HarukiMurakami Sleep

8/12/2019 HarukiMurakami Sleep

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make me think my body was about to be blown to the end of the earth, to some land I had never

seen or heard of, where my mind and body would separate forever. Hold tiht,6 I would tellmyself, but there was nothin for me to hold on to.

)nd then, when niht !ame, the intense wakefulness would return. I was powerless to resist it. I waslo!ked in its !ore by an enormous for!e. )ll I !ould do was stay awake until mornin, eyes wide

open in the dark. I !ouldn/t even think. )s I lay there, listenin to the !lo!k ti!k off the se!onds, Idid nothin but stare at the darkness as it slowly deepened and slowly diminished.

)nd then one day it ended, without warnin, without any eternal !ause. I started to lose!ons!iousness at the breakfast table. I stood up without sayin anythin. I may have kno!ked

somethin off the table. I think someone spoke to me. +ut I !an/t be sure. I staered to my room,!rawled into bed in my !lothes, and fell fast asleep. I stayed that way for twenty-seven hours. My

mother be!ame alarmed and tried to shake me out of it. &he a!tually slapped my !heek. +ut I went

on sleepin for twenty-seven hours without a break. )nd when I finally did awaken, I was my oldself aain. robably.

I have no idea why I be!ame an insomnia! then nor why the !ondition suddenly !ured itself. It waslike a thi!k, bla!k !loud brouht from somewhere by the wind, a !loud !rammed full of ominous

thins I have no knowlede of. 2o one knows where su!h a thin !omes from or where it oes. I!an only be sure that it did des!end on me for a time, and then departed.

In any !ase, what I have now is nothin like that insomnia, nothin at all. I 4ust !an/t sleep. 2ot for

one se!ond. )side from that simple fa!t, I/m perfe!tly normal. I don/t feel sleepy, and my mind is as!lear as ever. 3learer, if anythin. hysi!ally, too, I/m normal7 my appetite is fine: I/m not fatiued.

In terms of everyday reality, there/s nothin wron with me. I 4ust !an/t sleep.

2either my husband nor my son has noti!ed that I/m not sleepin. )nd I haven/t mentioned it to

them. I don/t want to be told to see a do!tor. I know it wouldn/t do any ood. I 4ust know. *ikebefore. This is myself.

&o they don/t suspe!t a thin. ;n the surfa!e, our life flows on un!haned. ea!eful. outine. )fter

I see my husband and son off in the mornin. I take my !ar, and o shoppin. My husband is a

dentist. His offi!e is a ten-minute drive from our !ondo. He and a dental-s!hool friend own it aspartners. That way they !an afford to hire a te!hni!ian and a re!eptionist. ;ne partner !an take the

other/s overflow. +oth of them are ood, so for an offi!e that has been in operation for only fiveyears, and that opened without any spe!ial !onne!tions, the pla!e is doin very well. )lmost too

well. I didn/t want to work so hard,6 says my husband. +ut I !an/t !omplain.6

)nd I always say, eally, you !an/t.6 It/s true. 8e had to et an enormous bank loan to open the

pla!e. ) dental offi!e re


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This is our little 4oke. He/s not ood-lookin at all. )!tually, he/s kind of strane-lookin. 'ven now

I sometimes wonder why I married su!h a strane-lookin man. I had other boyfriends who werefar more handsome.

8hat makes his fa!e so strane= I !an/t really say. It/s not a handsome fa!e, but it/s not uly, either.2or is it the kind that people would say has !hara!ter.6 Honestly, strane6 is about all that fits. ;r

maybe it would be more a!!urate to say that it has no distinuishin features. &till, there must besome element that makes his fa!e have no distinuishin features, and if I !ould rasp whatever that

is, I miht be able to understand the straneness of the whole. I on!e tried to draw his pi!ture, but I

!ouldn/t do it. I !ouldn/t remember what he looked like. I sat there holdin the pen!il over the paperand !ouldn/t make a mark. I was flabberasted. How !an you live with a man so lon and not be

able to brin his fa!e to mind= I knew how to re!oni9e him, of !ourse. I would even et mentalimaes of him now and then. +ut when it !ame to drawin his pi!ture, I reali9ed that I didn/t

remember anythin about his fa!e. 8hat !ould I do= It was like runnin into an invisible wall. The

one thin I !ould remember was that his fa!e looked strane.

The memory of that often makes me nervous.

&till, he/s one of those men everybody likes. That/s a bi plus in his business, obviously, but I think

he would have been a su!!ess at 4ust about anythin. eople feel se!ure talkin to him. I had nevermet anyone like that before. )ll my women friends like him. )nd I/m fond of him, of !ourse. I think

I even love him. +ut, stri!tly speakin, I don/t a!tually like him.

)nyhow, he smiles in this natural, inno!ent way, 4ust like a !hild. 2ot many rownup men !an do

that. )nd I uess you/d epe!t a dentist to have ni!e teeth, whi!h he does.

It/s not my fault I/m so ood-lookin,6 he always answers when we en4oy our little 4oke. 8e/re theonly ones who understand what it means. It/s a re!onition of reality0the fa!t that we have

manaed in one way or another to survive0and it/s an important ritual for us.

He drives his &entra out of the !ondo parkin arae every mornin at eiht-fifteen. ;ur son is inthe seat net to him. The elementary s!hool is on the way to the offi!e. +e !areful,6 I say. >on/t

worry6 he answers. )lways the same little dialoue. I !an/t help myself. I have to say it. +e

!areful.6 )nd my husband has to answer, >on/t worry.6 He starts the enine, puts a Haydn orMo9art tape into the !ar stereo, and hums alon with the musi!. My two men6 always wave to me

on the way out. Their hands move in ea!tly the same way. It/s almost un!anny. They lean theirheads at ea!tly the same anle and turn their palms toward me, movin them slihtly from side to

side in ea!tly the same way, as if they/d been trained by a !horeorapher.

I have my own !ar, a used Honda 3ivi!. ) irlfriend sold it to me two years ao for net to nothin.

;ne bumper is smashed in, and the body style is old-fashioned, with rust spots showin up. Theodometer has over a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers on it. &ometimes0on!e or twi!e a

month0the !ar is almost impossible to start. The enine simply won/t !at!h. &till, it/s not bad

enouh to have the thin fied. If you baby it and let it rest for ten minutes or so, the enine willstart up with a ni!e, solid vroom. ;h, well, everythin-everybody-ets out of wha!k on!e or twi!e a

month. That/s life. My husband !alls my !ar your donkey.6 I don/t !are. It/s mine.

