By Alfred Brown

5.

“I have read 1Q84,” I said to Harukicat.

“Mmm, you have? Weren’t we just talking about it? You didn’t even know the name of the book then. You called it IQ84…”

“Yes, and you didn’t correct me. I suppose the 1 looked like an I, even when I looked up the Wikipedia article on it and quickly surmised a meaning of the title, I didn’t look too closely as I didn’t want it to reveal anything spoilerish, and still assumed it said IQ84.”

“Spoilerish,” he said, as if tasting something unpleasant, or at least unfamiliar, “I’m not familiar with that word.”

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you what I thought. While it was fresh in my head, I just finished the last page—I have to return the book, it is already overdue, and I haven’t slept, but there is nothing like the moments after you finish a book.”

“I suppose you are waiting for me to ask, ‘what did you think?’ Or, ‘Was it as good as the others?’ ‘Where would you rank it?’ That sort of thing… I actually have no interest in any of that, though. You, nonetheless, seem you have something to say. Or, more precisely, there is something you want to say.”

“Oh, sure there are the nagging questions… No, they aren’t really nagging, they came and went, nagging suggests they are still nagging. But I suppose if they even nagged at one point, they can still be called nagging… Anyway, if things had gone sourly for them, the protagonists, which is entirely possible with your narratives—just not in a traditional way… How should I put it, knowing you, they would never get killed, but they could easily end up lost in a miasma or something. And, also knowing you, it could never end with ‘and they lived happily ever after.’ You would never say anything so concrete, regardless of cliché. So, in fact, the outcome that did come, was the most happy possible for any story of yours. Perhaps you had to do this because of the nagging questions, your readers would say, if only they had done things differently, they wouldn’t have gotten screwed at the end by the forces working against them. Since they do so many things that are ‘unwise’—sure, the writer could do that, but the ‘professionals?’

“Namely, there are two moments that really stood out for me. One, when she killed the leader. Or should I say, Leader. If the Leader didn’t want his subordinates to chase after her, punish her, for taking his life… Well, couldn’t he just write a freaking note before she killed him? Surely his power is so absolute that they wouldn’t think him under duress to write it, surely his eloquence would make it clear that it was his wish. Or, barring that, he could have just asked her to give him her gun. She could leave, he could leave with the body guards, go back to his compound, and blow his brains out—if he didn’t know how, he’d know enough since he knows Anomame so well, to know that she could tell him how.

“The other was Tamura—forgive me if I get the names wrong, I watch anime with my friend all the time, as he is a fan, but I always get the names wrong. He said something about men’s names ending with ko and women’s with ma’s or something, but I’ve forgotten that too. Probably the other way around. Anyway, the capable gay security guy leaves the body in the apartment of the investigator and immediately gets the sakigake people to remove it… Why? Couldn’t he leave it there a little longer? It was cold. Sure, it would be nice if the investigator had a fridge, then he could put him there a la Walker, provided it was large enough. But no need in that chill you mention so often. The body could have at least waiting a day or two, assuming he didn’t want to take it out, which was supposedly so difficult. He could have brought in bags of ice. That is not conspicuous. After all, he knew the only thing keeping Anomame from agreeing to leave was seeing Tengo. He knew Tengo was nearby, and that the only connection was gone… He even knew that if he did let sagikake remove the body, there was a chance that they would make the connection. So, simply leave the body there, get Tengo, meet up with Anomame, bingo bango, they do whatever she wanted to. Then he can get the body removed. He knows confidently that no one knows he is there, no one will be looking for him, there is no reason to…

“Anyway, I’m guessing you realized about 20 of these moments occurring in your book. And I’m guessing you had maybe editors picking out 40 more, my guess is editors would like to do that kind of thing. And, now, I’m wondering if you gave it that happy ending because if you didn’t, your readers would balk over one of those 60 and be dissatisfied. But with a happy ending, the reader thinks, oh, it worked out for the best, so they must have been doing the right thing. Either that or you realized that after reading a behemoth like that people would be a lot more annoyed with an unhappy ending than if it was, say, a short story, as your short stories are far more likely to end on the lower end of the spectrum—which of course, as said, is always a narrow spectrum as you would never have them be happily/miserably ever after. Of course, my favorite short stories by you, do have the negative end of the spectrum… My favorite is the dwarf one, and I am fond of the tipping-the-car one as well. But especially the dwarf one. That is my favorite.”

“Please,” the cat pleaded with his paws up, “don’t tell me your favorites!”

