- “you’re not telling me anything i don’t know already. ‘relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.’ what’s the point of saying that to me? if i relaxed my body now, i’d fall apart. i’ve always lived like this, and it’s the only way i know how to go on living. if i relaxed for a second, i’d never find my way back. i’d go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. why can’t you see that? how can you talk about watching over me if you can’t see that?”
- “i can’t do what you can do: i can’t slip inside my shell and wait for things to pass. i don’t know for a fact that you are really like that, but sometimes you give me that impression. i often envy that in you.”
- “what happens when people open their hearts?” cigarette dangling from her lips, reiko clasped her hands together on the table. she was enjoying this. “they get better,” she said.
- where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, i sat and looked toward the building where naoko lived. it was easy to tell which room was hers. all i had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. i focused on that point of light for a long, long time. it made me think of something like the final throb of a soul’s dying embers. i wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. i went on watching it the way jay gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.
- “i told you in my letter, didn’t i? i’m a far more flawed human being than you realize. my sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has far deeper roots. and that’s why i want you to go on ahead of me if you can. don’t wait for me. sleep with other girls if you want to. don’t let thoughts of me hold you back. just do what you want to do. otherwise, i might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing i don’t want to do. i don’t want to interfere with your life. i don’t want to interfere with anybody’s life. like i said before, i want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. that’s all i want.”
- what was naoko doing now? i wondered. of course, she must be sleeping, sleeping deeply, wrapped in the darkness of that strange little world of hers. let her be spared from anguished dreams, i found myself hoping.
- i miss you something awful sometimes, but in general i go on living with all the energy i can muster. just as you take care of the birds and the fields every morning, every morning i wind my own spring.
- how many sundays—how many hundreds of sundays like this—lay ahead of me? “quiet, peaceful, and lonely,” i said aloud to myself. on sundays, i didn’t wind my spring.
- “now get this straight, watanabe,” said midori, pointing at me. “i’m warning you, i've got a whole month’s worth of misery crammed inside me and getting ready to blow. so watch what you say to me. any more of that kind of stuff and i’ll flood this place with tears. once i get started, i’m good for the whole night. are you ready for that? i’m an absolute animal when i start crying, it doesn’t matter where i am! i’m not kidding.”
- in the deepening spring of may, i had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. it usually happened as the sun was going down. in the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. i would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. and it would pass—but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.
dec 8 2021 ∞
dec 24 2021 +