I drive my 3ivi! to the supermarket. )fter marketin I !lean the house and do the laundry. Then I

fi lun!h. I make a point of performin my mornin !hores with brisk, effi!ient movements. Ifpossible, I like to finish my dinner preparations in the mornin, too. Then the afternoon is all mine.


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My husband !omes home for lun!h. He doesn/t like to eat out. He says the restaurants are too

!rowded, the food is no ood, and the smell of toba!!o smoke ets into his !lothes. He preferseatin at home, even with the etra travel time involved. &till, I don/t make anythin fan!y for

lun!h. I warm up leftovers in the mi!rowave or boil a pot of noodles. &o the a!tual time involved is

minimal. )nd, of !ourse, it/s more fun to eat with my husband than all alone with no one to talk to.

+efore, when the !lini! was 4ust ettin started, there would often be no patient in the firstafternoon slot, so the two of us would o to bed after lun!h. Those were the loveliest times with

him. 'verythin was hushed, and the soft afternoon sunshine would filter into the room. 8e were a

lot youner then, and happier.

8e"re still happy, of !ourse. I really do think so. 2o domesti! troubles !ast shadows on our home. Ilove him and trust him. )nd I/m sure he feels the same about me. +ut little by little, as the months

and years o by, your life !hanes. That/s 4ust how it is. There/s nothin you !an do about it. 2ow

all the afternoon slots are taken. 8hen we finish eatin, my husband brushes his teeth, hurries out tohis !ar, and oes ba!k to the offi!e. He/s ot all those si!k teeth waitin for him. +ut that/s all riht.

8e both know you !an"t have everythin your own way.

)fter my husband oes ba!k to the offi!e, I take a bathin suit and towel and drive to the

neihborhood athleti! !lub. I swim for half an hour. I swim hard. I/m not that !ra9y about theswimmin itself7 I 4ust want to keep the flab off. I/ve always liked my own fiure. )!tually, I/ve

never liked my fa!e. It/s not bad, but I/ve never felt I liked it. My body is another matter. I like tostand naked in front of the mirror. I like to study the soft outlines I see there, the balan!ed vitality.

I/m not sure what it is, but I et the feelin that somethin inside there is very important to me.

8hatever it is, I don/t want to lose it.

I/m thirty. 8hen you rea!h thirty, you reali9e it/s not the end of the world. I/m not espe!ially happyabout ettin older, but it does make some thins easier. It/s a


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kind of ame with my husband. 8hen he has homework, he shuts himself up in his room and does

it. He oes to bed at eiht-thirty. I tu!k him in and stroke his hair and say ood niht to him and turnoff the liht.

Then it/s husband and wife toether. He sits on the sofa, readin the newspaper and talkin to menow and then about his patients or somethin in the paper. Then he listens to Haydn or Mo9art. I

don/t mind listenin to musi!, but I !an never seem to tell the differen!e between those two!omposers. They sound the same to me. 8hen I say that to my husband, he tells me it doesn/t

matter. It/s all beautiful. That/s what !ounts.6

Just like you,6 I say.

Just like me,6 he answers with a bi smile. He seems enuinely pleased.

&o that/s my life0or my life before I stopped sleepin0ea!h day pretty mu!h a repetition of the

one before. I used to keep a simple diary, but if I forot for two or three days, I/d lose tra!k of what

happened on whi!h day. ?esterday !ould have been the day before yesterday, or vi!e versa. I/dsometimes wonder what kind of life this was. 8hi!h is not to say that I found it empty. I was0very

simply0ama9ed. )t the la!k of demar!ation between the days. )t the fa!t that I was part of su!h alife, a life that had swallowed me up so !ompletely. )s the fa!t that my footprints were bein blown

away before I ever had a !han!e to turn and look at them.

8henever I felt like that, I would look at my fa!e in the bathroom mirror04ust look at it for fifteen

minutes at a time, my mind a total blank. I/d stare at my fa!e purely as a physi!al ob4e!t, andradually it would dis!onne!t from the rest of me, be!omin 4ust some thin that happened to eist

at the same time as myself. )nd a reali9ation would !ome to me7 This is happenin here and now.It/s ot nothin to do with footprints. eality and I eist simultaneously at this present moment.

That/s the most important thin.

+ut now I !an/t sleep anymore. 8hen I stopped sleepin, I stopped keepin a diary.

I remember with perfe!t !larity that first niht I lost the ability to sleep. I was havin a repulsive

dream0a dark, slimy dream. I don/t remember what it was about, but I do remember how it feltominous and terrifyin. I woke at the !limati! moment0!ame fully awake with a start, as if

somethin had draed me ba!k at the last moment from a fatal turnin point. Had I remainedimmersed in the dream for another se!ond, I would have been lost forever. My breath !ame in

painful asps for a time after I awoke. My arms and les felt paraly9ed. I lay there immobili9ed,listenin to my own labored breathin, as if I were stret!hed out full lenth on the floor of a hue!avern.

It was a dream,6 I told myself, and I waited for my breathin to !alm down. *yin stiff on my

ba!k, I felt my heart workin violently, my luns hurryin the blood to it with bi, slow, bellowslike

!ontra!tions. I bean to wonder what time it !ould be. I wanted to look at the !lo!k by my pillow,but I !ouldn/t turn my head far enouh. Just then I seemed to !at!h a limpse of somethin at the

foot of the bed, somethin like a vaue, bla!k shadow. I !auht my breath. My heart, my luns,everythin inside me seemed to free9e in that instant. I strained to see the bla!k shadow.

The moment I tried to fo!us on it, the shadow bean to assume a definite shape, as if it had beenwaitin for me to noti!e it. Its outline be!ame distin!t, and bean to be filled with substan!e, and

then with details. It was a aunt old man wearin a skintiht bla!k shirt. His hair was ray and


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short, his !heeks sunken. He stood at my feet, perfe!tly still. He said nothin, but his pier!in eyes

stared at me. They were hue eyes, and I !ould see the red network of veins in them. The old man/sfa!e wore no epression at all. It told me nothin. It was like an openin in the darkness.