“Anyway, I would have been more displeased with a larger piece of fiction with more investment ending negatively. I suspect if Hard Boiled was the length of 1Q84, I would be more annoyed with that one.” I paused and drank my tea. It had gotten cold. It should have been coffee, that gets cold more often, but I don’t like coffee. I continued.

“The other thing I want to say is I liked the third section best. Not because of the translation difference. Which was slight, but I think maybe perceptible… Perhaps not, I only ‘perceived’ after I, out of curiosity, read the front where it said the first two parts were by one translator, Rubin I believe, and the last by Gabriel. I don’t have any real opinion on any of the translators. I get a feeling they each have their own style, but none of them move me in any particular way, which is perhaps how they should best be. Shadows. No, the reason I liked the third section was because of Ushikawa… I’m sure I’m getting that name wrong. Not because I liked his character that much. Not really. But I like detectives. And there was real detective work. You could see the thought processes. Like a good episode of Columbo, back in the 70s when the detective shows didn’t rely on DNA test and tool marking s to solve everything. Plot twists weren’t given by enhancing the image, but by a deduction that was made, one that could have been made by the reader/viewer, but wasn’t, those are the best. I think my favorite parts of the books were hearing him think out how he connected the dots.

“I had other parts I liked. I suspect you spent a lot of time working on that very moment when they hold hands on the slide. Those couple of paragraphs were wonderful. Of course you couldn’t end on it, and you couldn’t delay it, since clearly once they met that was the first thing they would do. I imagine you wrote those early in the book, and rewrote them very many times by the time you got to the point of them. But I don’t know. Mere conjecture.

“Another good thing was that it didn’t end with Amomame being just the story Tengo was writing. Of course I thought about that as soon as I heard he was writing a novel. Then I thought, no, Amomame was already introduced before. But then I thought, ah, but so was the End of the World introduced before the Hard Boiled guy could have even started that pathway. But then later you say that Tengo was writing about himself. So, that allayed my fears some. Still, even to the end, I was afraid there would be a last chapter, ‘and then Tengo put down his pen, having let his creation meet his alter ego. He could finish the story.’ Something like that. Actually more ambiguous than that, but still suggestive. Perhaps you still want to suggest that, but I will ignore that.” I took a long breath. I was afraid Harukicat was bored. Like he was reading some poorly written fanfic.

Haruki Murakami merely blinked his eyes and yawned, but it was the yawn cats make regardless of their interest. It was the yawn they make when they move from one comfortable position to another, hoping, perhaps it will be even more comfortable. He settled into that position. If it were more comfortable or not, he was not betraying.

“So, what is next?”

“Hmm, let’s see. I’ve read everything in the library. Fiction that is. I’ve read at least 10 of your publications now. I wanted to get the rest of the Rat Trilogy. Pinball is hard to get, expensive at least, I can’t spent 45 dollars. There is a version available online, not sure if you are aware of that. I have acquired it, as a back-up, in case they don’t have the book I plan to get in another library. The last of the trilogy is cheap, as it was published in America also, but I don’t want to purchase that book without the missing third of the trilogy. Having the first book by itself is okay, as it is your first book, beyond just being the first in the trilogy. So, next, if I can get it, is Dance, Dance, Dance. I have already read: Hear the Wind Sing, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, The Elephant Vanishes, Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, After the Quake, After Dark, South of the Border, Blind Willow, and now 1Q84. In roughly that order.”

“Mm hmm, I see,” he said, “I, of course, was not asking that at all. But you must be a voracious reader.”

“Not really. I rarely read more than one book by any author. I read ‘the big four’ of Faulkner. Though of those I really only cared for Absalom Absalom and Sound and the Fury. The fact that he wrote As I Lay Dying in something like a week really irks me and not sure if that is clouding my judgment on it. He’s perhaps the only author I’ve read in my adult life more than one book by. When I was younger I read a lot of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams. But otherwise, I usually read only one book, the most famous one, by an author. I don’t read that often nowadays. Absalom Absalom alone took me a year to read, and it was the only novel I was reading.”

I started to think of other authors, but I was already embarrassed with some of the ones I had mentioned. Faulkner, no one can look down upon. But how would he feel knowing my favorite book was—true, for sentimental reasons, not because I read it recently and felt it had a lot of literary merit—Watership Down… That’s not even necessarily true, I had a lot of books I had attachment to. Looking at my bookcase, I saw Invisible Man, but I tried rereading that, and found I wasn’t able to finish it.

The afterglow of the book was diminishing. I was tired. I knew I couldn’t sleep, but it was time to switch gears. Harukicat yawned again, and it dawned on me, that he was trying to make me sleepy. I yawned back. This contented him, and he walked away.

