- In other words, Shozaburo Takitani was now alone in the world. This was no great shock to him, however, nor did it make him feel particularly sad or miserable. He did, of course, experience some sense of absence, but he felt that, eventually, life had to turn out more or less like this.
- They never seemed to tire of talking with each other, as if they were filling up each other's emptiness.
- Suddenly his solitude became a crushing weight, a source of agony, a prison. I just never noticed it before, he thought.
- There was something slightly odd for him about not being lonely. The very fact of having ceased to be lonely caused him to fear the possibility of becoming lonely again.
- Size 7 shadows of his wife hung there in long rows, layer upon layer, as if someone had gathered and hung up samples of the infinite possibilities (or at least the theoretically infinite possibilities) implied in the existence of a human being. / [...] Loneliness seeped into him once again like a lukewarm broth of darkness.
- Even the vivid emotions he had one cherished drew back, as if retreating from the province of his memory. Like a mist in the breeze, his memories changed shape, and with each change they grew fainter. Each memory was now the shadow of a shadow of a shadow. The only thing that remained tangible was the sense of absence.
- His memories had grown indistinct, but they were still there, where they had always been, with all the weight that memories can have.
mar 17 2012 ∞
mar 21 2012 +
mar 21 2012 +