This was no loner the dream, I knew. rom that, I had already awakened. )nd not 4ust by driftinawake but by havin my eyes ripped open. 2o, this was no dream. This was reality. )nd in reality

an old man I had never seen before was standin at the foot of my bed. I had to do somethin0turnon the liht, wake my husband, s!ream. I tried to move. I fouht to make my limbs work, but it did

no ood. I !ouldn/t move a finer. 8hen it be!ame !lear to me that I would never be able to move, I

was filled with a hopeless terror, a primal fear su!h as I had never eperien!ed before, like a !hillthat rises silently from the bottomless well of memory. I tried to s!ream, but I was in!apable of

produ!in a sound, or even movin my tonue. )ll I !ould do was look at the old man.

2ow I saw that he was holdin somethin0a tall, narrow, rounded thin that shone white. )s I

stared at this ob4e!t, wonderin what it !ould be, it bean to take on a definite shape, 4ust as theshadow had earlier. It was a pit!her, an old-fashioned por!elain pit!her. )fter some time, the man

raised the pit!her and bean pourin water from it onto my feet. I !ould not feel the water. I !ould

see it and hear it splashin down on my feet, but I !ouldn/t feel a thin.

The old man went on and on pourin water over my feet. &trane0no matter how mu!h he poured,the pit!her never ran dry. I bean to worry that my feet would eventually rot and melt away. ?es, of

!ourse they would rot. 8hat else !ould they do with so mu!h water pourin over them= 8hen ito!!urred to me that my feet were oin to rot and melt away, I !ouldn/t take it any loner.

I !losed my eyes and let out a s!ream so loud it took every oun!e of strenth I had. +ut it never leftmy body. It reverberated soundlessly inside, tearin throuh me, shuttin down my heart.

'verythin inside my head turned white for a moment as the s!ream penetrated my every !ell.&omethin inside me died. &omethin melted away, leavin only a shudderin va!uum. )n

eplosive flash in!inerated everythin my eisten!e depended on.

8hen I opened my eyes, the old man was one. The pit!her was one. The bedspread was dry, and

there was no indi!ation that anythin near my feet had been wet. My body, thouh, was soaked withsweat, a horrifyin volume of sweat, more sweat than I ever imained a human bein !ould

produ!e. )nd yet, undeniably, it was sweat that had !ome from me.

I moved one finer. Then another, and another, and the rest. 2et, I bent my arms and then my les.

I rotated my feet and bent my knees. 2othin moved


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The only al!ohol in the house was a bottle of emy Martin we kept in the sideboard. It had been aift. I don/t even remember who ave it to us, it was so lon ao. The bottle wore a thin layer of

dust. 8e had no real brandy lasses, so I 4ust poured it into a reular tumbler and sipped it slowly.

I must have been in a tran!e, I thouht. I had never eperien!ed su!h a thin, but I had heard about

tran!es from a !ollee friend who had been throuh one. 'verythin was in!redibly !lear, she hadsaid. ?ou !an/t believe it/s a dream. I didn/t believe it was a dream when it was happenin, and

now I still don/t believe it was a dream.6 8hi!h is ea!tly how I felt. ;f !ourse it had to be a

dream-a kind of dream that doesn/t feel like a dream.

Thouh the terror was leavin me, the tremblin of my body would not stop. It was in my skin, likethe !ir!ular ripples on water after an earth


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yesterday must have done it. I met a friend at the !lub after my swim and she invited me to play

tennis and I overdid it a little, that/s all. &ure 0 my arms and les felt tired and heavy for a whileafterward.

8hen I finished my strawberries, I stret!hed out on the sofa and tried !losin my eyes.

I wasn/t sleepy at all. ;h, reat,6 I thouht. 1 really don/t feel like sleepin.6

I thouht I/d read a book until I ot tired aain. I went to the bedroom and pi!ked a novel from the

book!ase. My husband didn/t even twit!h when I turned on the liht to hunt for it. I !hose )nnaAarenina.6 I was in the mood for a lon ussian novel, and I had only read )nna Aarenina6 on!e,

lon ao, probably in hih s!hool. I remembered 4ust a few thins about it7 the first line, )ll happyfamilies resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,6 and the heroine/s

throwin herself under a train at the end. )nd that early on there was a hint of the final sui!ide.

8asn/t there a s!ene at a ra!etra!k= ;r was that in another novel=

8hatever. I went ba!k to the sofa and opened the book. How many years had it been sin!e I sat

down and relaed like this with a book= True, I often spent half an hour or an hour of my privatetime in the afternoon with a book open. +ut you !ouldn/t really !all that readin. I/d always find

myself thinkin about other thins0my son, or shoppin, or the free9er/s needin to be fied, ormy havin to find somethin to wear to a relative/s weddin, or the stoma!h operation my father

had last month. That kind of stuff would drift into my mind, and then it would row, and take off ina million different dire!tions. )fter a while I/d noti!e that the only thin that had one by was the

time, and I had hardly turned any paes.

8ithout noti!in it, I had be!ome a!!ustomed in this way to a life without books. How strane, now

that I think of it. eadin had been the !enter of my life when I was youn. I had read every book inthe rade-s!hool library, and almost my entire allowan!e would o for books. I/d even s!rimp on

lun!hes to buy books I wanted to read. )nd this went on into 4unior hih and hih s!hool. 2obody

read as mu!h as I did. I was the middle one of five !hildren, and both my parents worked, sonobody paid mu!h attention to me. I !ould read alone as mu!h as I liked. I/d always enter the essay

!ontests on books so I !ould win a ift !ertifi!ate for more books. )nd I usually won. In !ollee Ima4ored in 'nlish literature and ot ood rades. My raduation thesis on Aatherine Mansfield

won top honors, and my thesis adviser ured me to apply to raduate s!hool. I wanted to o out into

the world, thouh, and I knew that I was no s!holar. I 4ust en4oyed readin books. )nd, even if I hadwanted to o on studyin, my family didn/t have the finan!ial wherewithal to send me to raduate

s!hool. 8e weren/t poor by any means, but there were two sisters !omin alon after me, so on!e Iraduated from !ollee I simply had to bein supportin myself.

8hen had I really read a book last= )nd what had it been= I !ouldn/t re!all anythin. 8hy did aperson/s life have to !hane so !ompletely= 8here had the old me one, the one who used to read a

book as if possessed by it= 8hat had those days0and that almost abnormally intensepassion0meant to me=

That niht, I found myself !apable of readin )nna Aarenina6 with unbroken !on!entration. I went

on turnin paes without another thouht in mind. In one sittin, I read as far as the s!ene where)nna and (ronsky first see ea!h other in the Mos!ow train station. )t that point, I stu!k my

bookmark in and poured myself another lass of brandy.

