Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Hey, down there! Mr. Wind-Up Bird! shouted May Kasahara. In a shallow sleep at the time, I thought I was hearing the voice in a dream. But it was not a dream. When I looked up, there was May Kasahara's face, small and far away. I know you're down there! C'mon, Mr. Wind-Up Bird! Answer me!

I'm here, I said.

What on earth for? What are you doing down there? Thinking, I said. I don't get it. Why do you have to go to the bottom of a well to think? It must be such a pain in the butt! This way, you can really concentrate. Its dark and cool and quiet. Do you do this a lot? No, not a lot. I've never done it before in my life-getting into a well like this. Is it working? Is it helping you to think? I don't know yet. I'm still experimenting. She cleared her throat. The sound reverberated loudly to the bottom of the well. Anyway, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, did you notice the ladders gone? Sure did, I said. A little while ago. Did you know it was me who pulled it up? No, that I didn't know. Well, who did you think did it? I didn't know, I said honestly. I don't know how to put this, but that thought never really crossed my mind-that somebody took it. I thought it just disappeared, to tell you the truth.

May Kasahara fell silent. Then, with a note of caution in her voice, as if she thought my words contained some kind of trap for her, she said, Just disappeared. Hmm. What do you mean, it just disappeared? That, all by itself, it... just... disappeared?

Maybe so.

You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, its kinda funny for me to bring this up now, but you're pretty weird. There aren't too many people out there as weird as you are. Did you know that?

I'm not so weird to me, I said. Then what makes you think that ladders can just disappear? I rubbed my face with both hands and tried to concentrate all my attention on this conversation with May Kasahara. You pulled it up, didn't you? Of course I did. It doesn't take much brainwork to figure that one out. I did it. I sneaked out in the night and pulled the ladder up. But why?

Why not? Do you know how many times I went to your house yesterday? I wanted you to go to work with me again. You weren't there, of course. Then I found that note of yours in the kitchen. So I waited a really long time, but you never came back. So then I thought just maybe you might be at the empty house again. I found the well cover half open and the ladder hanging down. Still, it never occurred to me you might be down there. I just figured some workman or somebody had been there and left his ladder. I mean, how many people go to sit in the bottom of a well when they want to think?

You've got a point there, I said. Anyhow, so then I sneaked out at night and went to your place, but you still weren't there. That's when it popped into my mind. That maybe you were down in the well. Not that I had any idea what you'd be doing down there, but you know, like I said, you're kinda weird. I came to the well and pulled the ladder up. Bet that gotcha goin.

Yeah, you're right. Do you have anything to eat or drink down there?

A little water. I didn't bring any food. I've got three lemon drops, though. How long have you been down there? Since late yesterday morning.

You must be hungry. I guess so.

Don't you have to pee or anything?

Now that she had mentioned it, I realized I hadn't peed once since coming down here.

Not really, I said. I'm not eating or drinking much.

Say, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, you know what? You might die down there, depending on my mood. I'm the only one who knows you're in there, and I'm the one who hid the rope ladder.

Do you realize that? If I just walked away from here, you'd end up dead. You could yell, but no one would hear you. No one would think you were at the bottom of a well. I bet no one would even notice that you were gone. You don't work for any company, and your wife ran away. I suppose someone would notice eventually that you were missing and report it to the police, but you'd be dead by then, and they'd never find your body.

I'm sure you're right. I could die down here, depending on your mood.

How do you feel about that?

Scared, I said.

You don't sound scared.

I was still rubbing my cheeks. These were my hands and my cheeks. I couldn't see them in the dark, but they were still here: my body still existed. That's because it hasn't really hit home with me, I said.

Well, it has with me, said May Kasahara. I bet its a lot easier to kill somebody than people think.

Probably depends on the method.

It'd be so easy! Id just have to leave you there. I wouldn't have to do a thing. Think about it, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Just imagine how much you'd suffer, dying little by little, of hunger and thirst, down in the darkness. It wouldn't be easy.

I'm sure you're right, I said.

You don't really believe me, do you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? You think I couldn't do anything so cruel.

I don't really know, I said. Its not that I believe you could do it, or that I believe you couldn't do it. Anything could happen. The possibility is there. That's what I think.

I'm not talking about possibility, she said in the coldest tone imaginable. Hey, I've got an idea. It just occurred to me. You went to all the trouble of climbing down there so you could think. Why don't I fix it so you can concentrate on your thoughts even better?

How can you do that? I asked.

How? Like this, she said, closing the open half of the well cover. Now the darkness was total.

I was crouching down in the total darkness. All I could see was nothingness. And I was part of this nothingness. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of my heart, to the sound of the blood circulating through my body, to the bellows-like contractions of my lungs, to the slippery undulations of my food-starved gut. In the deep darkness, every movement, every throb, was magnified enormously. This was my body, my flesh. But in the darkness, it was all too raw and physical.

Soon my conscious mind began to slip away from my physical body. I saw myself as the wind-up bird, flying through the summer sky, lighting on the branch of a huge tree somewhere, winding the worlds spring. If there really was no more wind-up bird, someone would have to take on its duties. Someone would have to wind the worlds spring in its place. Otherwise, the spring would run down and the delicately functioning system would grind to a halt. The only one who seemed to have noticed that the wind-up bird was gone, however, was me.

I tried my best to imitate the cry of the wind-up bird in the back of my throat. It didn't work. All I could produce was a meaningless, ugly sound like the rubbing together of two meaningless, ugly things. Only the real wind-up bird could make the sound. Only the wind-up bird could wind the worlds spring the way it was supposed to be wound.

Still, as a voiceless wind-up bird unable to wind the worlds spring, I decided to go flying through the summer sky-which turned out to be fairly easy. Once you were up, all you had to do was flap your wings at the right angle to adjust direction and altitude. My body mastered the art in a moment and sent me flying effortlessly wherever I wanted to go. I looked at the world from the wind-up birds vantage point. Whenever I had had enough flying, I would light on a tree branch and peer through the green leaves at rooftops and roadways. I watched people moving over the ground, carrying on the functions of life. Unfortunately, though, I could not see my own body. This was because I had never once seen the wind-up bird and had no idea what it looked like.

For a long time-how long could it have been?-I remained the wind-up bird. But being the wind-up bird never got me anywhere. The flying part was fun, of course, but I couldn't go on having fun forever. There was something I had to accomplish down here in the darkness at the bot-torn of the well. I stopped being the wind-up bird and returned to being myself.