, so I put it in my wallet. I don’t have any photos of my mother. My father threw them all away.

All the students dress neatly, have nice straight teeth, and are boring as hell.

You probably won’t have any chance to go to school anymore, so like it or not you’d better absorb whatever you can while you’ve got the chance. Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can figure out what to keep and what to unload.

My muscles were getting hard as steel, even as I grew more withdrawn and quiet. I tried hard to keep my emotions from showing so that no one—classmates and teachers alike—had a clue what I was thinking. Soon I’d be launched into the rough adult world, and I knew I’d have to be tougher than anybody if I wanted to survive.

Sometimes the wall I’ve erected around me comes crumbling down. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes, before I even realize what’s going on, there I am—naked and defenseless and totally confused. At times like that I always feel an omen calling out to me, like a dark, omnipresent pool of water.

Before running away from home I wash my hands and face, trim my nails, swab out my ears, and brush my teeth. I take my time, making sure my whole body’s well scrubbed. Being really clean is sometimes the most important thing there is.

I’m stuck with my father’s long, thick eyebrows and the deep lines between them. I could probably kill him if I wanted to—I’m sure strong enough—and I can erase my mother from my memory. But there’s no way to erase the DNA they passed down to me. If I wanted to drive that away I’d have to get rid of me. There’s an omen contained in that. A mechanism buried inside of me.

I check my watch and see it’s past midnight. Automatically shoved to the front, my fifteenth birthday makes its appearance. “Hey, happy birthday,” the boy named Crow says. “Thanks,” I reply. The omen is still with me, though, like a shadow.

It was a group of girls. Three girls who were all good friends. I called out their names and slapped them on the cheek, pretty hard, in fact, but there was no reaction. They didn’t feel a thing. It was a strange feeling, like touching a void.

it was very quiet and peaceful. No unusual sounds or light or smells. The only thing unusual was that every single pupil in my class had collapsed and was lying there unconscious. I felt utterly alone, like I was the last person alive on Earth. I can’t describe that feeling of total loneliness. I just wanted to disappear into thin air and not think about anything.

It’s still my birthday, still the first day of my brand-new life.

Kurashiki, not that it matters. A rest area on a highway is just a place you pass through. To get from here to there.”

We’re coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else. That’s all you need to know, right?”

Maybe—just maybe—this girl’s my sister. She’s about the right age. Her odd looks aren’t at all like the girl in the photo, but you can’t always count on that. Depending on how they’re taken people sometimes look totally different. She said she has a brother my age who she hasn’t seen in ages. Couldn’t that brother be me—in theory, at least?

I’m the lonely voyager standing on deck, and she’s the sea.

My next thought was some kind of poison gas or nerve gas, either naturally occurring or man-made. But how in the world could gas appear in the middle of the woods in such a remote part of the country? I couldn’t account for it. Poison gas, though, would logically explain what I saw that day. Everyone breathed it in, went unconscious, and collapsed on the spot. The homeroom teacher didn’t collapse because the concentration of gas wasn’t strong enough to affect an adult.

I know it’s an overly optimistic view, but at the time I couldn’t think of anything else to do. So I suggested that we just let them lie there quietly for a while and see what developed.

One by one I examined the mushrooms the children had been picking. There weren’t all that many, which led me to conclude that they’d collapsed not long after they began picking them. All of them were typical edible mushrooms.

Other than their eyes moving back and forth like a searchlight, there was nothing out of the ordinary. All other functions were completely normal. The children were looking at something. To put a finer point on it, the children weren’t looking at what we could see, but something we couldn’t. It was more like they were observing something rather than just looking at it. They were essentially expressionless, but overall they seemed calm, not afraid or in any pain.

it was—said it might have been gas dropped by the Americans. They must have dropped a bomb with poison gas, he said. The homeroom teacher recalled seeing what looked like a B-29 in the sky just before they started up the hill, flying right overhead. That’s it! everyone said, some new poison gas bomb the Americans developed. Rumors about the Americans developing a new kind of bomb had even reached our neck of the woods. But why would the Americans drop their newest weapon in such an out-of-the-way place? That we couldn’t explain. But mistakes are part of life, and some things we aren’t meant to understand, I suppose.