Thouh it hadn/t o!!urred to me before, I !ouldn/t help thinkin what an odd novel this was. ?ou

don/t see the heroine, )nna, until 3hapter 1B. I wondered if it didn/t seem unusual to readers in


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Tolstoy/s day. 8hat did they do when the book went on and on with a detailed des!ription of the

life of a minor !hara!ter named ;blonsky04ust sit there, waitin for the beautiful heroine toappear= Maybe that was it. Maybe people in those days had lots of time to kill0at least the part of

so!iety that read novels.

Then I noti!ed how late it was. Three in the morninC )nd still I wasn/t sleepy.

8hat should I do= I don/t feel sleepy at all, I thouht. I !ould 4ust keep on readin. I/d love to find

out what happens in the story. +ut I have to sleep.

I remembered my ordeal with insomnia and how I had one throuh ea!h day ba!k then, wrapped in

a !loud. 2o, never aain. I was still a student in those days. It was still possible for me to et awaywith somethin like that. +ut not now, I thouht. 2ow I/m a wife. ) mother. I have responsibilities.

I have to make my husband/s lun!hes and take !are of my son.

+ut even if I et into bed now, I know I won/t be able to sleep a wink.

I shook my head.

*et/s fa!e it, I/m 4ust not sleepy, I told myself. )nd I want to read the rest of the book.

I sihed and stole a lan!e at the bi volume lyin on the table. )nd that was that. I pluned into)nna Aarenina6 and kept readin until the sun !ame up. )nna and (ronsky stared at ea!h other at

the ball and fell into their doomed love. )nna went to pie!es when (ronsky/s horse fell at the

ra!etra!k #so there was a ra!etra!k s!ene, after allC$ and !onfessed her infidelity to her husband. Iwas there with (ronsky when he spurred his horse over the obsta!les. I heard the !rowd !heerin

him on. )nd I was there in the stands wat!hin his horse o down. 8hen the window brihtenedwith the mornin liht, I laid the book down and went to the kit!hen for a !up of !offee. My mind

was filled with s!enes from the novel and with a tremendous huner, obliteratin any other thouht.

I !ut two sli!es of bread, spread them with butter and mustard, and had a !heese sandwi!h. Myhuner pans were almost unbearable. It was rare for me to feel that hunry. I had trouble breathin,

I was so hunry. ;ne sandwi!h did hardly anythin for me, so I made another one and had another!up of !offee with it.

To my husband I said nothin about either my tran!e or my niht without sleep. 2ot that I was

hidin them from him. It 4ust seemed to me that there was no point in tellin him. 8hat ood wouldit have done= )nd besides, I had simply missed a niht/s sleep. That mu!h happens to everyone

now and then.

I made my husband his usual !up of !offee and ave my son a lass of warm milk. My husband ate

toast and my son a bowl of !ornflakes. My husband skimmed the mornin paper and my sonhummed a new son he had learned in s!hool. The two of them ot into the &entra and left. +e

!areful,6 I said to my husband. >on/t worry,6 he answered. The two of them waved. ) typi!al

mornin.

)fter they were one, I sat on the sofa and thouht about how to spend the rest of the day. 8hatshould I do= 8hat did I have to do= I went to the kit!hen to inspe!t the !ontents of the refrierator. I

!ould et by without shoppin. 8e had bread, milk, and es, and there was meat in the free9er.

lenty of veetables, too. 'verythin I/d need throuh tomorrow/s lun!h.

I had business at the bank, but it was nothin I absolutely had to take !are of immediately. *ettin it


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o a day loner wouldn/t hurt.

I went ba!k to the sofa and started readin the rest of )nna Aarenina.6 Dntil that readin, I hadn/t

reali9ed how little I remembered of what oes on in the book. I re!oni9ed virtually nothin0the

!hara!ters, the s!enes, nothin. I miht as well have been readin a whole new book. How strane. Imust have been deeply moved at the time I first read it, but now there was nothin left. 8ithout my

noti!in, the memories of all the shudderin, soarin emotions had slipped away and vanished.

8hat, then, of the enormous fund of time I had !onsumed ba!k then readin books= 8hat had all

that meant=

I stopped readin and thouht about that for a while. 2one of it made sense to me, thouh, and soonI even lost tra!k of what I was thinkin about. I !auht myself starin at the tree that stood outside

the window. I shook my head and went ba!k to the book.

Just after the middle of (olume III, I found a few !rumblin flakes of !ho!olate stu!k between the

paes. I must have been eatin !ho!olate as I read the novel when I was in hih s!hool. I used to

like to eat and read. 3ome to think of it, I hadn/t tou!hed !ho!olate sin!e my marriae. My husbanddoesn/t like me to eat sweets, and we almost never ive them to our son. 8e don/t usually keep that

kind of thin around the house.

)s I looked at the whitened flakes of !ho!olate from over a de!ade ao, I felt a tremendous ure tohave the real thin. I wanted to eat !ho!olate while readin )nna Aarenina,6 the way I did ba!k

then. I !ouldn/t hear to be denied it for another moment. 'very !ell in my body seemed to be

pantin with this huner for !ho!olate.

I slipped a !ardian over my shoulder and took the elevator down. I walked straiht to theneihborhood !andy shop and bouht two of the sweetest-lookin milk-!ho!olate bars they had. )s

soon as I left the shop, I tore one open, and started eatin it while walkin home. The lus!ious taste

of milk !ho!olate spread throuh my mouth. I !ould feel the sweetness bein absorbed dire!tly intoevery part of my body. I !ontinued eatin in the elevator, steepin myself in the wonderful aroma

that filled the tiny spa!e.

Headin straiht for the sofa, I started readin )nna Aarenina6 and eatin my !ho!olate. I wasn/t

the least bit sleepy. I felt no physi!al fatiue, either. I !ould have one on readin forever. 8hen Ifinished the first !ho!olate bar, I opened the se!ond and ate half of that. )bout two-thirds of the way

throuh (olume III, I looked at my wat!h. 'leven-forty.

'leven-fortyC

My husband would be home soon. I !losed the book and hurried to the kit!hen. I put water in a pot

and turned on the as. Then I min!ed some s!allions and took out a handful of bu!kwheat noodlesfor boilin. 8hile the water was heatin, I soaked some dried seaweed, !ut it up, and topped it with

a vinear dressin. I took a blo!k of tofu from the refrierator and !ut it into !ubes. inally, I went

to the bathroom and brushed my teeth to et rid of the !ho!olate smell.

