After the Quake

by Haruki Murakami

“No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself,” Shimao said.

“It’s true,” he said. “No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. It’s like your shadow. It follows you everywhere.”

“You know what I think,” Shimao said. “You need to lighten up and learn to enjoy life a little more. I mean, think about it: tomorrow there could be an earthquake; you could be kidnapped by aliens; you could be eaten by a bear. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

Premonitions can stand for something else sometimes. And the thing they stand for can be a lot more intense than reality. That’s the scariest thing about having a premonition.

“But there’s such a thing as a way of living that’s guided by the way a person’s going to die.”

I could never live with this man, she thought. I could never get inside his heart. But I might be able to die with him.