We asked each of the children what had happened, but they looked dumbfounded, like we were asking about something they didn’t remember taking place.

Sadly, there was one child, a boy, who didn’t regain consciousness. One of the children evacuated from Tokyo. Satoru Nakata, I believe his name was. A small, pale little boy. He was the only one who remained unconscious.

They couldn’t even remember that it had happened.

Their homeroom teacher, however, was a different story: she still seemed in shock. But that one boy, Nakata, didn’t regain consciousness, so the following day he was taken to the university hospital in Kofu. After that he was transferred to a military hospital, and never came back to our town again. I never heard what became of him.

A few days after the incident the police came calling and warned us that under no circumstances were we to talk about what we’d seen.

The whole thing was an odd, unpleasant affair. Even to this day it’s like a weight pressing down on me.

Becoming a different person might be hard, but taking on a different name is a cinch.

‘Even chance meetings’ . . . how does the rest of that go?” “‘Are the result of karma.’”

things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

Sakura, I think—not my sister’s name. But names are changed easily enough. Especially when you’re trying to try to run away from somebody.

I’m free, I remind myself. Like the clouds floating across the sky, I’m all by myself, totally free.

The library was like a second home. Or maybe more like a real home, more than the place I lived in.

The train I’m on, going out of town, is nearly empty this time of the morning, but the platforms on the other side are packed with junior and senior high school kids in summer uniforms, schoolbags slung across their shoulders. All heading to school. Not me, though. I’m alone, going in the opposite direction. We’re on different tracks in more ways than one. All of a sudden the air feels thin and something heavy is bearing down on my chest.

When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages—a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers.

This is exactly the place I’ve been looking for forever. A little hideaway in some sinkhole somewhere. I’d always thought of it as a secret, imaginary place, and can barely believe that it actually exists.

Anyway, my point is that it’s really hard for people to live their lives alone.”

a shadowy smile playing over her lips, a smile whose sense of completeness is indescribable. It reminds me of a small, sunny spot, the special patch of sunlight you find only in some remote, secluded place.

that bright little spot. She makes a strong impression on me, making me feel wistful and nostalgic. Wouldn’t it be great if this were my mother? But I think the same thing every time I run across a charming, middle-aged woman.

I’m relieved not to be the only one taking the tour.

Unfortunately, some exceptional artists did not win their favor or were not received by them as they deserved to be. One of these was the haiku poet Taneda Santoka. According to the guestbook, Santoka stayed here on numerous occasions, each time leaving behind poems and drawings. The head of the family, however, called him a ‘beggar and a braggart,’ wouldn’t have much to do with him, and in fact threw away most of these works.”

at the time, he was an unknown, so perhaps it couldn’t be helped. There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.”

I can’t express it well, but there’s definitely something special about it, as if her retreating figure is trying to tell me something she couldn’t express while facing me.

I wonder what kind of poems they compose—the husband, especially. Grunts and nods don’t add up to poetry. But maybe writing poetry brings out some hidden talent in the guy.

I’m a little nervous, but none of the clerks seem suspicious. Nobody yells out, Hey, we can see right through your ruse, you little fifteen-year-old runaway!

I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but I can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it.

I think about my home back in Nogata, in Tokyo, and my father. How did he feel when he found I’d suddenly disappeared? Relieved, maybe? Confused? Or maybe nothing at all. I’m betting he hasn’t even noticed I’m gone.

“I forget my name,” the cat said. “I had one, I know I did, but somewhere along the line I didn’t need it anymore. So it’s slipped my mind.”

Cats can get by without names. We go by smell, shape, things of this nature. As long as we know these things, there’re no worries for us.”