)t almost the ea!t moment the water !ame to a boil, my husband walked in. He had finished worka little earlier than usual, he said.

Toether, we ate the bu!kwheat noodles. My husband talked about a new pie!e of dental e


11/21

e


12/21

listenin.

)fter my husband went ba!k to the offi!e, I folded the paper and pounded the sofa !ushions until

they were puffed up aain. Then I leaned on the windowsill, surveyin the room. I !ouldn/t fiure

out what was happenin. 8hy wasn/t I sleepy= In the old days I had done all-nihters any numberof times, but I had never stayed awake this lon. ;rdinarily, I would have been sound asleep after

so many hours, or, if not asleep, impossibly tired. +ut I wasn/t the least bit sleepy. My mind wasperfe!tly !lear.

I went into the kit!hen and warmed up some !offee. I thouht, 2ow what should I do= ;f !ourse Iwanted to read the rest of )nna Aarenina,6 but I also wanted to o to the pool for my swim. )fter a

ood deal of aoni9in, I de!ided to o swimmin. I don/t know how to eplain this, but I wantedto pure my body of somethin by eer!isin it to the limit. ure it0of what= I spent some time

wonderin about that. ure it of what=

I didn/t know.

+ut this thin, whatever it was, this mistlike somethin, hun there inside my body like a !ertainkind of potential. I wanted to ive it a name, but the word refused to !ome to mind. I/m terrible at

findin the riht word, for thins. I/m sure Tolstoy would have been able to !ome up with ea!tlythe riht word.

)nyhow, I put my swimsuit in my ba and, as always, drove my 3ivi! to the athleti! !lub. There

were only two other people in the pool0a youn man and a middle-aed woman0and I didn/t

know either of them. ) bored-lookin lifeuard was on duty.

I !haned into my bathin suit, put on my oles, and swam my usual thirty minutes. +ut thirtyminutes wasn/t enouh. I swam another fifteen minutes, endin with a !rawl for two full lenths at

maimum speed. I was out of breath, but I still felt nothin but enery wellin up inside my body.

The others were starin at me when I left the pool.

It was still a little before three o/!lo!k, so I drove to the bank and finished my business there. I!onsidered doin some shoppin at the supermarket, but I de!ided instead to head straiht for home.

There, I pi!ked up )nna Aarenina6 where I had left off, eatin what was left of the !ho!olate.

8hen my son !ame home at four o/!lo!k, I ave him a lass of 4ui!e, and some fruit elatin that Ihad made. Then I started on dinner. I defrosted some meat from the free9er and !ut up some

veetables in preparation for stir-fryin. I made miso soup and !ooked the ri!e. )ll of these tasks Itook !are of with tremendous me!hani!al effi!ien!y.

I went ba!k to )nna Aarenina.

I was not tired.

)t ten o/!lo!k I ot into my bed, pretendin that I would be sleepin there near my husband. He fellasleep riht away, pra!ti!ally the moment the liht went out, as if there were some !ord !onne!tin

the lamp with his brain.

)ma9in. eople like that are rare. There are far more people who have trouble fallin asleep. My

father was one of those. He/d always !omplain about how shallow his sleep was. 2ot only did hefind it hard to et to sleep, but the slihtest sound or movement would wake him up for the rest of

the niht.


13/21

2ot my husband, thouh. ;n!e he was asleep nothin !ould wake him until mornin. 8e were stillnewly-weds when it stru!k me how odd this was. I even eperimented to see what it would take to

wake him. I sprinkled water on his fa!e and ti!kled his nose with a brush and that kind of thin. I

never on!e ot him to wake up. If I kept at it, I !ould et him to roan on!e, but that was all. )nd henever dreamed. )t least he never remembered what his dreams were about. 2eedless to say, he

never went into any paralyti! tran!es. He slept. He slept like a turtle buried in mud.

)ma9in. +ut it helped with what


14/21

)nd so a week went by.

;n!e my !onstant wakefulness entered its se!ond week, thouh, it started to worry me. It was

simply not normal. eople are supposed to sleep. )ll people sleep. ;n!e, some years ao, I had read

about a form of torture in whi!h the vi!tim is prevented from sleepin. &omethin the 2a9is did, Ithink. They/d lo!k the person in a tiny room, fasten his eyelids open, and keep shinin lihts in his

fa!e and makin loud noises without a break. 'ventually, the person would o mad and die.

I !ouldn/t re!all how lon the arti!le said it took for the madness to set in, but it !ouldn/t have been

mu!h more than three days or four. In my !ase, a whole week had one by. This was simply toomu!h. &till, my health was not sufferin. ar from it. I had more enery than ever.

;ne day, after showerin, I stood naked in front of the mirror. I was ama9ed to dis!over that mybody appeared to be almost burstin with vitality. I studied every in!h of myself, head to toe, but I

!ould find not the slihtest hint of e!ess flesh, not one wrinkle. I no loner had the body of a

youn irl, of !ourse, but my skin had far more low, far more tautness than it had before. I took apin!h of flesh near my waist, and found it almost hard, with a wonderful elasti!ity.

It dawned on me that I was prettier than I had reali9ed. I looked so mu!h youner than before that it

was almost sho!kin. I !ould probably pass for twenty-four. My skin was smooth. My eyes werebriht, lips moist. The shadowed area beneath my protrudin !heekbones #the one feature I really

hated about myself$ was no loner noti!eable0at all. I sat down and looked at my fa!e in the

mirror for a ood thirty minutes. I studied it from all anles, ob4e!tively. 2o, I had not beenmistaken7 I was really pretty.

8hat was happenin to me=

I thouht about seein a do!tor.

I had a do!tor who had been takin !are of me sin!e I was a !hild and to whom I felt !lose, but themore I thouht about how he miht rea!t to my story the less in!lined I felt to tell it to him. 8ould

he take me at my word= He/d probably think I was !ra9y if I said I hadn/t slept in a week. ;r he

miht dismiss it as a kind of neuroti! insomnia. +ut if he did believe I was tellin the truth he mihtsend me to some bi resear!h hospital for testin.

)nd then what would happen=

I/d be lo!ked up and sent from one lab to another to be eperimented on. They/d do ''Es and'AEs and urinalyses and blood tests and psy!holoi!al s!reenin and who knows what else.

