Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

"Hey, stone," he called out right after the first movement ended. "Pretty nice music, huh? Really makes you feel like your heart's opening up, don't you think?"

The stone was silent.

He had no idea if the stone was listening, to the music or to him, but he forged ahead anyway. "Like I was saying this morning, I've done some awful things in my life. I was pretty self-centered. And it's too late to erase it all now, you know? But when I listen to this music it's like Beethoven's right here talking to me, telling me something like, It's okay, Hoshino, don't worry about it. That's life. I've done some pretty awful things in my life too. Not much you can do about it. Things happen. You just got to hang in there. Beethoven being the guy he was, he's not about to say anything like that. But I'm still picking up that vibe from his music, like that's what it's saying to me. Can you feel it?"

The stone was mute.

"Whatever," Hoshino said. "That's just my opinion. I'll shut up so we can listen."

When he looked outside at two, a fat black cat was sitting on the railing on the veranda, gazing in at the apartment. Bored, Hoshino opened the window and called out, "Hey there, kitty. Nice day, isn't it?"

"Yes, indeed, it is a fine day, Mr. Hoshino," the cat replied.

"Gimme a break," Hoshino said, shaking his head.

The Boy Named Crow

The boy named Crow flew in large, languid circles above the forest. After inscribing one, he'd fly off to another spot and carefully begin another, identical circle, each invisible circle following another in the air only to vanish. Like a reconnaissance plane, he scanned the forest below him, looking for someone he couldn't seem to locate. Like a huge ocean, the forest undulated beneath him and spread to the horizon in a thick, anonymous cloak of interlaced branches. The sky was covered with gray clouds, and there was neither wind nor sunlight. At this point the boy named Crow had to be the loneliest bird in the world, but he was too busy to think about that now.

He finally spotted an opening in the sea of trees below and shot straight down through it to an open piece of ground. The light shone on a small patch of ground that was marked with grass. In one corner of the clearing was a large round rock and a man in a bright red sweat suit and a black silk hat was sitting on it. He wore thick-soled hiking boots, and a khaki-colored bag lay on the ground beside him. A strange getup, though the boy named Crow didn't mind. This was who he was after. What the man had on was of little consequence.

The man looked up at the sudden flapping of wings and saw Crow land on a large branch. "Hey," he said cheerfully.

The boy named Crow didn't make any reply. Resting on the branch, he gazed, unblinking, expressionless, at the man. Occasionally he'd incline his head to one side.

"I know who you are," the man said. He doffed his hat and put it back on. "I had a feeling you'd be coming here before long." He cleared his throat, frowned, and spat on the ground, then stamped the spit into the dirt with his boot.

"I was just resting, and feeling a bit bored with no one to talk to. How about coming over here? We can have a nice little talk. What do you say? I've never seen you before, but that doesn't mean we're total strangers."

The boy named Crow kept his mouth shut, holding his wings close in against himself.

The man in the silk hat lightly shook his head. "Ah, I see. You can't speak, can you? No matter. I'll do the talking, if you don't mind. I know what you're going to do, even if you don't say a word. You don't want me to go any further, do you? It's so obvious I can predict what'll happen. You don't want me to go any further, but that's exactly what I want to do. Because it's a golden opportunity I can't let slip through my fingers-a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

He gave the ankle of his hiking boots a good slap. "To leap to the conclusion here, you won't be able to stop me. You aren't qualified. Let's say I play my flute, what's going to happen? You won't be able to come any closer to me. That's the power of my flute. You might not know this, but it's a unique kind of flute, not just some ordinary, everyday instrument. And actually I've got quite a few here in my bag."

The man reached out and carefully patted the bag, then looked up again at the boy named Crow perched on his branch. "I made this flute out of the souls of cats I've collected. Cut out the souls of cats while they were still alive and made them into this flute. I felt sorry for the cats, of course, cutting them up like that, but I couldn't help it. This flute is beyond any world's standards of good and evil, love or hatred. Making these flutes has been my longtime calling, and I've always done a decent job of fulfilling my role and doing my bit. Nothing to be ashamed of. I got married, had children, and made more than enough flutes. So I'm not going to make any more. Just between you and me, I'm thinking of taking all the flutes I've made and creating a much larger, far more powerful flute out of them-a super-size flute that becomes a system unto itself. Right now I'm heading to a place where I can construct that kind of flute. I'm not the one who decides whether that flute turns out to be good or evil, and neither are you. It all depends on when and where I am. In that sense I'm a man totally without prejudices, like history or the weather-completely unbiased. And since I am, I can transform into a kind of system."

He removed his silk hat, rubbed the thinning hair on top of his head, put the hat back on, and quickly adjusted the brim. "Once I play this flute, getting rid of you will be a snap. The thing is, I don't feel like playing it right now. It takes a lot out of me, and I don't want to waste any strength. I'll need all of it later on. But whether I play the flute or not, you can't stop me. That should be obvious."

The man cleared his throat once more, and rubbed the slight swell of his belly. "Do you know what limbo is? It's the neutral point between life and death. A kind of sad, gloomy place. Where I am now, in other words-this forest. I died, at my own bidding, but haven't gone on to the next world. I'm a soul in transition, and a soul in transition is formless. I've merely adopted this form for the time being. That's why you can't hurt me. You follow me? Even if I were to bleed all over the place, it's not real blood. Even if I were to suffer horribly, it's not real suffering. The only one who could wipe me out right now is someone who's qualified to do so. And-sad to say-you don't fit the bill. You're nothing more than an immature, mediocre illusion. No matter how determined you may be, eliminating me's impossible for the likes of you." The man looked at the boy named Crow and beamed. "How 'bout it? Want to give it a try?"

As if that was the signal he'd been waiting for, the boy named Crow spread his wings wide, leaped off the branch, and darted straight at him. He seized the man's chest with both talons, drew his head back, and brought his beak down on the man's right eye, pecking away fiendishly like he was hacking away with a pickax, his jet black wings flapping noisily all the while. The man put up no resistance, didn't lift a finger to protect himself. He didn't cry out, either. Instead, he laughed out loud. His hat fell to the ground, and his eyeball was soon shredded and hanging from its socket. The boy named Crow tenaciously attacked the other eye now. Once both eyes were replaced by vacant cavities, he turned immediately to the man's face, pecking away, slashing it all over. His face was soon cut to ribbons, pieces of skin flying off, blood spurting out, nothing more than a lump of reddish flesh. Crow next attacked the top of his head, where the hair was thinnest, and still the man kept on laughing. The more vicious the attack became, the louder he laughed, as if the whole situation was so hilarious he couldn't control himself.