Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

But as I dig at the soft earth in the bottom of the well with the rubber sole of my tennis shoe, scenes from the surface of the earth grow ever more distant. The sense of reality subsides bit by bit, and the closeness of the well comes to envelop me in its place. Down here, the well is warm and silent, and the softness of the inner earth caresses my skin. The pain inside me fades like ripples on water. The place accepts me, and I accept the place. I tighten my grip on the bat. I close my eyes, then open them again to cast my gaze upward.

I pull on the rope to close the well lid, using a pulley arrangement fashioned for me by the clever young Cinnamon. The darkness is now complete. The well mouth is closed, and all light gone. Not even the occasional sound of the wind can be heard any longer. The break between people and me is now total. I don't even have a flashlight with me. This is like a confession of faith. I mean to show them that I am trying to accept the darkness in its entirety.

I lower my bottom to the earth, lean my back against the concrete wall, grip the bat between my knees, and close my eyes, listening to the sound of my heart. There is no need for me to close my eyes, of course, down here in the darkness, but I do it anyway. Closing the eyes has its own significance, in darkness or otherwise. I take several deep breaths, letting my body grow accustomed to this deep, dark, cylindrical space. The smell here is the same as always, the feel of the air against my skin is the same. The well was completely filled in for a time, but the air here is strangely unchanged from before. With its moldy smell and its trace of dampness, the air smells exactly as it did when I first climbed down inside. Down here there are no seasons. Not even time exists.

I always wear my old tennis shoes and my plastic watch, the one I had on the first time I came down into the well. Like the bat, they calm me. I check to see in the darkness that these objects are in firm contact with my body. I check to see that I am not separated from myself. I open my eyes and, after a time, close them again. This is to help bring the pressure of the darkness inside me more in line with the pressure of the darkness around me. Time passes by. Soon, as always, I lose the ability to distinguish between the two kinds of darkness. I can no longer tell if my eyes are open or closed. The mark on my cheek begins to run a slight fever. I know that it is taking on a more vivid purple.

In the two increasingly intermingled darknesses, I concentrate on my mark and think about the room. I try to separate from myself, just as I do whenever I am with the women. I try to get out of this clumsy flesh of mine, which is crouching down here in the dark. Now I am nothing but a vacant house, an abandoned well. I try to go outside, to change vehicles, to leap from one reality to another, which moves at a different speed, and I keep a firm grip on the bat all the while.

Now a single wall is the only thing separating me from the strange room. I ought to be able to pass through that wall. I should be able to do it with my own strength and with the power of the deep darkness in here.

If I hold my breath and concentrate, I can see what is in the room. I myself am not in there, but I am looking at what is. This is the hotel suite: Room 208. Thick curtains cover the windows. The room is dark. A vase holds a massive bouquet of flowers, and the air is heavy with their suggestive fragrance. A large floor lamp stands beside the entrance, but its bulb is white and dead as the morning moon. Still, if I stare hard enough, after a time I can just make out the shapes of things in the hint of light that manages to find its way into the room, the way the eyes become used to the darkness in a movie theater. On the small table in the middle of the room stands a bottle of Cutty Sark, its contents only slightly depleted. The ice bucket contains newly cracked chunks of ice (judging from their clear, hard edges), and someone has made a scotch on the rocks in the glass that is standing there. A stainless-steel tray forms a still, cold pool on the tabletop. There is no way to tell the time. It could be morning or evening or the middle of the night. Or perhaps this place simply has no time. In the bed at the back of the suite lies a woman. I hear her moving in the sheets. The ice makes a pleasant clinking in her glass. Minuscule grains of pollen suspended in the air shudder with the sound, like living organisms. Each tiny ripple of sound passing through the air brings more of them to sudden life. The pale darkness opens itself to the pollen, and the pollen, taken in, increases the density of the darkness. The woman brings the whiskey glass to her lips, allows a few drops of the liquid to trickle down her throat, and then she tries to speak to me. The bedroom is dark. I can see nothing but the faint movement of shadows. But she has something to say to me. I wait for her to speak. I wait to hear her words.

They are there.

Like a make-believe bird hanging in a make-believe sky, I see the rooms from above. I enlarge the view, pull back, and survey the whole, then zoom in to enlarge the details. Each detail carries much significance, of course. I check each in turn, examining it for shape and color and texture. From one detail to the next, there is no connection, no warmth. All I am doing at that point is a mechanical inventory of details. But its worth a try. Just as the rubbing together of stones or sticks will eventually produce heat and flame, a connected reality takes shape little by little. It works the way the piling up of random sounds goes on to produce a single syllable from the monotonous repetition of what at first glance appears to be meaningless.

I can feel the growth of this faint connection in the farthest depths of the darkness. Yes, thats it, that will do fine. Its very quiet here, and they still haven't noticed my presence. I sense the wall that separates me from that place melting, turning into jelly. I hold my breath. Now!

But the moment I step toward the wall, a sharp knock resounds, as if they know what I am trying to do. Someone is pounding on the door. Its the same knocking I heard before, a hard, decisive hammering, as if someone is trying to drive a nail straight through the wall. It comes in the same pattern: two knocks, a pause, two knocks. The woman gasps. The floating pollen shudders, and the darkness gives a great lurch. The invasive sound slams shut the passageway that was finally beginning to take shape for me.

It happens this way every time.

Once again I am myself inside my own body, sitting in the bottom of the well, my back against the wall, my hands gripping the baseball bat. The touch of the world on this side returns to my hands slowly, the way an image comes into focus. I feel the slight dampness of sweat against my palms. My heart is pounding in my throat. My ears retain the living sound of that harsh, world-stabbing knock, and I can still hear the slow turning of the doorknob in the darkness. Someone (or some thing) outside is opening the door, preparing silently to enter, but at that very instant, all images evaporate. The wall is as hard as ever, and I am flung back to this side.

In the darkness, I tap the wall in front of me with the end of the bat- the same hard, cold concrete wall. I am enclosed by a cylinder of cement. Almost made it that time, I tell myself.

I'm getting closer. I'm sure of it. At some point, I'm going to break through the barrier and get inside. I will slip into the room and be standing there, ready, when the knock comes.

But how long is it going to take for this to happen? And how much time is there left to me?

At the same time, I am afraid that it really is going to happen. Because then I will have to confront whatever it is that must be there.

I remain curled up in the darkness for a time. I have to let my heart quiet down. I have to peel my hands from the bat. Until I can rise to my feet on the earthen floor of the well, then climb the steel ladder to the surface, I will need more time, and more strength.