I !ouldn/t take that. I 4ust wanted to stay by myself and


15/21

to let the enine rest. 3ool down. Turnin off the enine-that, finally, is what sleep is. In a human

bein, sleep provides rest for both the flesh and the spirit 8hen a person lies down and rests hermus!les, she simultaneously !loses her eyes and !uts off the thouht pro!esses. )nd e!ess thouhts

release an ele!tri!al dis!hare in the form of dreams.

;ne book did have a fas!inatin point to make. The author maintained that human beins, by their

very nature, are in!apable of es!apin from !ertain fied idiosyn!rati! drives both in their thouhtpro!esses and in their physi!al movements. eople un!ons!iously fashion their own a!tion- and

thouht-drives, whi!h under normal !ir!umstan!es never disappear. In other words, people live in

the prison !ells of their own drives. 8hat modulates these drives and keeps them in !he!k0so theoranism doesn/t wear down as the heel of a shoe does, at a parti!ular anle, as the author puts

it0is nothin other than sleep. &leep therapeuti!ally !ountera!ts the tenden!y. In sleep, peoplenaturally rela mus!les that have been !onsistently used in only one dire!tion: sleep both !alms and

provides a dis!hare for thouht !ir!uits that have likewise been used in only one dire!tion. This is

how people are !ooled down. &leepin is an a!t that has been prorammed, with Aarmi!inevitability, into the human system, and no one !an divere from it. If a person were to divere

from it, the person/s very round of bein6 would be threatened.

>rives=6 I asked myself.

The only drive6 of mine that I !ould think of was housework0those !hores I perform day after

day like an unfeelin ma!hine. 3ookin and shoppin and laundry and motherin7 what were they ifnot drives6= I !ould do them with my eyes !losed. ush the buttons. ull the levers. retty soon,

reality 4ust flows off and away. The same physi!al movements over and over. >rives. They were

!onsumin me, wearin me down on one side like the heel of a shoe. I needed sleep every day toad4ust them and !ool me down.

8as that it=

I read the passae on!e more, with intense !on!entration. )nd I nodded. ?es, almost !ertainly, thatwas it.

&o, then, what was this life of mine= I was bein !onsumed by my drives and then sleepin to repair

the damae. My life was nothin but a repetition of this !y!le. It was oin nowhere.

&ittin at the library table, I shook my head.

I/m throuh with sleepC &o what if I o mad= &o what if I lose my round of bein6= I will not be

!onsumed by my drives.6 If sleep is nothin more than a periodi! repairin of the parts of me thatare bein worn away, I don/t want it anymore. I don/t need it anymore. My flesh may have to be!onsumed, but my mind belons to me. I/m keepin it for myself. I will not hand it over to anyone.

I don/t want to be repaired.6 I will not sleep.

I left the library filled with a new determination.

2ow my inability to sleep !eased to frihten me. 8hat was there to be afraid of= Think of theadvantaesC 2ow the hours from ten at niht to si in the mornin beloned to me alone. Dntil now,

a third of every day had been used up by sleep. +ut no more. 2o more. 2ow it was mine, 4ust mine,

nobody else/s, all mine. I !ould use this time in any way I liked. 2o one would et in my way. 2oone would make demands on me. ?es, that was it. I had epanded my life. I had in!reased it by a

third.


16/21

?ou are probably oin to tell me that this is bioloi!ally abnormal. )nd you may be riht. )ndmaybe someday in the future I/ll have to pay ba!k the debt I/m buildin up by !ontinuin to do this

bioloi!ally abnormal thin. Maybe life will try to !olle!t on the epanded part0this advan!e6 it

is payin me now. This is a roundless hypothesis, but there is no round for neatin it, and it feelsriht to me somehow. 8hi!h means that in the end the balan!e sheet of borrowed time will even

out.

Honestly, thouh, I didn/t ive a damn, even if I had to die youn. The best thin to do with ahypothesis is to let it run any !ourse it pleases. 2ow, at least, I was epandin my life, and it was

wonderful. My hands weren/t empty anymore. Here I was0alive, and I !ould feel it. It was real. I

wasn/t bein !onsumed any loner. ;r at least there was a part of me in eisten!e that was not bein!onsumed, and that was what ave me this intensely real feelin of bein alive. ) life without that

feelin miht o on forever, but it would have no meanin at all. I saw that with absolute !larity

now.

)fter !he!kin to see that my husband was asleep I would o sit on the livin-room sofa, drinkbrandy by myself, and open my book. I read )nna Aarenina6 three times. 'a!h time, I made new

dis!overies. This enormous novel was full of revelations and riddles. *ike a 3hinese bo, the worldof the novel !ontained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Toether, these

worlds made up a sinle universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be dis!overed by the

reader. The old me had been able to understand only the tiniest frament of it, but the a9e of thisnew me !ould penetrate to the !ore with perfe!t understandin. I knew ea!tly what the reat

Tolstoy wanted to say, what he wanted the reader to et from his book: I !ould see how his messaehad orani!ally !rystalli9ed as a novel, and what in that novel had surpassed the author himself.

2o matter how hard I !on!entrated, I never tired. )fter readin )nna Aarenina6 as many times as I!ould, I read >ostoyevski. I !ould read book after book with utter !on!entration and never tire. I

!ould understand the most diffi!ult passaes without effort. )nd I responded with deep emotion.

I felt that I had always been meant to be like this. +y abandonin sleep I had epanded myself. The

power to !on!entrate was the most important thin. *ivin without this power would be likeopenin one/s eyes without seein anythin.

'ventually, my bottle of brandy ran out. I had drunk almost all of it by myself. I went to the

ourmet department of a bi store for another bottle of emy Martin. )s lon as I was there, Ifiured, I miht as well buy a bottle of red wine, too. )nd a fine !rystal brandy lass. )nd !ho!olateand !ookies.

&ometimes while readin I would be!ome overe!ited. 8hen that happened, I would put my book

down and eer!ise0do !alistheni!s or 4ust walk around the room. >ependin on my mood, I miht

o out for a nihttime drive. I/d !hane !lothes, et into my 3ivi!, and drive aimlessly around theneihborhood. &ometimes I/d drop into an all-niht fast-food pla!e for a !up of !offee, but it was

su!h a bother to have to deal with other people that I/d usually stay in the !ar. I/d stop in some safe-lookin spot and 4ust let my mind wander. ;r I/d o all the way to the harbor and wat!h the boats.

