Japan

“I wanted to tell you what was going on, but I just couldn’t find the words.” “But wouldn’t we have arrived at the same place, anyway?”

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.

Like other styles of pottery, Japan’s ceramics have a vast array of colors and forms, but unlike many in the West they rarely have handles, as the tactile nature of the pots makes handling them a part of the pleasure.

At one point in my life, I learned how to think. I used to know how to feel. In war, these are lessons best forgotten.

Both Satoru and I fell silent. On the radio, a reporter was expounding on a theory about a random serial killing spree in another prefecture. “What kind of person . . . ?” Satoru said. “What is the world coming to?” I answered. Satoru listened carefully to the rest of the report and then said, “People have been wondering the same thing for over a

And come to think of it, isn’t this world we live in itself like a gigantic model room? We come in, sit down, have a cup of tea, gaze out the window at the scenery, and when the time comes we say thank you and leave. All the furniture is fake. Even the moon hanging in the window may be made of paper. But I love Tengo. Aomame murmured