Kafka on the Shore

Alone in the room with the corpse, Hoshino noticed how, very gradually, all sounds disappeared. How the real sounds around him steadily lost their reality. Meaningful sounds all ended up as silence. And the silence grew, deeper and deeper, like silt on the bottom of the sea. It accumulated at his feet, reached up to his waist, then up to his chest. He watched as the layers of silence rose up higher and higher. He sat down on the sofa and gazed at Nakata's face, trying to accept the fact that he was really gone. It took him a long time to accept it. As he sat there the air began to feel strangely heavy and he could no longer tell if his thoughts and feelings were really his. But there were a few things he started to understand.

Maybe death would take Nakata back to the way he used to be. When he was alive, he was always good old Nakata, a not-so-bright, cat-talking old man. Maybe death was the only road back to being the "normal Nakata" he'd always talked about.

"Hey, Gramps," Hoshino said. "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but if you gotta die, this isn't such a bad way to go."

Nakata had passed away calmly in his sleep, most likely not thinking of anything. His face was peaceful, with no signs of suffering, regret, or confusion. Very Nakata-like, Hoshino concluded. But what his life had really meant, Hoshino had no idea. Not that anybody's life had more clear-cut meaning to it. What's really important for people, what really has dignity, is how they die. Compared to that, he thought, how you lived doesn't amount to much. Still, how you live determines how you die. These thoughts ran through his head as he stared at the face of the dead old man.

But one critical thing remained. Someone had to close up the entrance stone. Nakata had finished everything he'd set out to do except that. The stone was right there, at Hoshino's feet, and he knew that when the time came he had to roll it over and shut up the entrance. But Nakata had warned him that if you mishandled it, the stone could be very dangerous. There had to be a right way of turning the stone over-but also a wrong way. If you just powered it over, that could screw up the entire world.

"I can't do anything about your having died, Gramps, but you've left me in a real bind here," Hoshino said, addressing the corpse, which of course didn't respond.

There was also the question of what to do with the body. The normal response would be to ring up the police or the hospital and have them take it. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world would have done exactly that, and Hoshino wanted to. But the police were hunting for Nakata in co

And how the hell do I explain this apartment? he wondered.

An old man dressed up like Colonel Sanders lent us the place. Said he'd prepared it specially for us and that we could use it as long as we liked. Would the police really buy that? Colonel Sanders? Is he with the U.S. army? No, you know-the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. You must've seen their billboards, right, detective? Yeah, that's the guy-glasses, white goatee… He was a pimp working the back alleys of Takamatsu. He got a girl for me. Explain stuff like that and the cops would call him an idiot and give him a swift punch to the head. Cops, Hoshino concluded, not for the first time in his life, are just gangsters who get paid by the state.

He let out a deep sigh.

What I've got to do, he thought, is get out of here right now, as far away as I can. I can make an anonymous call to the cops from a pay phone at the station. Give them the address here, say that somebody's died. Then hop a train back to Nagoya. They'll never co

He started packing, cramming a change of clothes in his bag. He put on his Chunichi Dragons cap, pulling his ponytail through the opening in back, and his dark green sunglasses. Thirsty, he got a Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator. As he leaned back against the fridge and drank, he noticed the round stone next to the sofa. He went into the bedroom and looked at Nakata's corpse one more time. He still didn't look like he was dead. He looked like he was quietly breathing, and Hoshino half expected him to suddenly sit up and say, Mr. Hoshino, it's all a mistake. Nakata's not really dead! But he didn't. Nakata was most definitely deceased. There weren't going to be any miracles. The old man had already crossed the great divide.

Pepsi in hand, Hoshino stood there, shaking his head. I can't just go off and leave the stone behind, he thought. If I did, Mr. Nakata won't be able to truly rest in peace. He was such a conscientious type, always making sure things were done just right. And he would've finished this final task, if his batteries hadn't run out. Hoshino crushed the empty aluminum can and tossed it in the trash. Still thirsty, he went back into the kitchen and popped open another Pepsi.

Mr. Nakata told me how he wanted, if only one time, to be able to read, Hoshino remembered. He said he wanted to go to a library and be able to choose any book and read it. But he died before he could make that dream come true. Maybe now that he's dead he's gone on to another world, where he's become a normal Nakata, and can read. As long as he was in this world, though, he never could. In fact, his final act on earth was quite the opposite-burning up writing. Sending all those words on the pages off into the void. Kind of ironic, when you think about it. That being the case, though, Hoshino thought, I need to fulfill his final wish. I've got to close the entrance. I wasn't able to take him to the movies, or the aquarium-so it's the least I can do for him, now that he's gone.

He drained his second can of Pepsi, went over to the sofa, crouched down, and tried lifting the stone. It wasn't so heavy. Not exactly light, either, but it didn't take all that much to lift it up. About as heavy as when he and Colonel Sanders had stolen it from the shrine. About as heavy as the kind of stones used to weigh down pickles as they ferment. That means right now it's just a stone, Hoshino thought. When the stone's acting as an entrance, it's so heavy you have to kill yourself to pick it up. But when it's light like this, it's just an ordinary stone. Something extraordinary has to happen first, for the stone to become as heavy as it did and change into the entrance stone. Like lightning striking all over town or something…

Hoshino went to the window, opened the curtain, and gazed up at the sky from the veranda. The sky was the same as the day before, a mass of drab gray clouds. But it didn't look like it was going to rain, much less thunder. He perked up his ears and sniffed the air, but everything seemed the same as yesterday. Steady as she goes seemed to be today's theme for the world.

"Hey, Gramps," he said aloud to the dead man. "Guess I just have to wait here with you for something out of the ordinary to happen. What the heck that could be, I have no idea. Or even when it might take place. Plus it's June, and your body's go