;ne time, thouh, I was


17/21

and very polite. I eplained to him that I !ouldn/t sleep. He asked for my li!ense and studied it for a

while. There was a murder here last month,6 he said. Three youn men atta!ked a !ouple, killedthe man, and raped the woman.6 I remembered havin read about the in!ident. I nodded. If you

don/t have any business here, Ma/am, you/d better not han around here at niht.6 I thanked him

and said I would leave. He ave my li!ense ba!k. I drove away.

That was the only time anyone talked to me. Dsually I would drift throuh the streets at niht for anhour or more and no one would bother me. Then I would park in our underround arae. iht

net to my husband/s white &entra: he was upstairs sleepin soundly in the darkness. I/d listen to

the !ra!kle of the hot enine !oolin down, and when the sound died I/d o upstairs.

The first thin I would do when I ot inside was !he!k to make sure my husband was asleep. )ndhe always was. Then I/d !he!k my son, who was always sound asleep, too. They didn/t know a

thin. They believed that the world was as it always had been, un!hanin. +ut they were wron. It

was !hanin in ways they !ould never uess. 3hanin a lot. 3hanin fast. It would never be thesame aain.

;ne time I stood and stared at my sleepin husband/s fa!e. I had heard a thump in the bedroom andrushed in. The alarm !lo!k was on the floor. He had probably kno!ked it down in his sleep. +ut he

was sleepin as soundly as ever, !ompletely unaware of what he had done. 8hat would it take towake this man= I pi!ked up the !lo!k and put it ba!k on the niht table. Then I folded my arms and

stared at my husband. How lon had it been0years=0sin!e the last time I had studied his fa!e ashe slept=

I had done it a lot when we were first married. That was all it took to rela me and put me in apea!eful mood. I/ll be safe as lon as he oes on sleepin pea!efully like this,6 I/d tell myself.

8hi!h is why I spent a lot of time wat!hin him in his sleep.

+ut, somewhere alon the way, I had iven up the habit. 8hen had that been= I tried to remember.

It had probably happened ba!k when my mother-in-law and I were sort of


18/21

I tried to remember what his sleepin fa!e had looked like ba!k then, but I !ouldn/t do it, thouh Itried hard enouh. )ll I !ould be sure of was that he !ouldn/t have had su!h a terrible fa!e. ;r was I

4ust de!eivin myself= Maybe he had always looked like this in his sleep and I had been indulin

in some kind of emotional pro4e!tion. I/m sure that/s what my mother would say. That sort ofthinkin was a spe!ialty of hen. )ll that lovey-dovey stuff lasts two years0three years tops,6 she

always used to insist. ?ou were a new bride,6 I/m sure she would tell me now. ;f !ourse yourlittle hubby looked like a darlin in his sleep.6

I/m sure she would say somethin like that, but I/m 4ust as sure that she/d be wron. He had rownuly over the years. The firmness had one out of his fa!e. That/s what rowin old is all about. He

was old now, and tired. 8orn out. He/d et even ulier in the years ahead, that mu!h was !ertain.)nd I had no !hoi!e but to o alon with it, put up with it, resin myself to it.

I let out a sih as I stood there wat!hin him. It was a deep sih, a noisy one as sihs o, but of!ourse he didn/t move a mus!le. The loudest sih in the world would never wake him up.

I left the bedroom and went ba!k to the livin room. I poured myself a brandy and started readin.+ut somethin wouldn/t let me !on!entrate. I put the book down and went to my son/s room.

;penin the door. I stared at his fa!e in the liht spillin in from the hallway. He was sleepin 4ustas soundly as my husband was. )s he always did. I wat!hed him in his sleep, looked at his smooth,

nearly featureless fa!e. It was very different from my husband/s7 it was still a !hild/s fa!e, after all.The skin still lowed: it still had nothin vular about it.

)nd yet somethin about my son/s fa!e annoyed me. I had never felt anythin like this about himbefore. 8hat !ould be makin me feel this way= I stood there, lookin, with my arms folded. ?es,

of !ourse I loved my son, loved him tremendously. +ut still, undeniably, that somethin wasbotherin me, ettin on my nerves.

I shook my head.

I !losed my eyes and kept them shut. Then I opened them and looked at my son/s fa!e aain. )ndthen it hit me. 8hat bothered me about my son/s sleepin fa!e was that it looked ea!tly like my

husband/s. )nd ea!tly like my mother-in-law/s. &tubborn. &elf-satisfied. It was in their blood0a

kind of arroan!e I hated in my husband/s family. True, my husband is ood to me. He/s sweet andentle and he/s !areful to take my feelins into a!!ount He/s never fooled around with other

women, and he works hard. He/s serious, and he/s kind to everybody. My friends all tell me howlu!ky I am to have him. )nd I !an/t fault him, either. 8hi!h is ea!tly what alls me sometimes.

His very absen!e of faults makes for a strane riidity that e!ludes imaination. That/s what rateson me so.

)nd that was ea!tly the kind of epression my son had on his fa!e as he slept.

I shook my head aain. This little boy is a straner to me, finally. 'ven after he rows up, he/ll

never be able to understand me, 4ust as my husband !an hardly understand what I feel now.

I love my son, no


19/21

livin-room sofa, sat down, and opened my book. )fter readin a few paes. I !losed it aain. I

looked at the !lo!k. ) little before three.

I wondered how many days it had been sin!e I stopped sleepin. The sleeplessness started the

Tuesday before last. 8hi!h made this the seventeenth day. 2ot one wink of sleep in seventeen days.&eventeen days and seventeen nihts. ) lon, lon time. I !ouldn/t even re!all what sleep was like.

I !losed my eyes and tried to re!all the sensation of sleepin, but all that eisted for me inside was a

wakeful darkness. ) wakeful darkness7 what it !alled to mind was death.

8as I about to die=

)nd if I died now, what would my life have amounted to=

There was no way I !ould answer that.

)ll riht, then, what death=

Dntil now I had !on!eived of sleep as a kind of model for death. I had imained death as an

etension of sleep. ) far deeper sleep than ordinary sleep. ) sleep devoid of all !ons!iousness.'ternal rest. ) total bla!kout.

+ut now I wondered if I had been wron. erhaps death was a state entirely unlike sleep, somethin

that beloned to a different !ateory altoether0like the deep, endless, wakeful darkness I was

seein now.

