Sleepless mondays
"So that's my life - or my life before I stopped sleeping - each day pretty much a repetition of the one before. I used to keep a diary, but if I forgot for two or three days, I'd lose track of what had happened on which day. Yesterday could've been the day before yesterday, and vice versa. I'd sometimes wonder what kind of life this was. Which is not to say that I found it empty. I was - very simply - amazed. At the lack of demarcation between days. At the fact that I was part of such a life, a life that had swallowed me up so completely. At the fact that my foot prints were being blown away before I even had a chance to turn and look at them.Whenever I felt like that, I would look at my face in the bathroom mirror - Just look at it for fifteen minutes at a time, my mind a total blank. I'd just stare at my face purely as a physical object, and gradually it would disconnect from the rest of me, becoming just something that happened to exist at the same time as myself. And a realization would come to me: This is happening here and now. It's got nothing to do with footprints."
- Haruki Murakami, Sleep in The Elephant Vanishes
Labels: Haruki Murakami, Storybook
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 @ 7:55 PM / 0 daisies
On seeing the 100% perfect girl
"One beautiful April Morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighbourhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.
Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.
Maybe you have your own particular favourite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.
- Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
Sunday, April 29, 2012 @ 5:39 PM / 0 daisies