2o, that would be too terrible. If the state of death was not to be a rest for us, then what was ointo redeem this imperfe!t life of ours, so frauht with ehaustion= inally, thouh, no one knows

what death is. 8ho has ever truly seen it= 2o one. '!ept the ones who are dead. 2o one livin

knows what death is like. They !an only uess. )nd the best uess is still a uess. Maybe death is akind of rest, but reasonin !an/t tell us that. The only way to find out what death is is to die. >eath

!an be anythin at all.

)n intense terror overwhelmed me at the thouht. ) stiffenin !hill ran down my spine. My eyes

were still shut tiht. I had lost the power to open them. I stared at the thi!k darkness that stoodplanted in front of me, a darkness as deep and hopeless as the universe itself. I was all alone. My

mind was in deep !on!entration, and epandin. If I had wanted to, I !ould have seen into theuttermost depths of the universe. +ut I de!ided not to look. It was too soon for that.

If death was like this, if to die meant bein eternally awake and starin into the darkness like this,what should I do=

)t last, I manaed to open my eyes. I ulped down the brandy that was left in my lass.

I/m takin off my pa4amas and puttin on 4eans, T-shirt, and a windbreaker. I tie my hair ba!k in a

tiht ponytail, tu!k it under the windbreaker, and put on a baseball !ap of my husband"s. In themirror I look like a boy. Eood. I put on sneakers and o down to the arae.

I slip in behind the steerin wheel, turn the key, and listen m the enine hum. It sounds normal.Hands on the wheel, I take a few deep breaths. Then I shift into ear and drive out of the buildin.

The !ar is runnin better than usual. It seems to be lidin a!ross a sheet of i!e. I ease it into hiher


20/21

ear, move out of the neihborhood, and enter the hihway to ?okohama.

It"s only three in the mornin, but the number of !ars on the road is by no means small. Hue semis

roll past, shakin the round as they head east. Those uys don"t sleep at niht. They sleep in the

daytime and work at niht for reater effi!ien!y.

8hat a waste. I !ould work day and niht. I don"t have to sleep.

This is bioloi!ally unnatural, I suppose, but who really knows what is natural= They 4ust infer it

indu!tively. I/m beyond that. ) priori. )n evolutionary leap. ) woman who never sleeps. )nepansion of !ons!iousness.

I have to smile. ) priori. )n evolutionary leap.

*istenin to the !ar radio, I drive to the harbor. I want !lassi!al musi!, but I !an/t find a station thatbroad!asts it at niht. &tupid Japanese ro!k musi!. *ove sons sweet enouh to rot your teeth. I ive

up sear!hin and listen to those. They make me feel I/m in a far-off pla!e, far away from Mo9art

and Haydn.

I pull into one of the white-outlined spa!es in the bi parkin lot at the waterfront park and !ut my

enine. This is the brihtest area of the lot, under a lamp, and wide open all around. ;nly one other

!ar is parked here0an old, white two-door !oup@ of the kind that youn people like to drive.robably a !ouple in there now, makin love0no money for a hotel room. To avoid trouble, I pull

my hat low, tryin not to look like a woman. I !he!k to see that my doors are lo!ked.

Half !ons!iously, I let my eyes wander throuh the surroundin darkness, when all of a sudden I

remember a drive I took with my boyfriend the year I was a !ollee freshman. 8e parked and otinto some heavy pettin. He !ouldn/t stop, he said, and he beed me to let him put it in. +ut I

refused. Hands on the steerin wheel, listenin to the musi!, I try to brin ba!k the s!ene, but I !an/tre!all his fa!e. It all seems to have happened su!h an in!redibly lon time ao.

)ll the memories I have from the time before I stopped sleepin seem to be movin away witha!!eleratin speed. It feels so strane, as if the me who used to o to sleep every niht is not the real

me, and the memories from ba!k then are not really mine. This is how people !hane. +ut nobodyreali9es it. 2obody noti!es. ;nly I know what happens. I !ould try to tell them, but they wouldn/t

understand. They wouldn/t believe me. ;r if they did believe me, they would have absolutely noidea what I/m feelin. They would only see me as a threat to their indu!tive world view.

I am !hanin, thouh. eally !hanin.

How lon have I been sittin here= Hands on the wheel. 'yes !losed. &tarin into the sleepless

darkness.

&uddenly I/m aware of a human presen!e, and I !ome to myself aain. There/s somebody out there.I open my eyes and look around: someone is outside the !ar. Tryin to open the door. +ut the doors

are lo!ked. >ark shadows on either side of the !ar, one at ea!h door. 3an/t see their fa!es. 3an/t

make out their !lothin. Just two dark shadows, standin there.

&andwi!hed between them, my 3ivi! feels tiny0like a little pastry bo. It/s bein ro!ked from side


21/21

to side. ) fist is poundin on the riht-hand window. I know it/s not a poli!eman. ) poli!eman

would never pound on the lass like this and would never shake my !ar. I hold my breath. 8hatshould I do= I !an/t think straiht. My underarms are soaked. I/ve ot to et out of here. The key.

Turn the key. I rea!h out for it and turn it to the riht. The starter rinds.

The enine doesn/t !at!h. My hand is shakin. I !lose my eyes and turn the key aain. 2o ood. )

sound like finernails !lawin a iant wall. The motor turns and turns. The men0the darkshadows0keep shakin my !ar. The swins et bier and bier. They/re oin to tip me overC

There/s somethin wron. Just !alm down and think, then everythin will be ;.A. Think. Just think.&lowly. 3arefully. &omethin is wron.

&omethin is wron.

+ut what= I !an/t tell. My mind is !rammed full of thi!k darkness. It/s not takin me anywhere. Myhands are shakin. I try pullin out the key and puttin it ba!k in aain. +ut my shakin hand !an/t

find the hole. I try aain and drop the key. I !url over and try to pi!k it up. +ut I !an/t et hold of it.

The !ar is ro!kin ba!k and forth. My forehead slams aainst the steerin wheel.

I/ll never et the key. I fall ba!k aainst the seat, !over my fa!e with my hands. I/m !ryin. )ll I!an do is !ry. The tears keep pourin out. *o!ked inside this little bo, I !an/t o anywhere. It/s the

middle of the niht. The men keep ro!kin the !ar ba!k and forth. They/re oin to turn it over.osted 15th January G by the writer

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HarukiMurakami Sleep

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