By Alfred Brown

4 will come. Soon. But 5 is waiting impatiently, and 4 will have to come after 5. But then we’ll go to 6, and it will be fine.

By Alfred Brown

3.

I woke up with a start. I wondered if she would call me. This was usually the time she would call, but the phone did not ring. Then I saw her.

The moonlight paled over her, giving her a spectral appearance. I wasn’t sure if she was there, or it was a ghost that she had sent in her place. She had long, black hair; a small nose; perfect ears; and expressive eyes. She slowly disrobed, letting her wrap fall off one shoulder and then the other. She held it about her torso then let the whole thing drop. Her body was toned and shapely. Sometimes I liked them chubby, but her body was exactly what I wanted.

Speaking of chubby, for the first time ever, I found I couldn’t get an erection. As I said, this had never happened before. Perhaps I was too scared by the fact that she somehow silently came into my room and stood before me. I was a light sleeper, so I was sure I would have heard if the door or window had opened.

Still saying nothing, she reached out to me. I brushed the covers from my bed. She started unbuttoning my pajamas. She took them off and threw them on the floor in a crumpled heap. I looked at them and was overcome with emotion. They would get wrinkled! I knew what I had to do.

I pushed her away and pulled out from under my bed my ironing board. I liked to keep it nearby in case I was having trouble sleeping. I set it up quickly next to the bed. Then, with a moment of inspiration, I put her on it—though it was rickety, it seemed to hold her weight. Suddenly I was hard. And then I pressed her. I pressed and pressed her. When I moved away from her I would make a sizzle noise with my mouth, and when I went back onto her I would exhale and hum. I turned her on her side and did it again, then turned her again and pressed, and finally turned her one more time so I got all her sides.

I was not finished, but suddenly she disappeared. I yelled into the darkness, “If you leave me turned on, I’ll burn down the house!” But she didn’t care, she was gone.

I woke up and my covers were sticky. This, of course, had never happened before. Just like my erectile dysfunction earlier. But that was part of the dream. I took off my covers, threw them in the hamper along with my wet pajamas, and took a quick shower. When I came back to bed and took off my towel, I noticed that there was a smooth, folded pair of pajamas next to me. They were still warm.

When I woke up again, Haruki was next to me. Or, since he was Japanese, I should refer to him by his last name.

“Hello Murakami.”

“You can call me Haruki.” I knew this was a great honor. Usually in shojo anime, this was where the fair maiden would blush and wave her hand in front of her face and say, “No, no, I couldn’t do that!” And he would say, “I insist,” and call me by my first name. The wind would rustle our hair. I would then start to faint, my arms would go up in wavy lines, wavy streams would come down my face, and maybe cherry blossoms would swirl around.

“Okay, Haruki-chan.” I smiled, stuck my tongue out, and gave a peace sign. The cat rolled his eyes.

“You can call me Murakami.”

“I’ve read more of your books since you last came to me. I’ve read nearly every one they have in the library. The only ones I haven’t read, that are available there, are After Dark and South of the Border. I’ve hesitated because unlike the others, on the back they don’t have quotes on the book from critics. Instead they say, ‘more praise for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.’ Which doesn’t really strike me as a good sign. Do you think I should read them anyway?”

“Well, you say they are at the library. Which means I don’t make any money if you do get them. Which means I really don’t care.”

“I want to get your new book, IQ84, but it is always checked out. What’s it about? I take it, it is about a man whose IQ is 84 points.”

“It is actually a reference to the Japanese way of pronouncing 1984, like the book by George Orwell.”

“Hmm, George Orwell. His books have talking animals in them and unrequited love. I can’t imagine why you would refer to him. I am now getting a weird image of the character from your first trilogy eating someone’s face.”

“You will have to read it to find out. That might happen. Though, since it is a very bad idea, it probably doesn’t.”

Haruki Murakami went over to my laptop and turned it on. Next to it he had a bottle of whiskey, he poured himself some into a glass and drank some while he typed. I was very surprised he could do any of these things as a cat. Didn’t he say he wrote with his tail? No matter. I watched him thinking of nothing at all. Then he left without saying a word.

I went to the computer and the file was on my desktop. I opened it, but it was encrypted with a password. What could the password be? It, of course, could be anything. But I had to open the document, it could reveal all the secrets I had been trying to figure out.

I had to try something. Of course! I typed in, ILickMyOwnPrivatesBecauseIAmACatWouldntYou. And success! I started reading.

By Alfred Brown

2.

There are at least a thousand wells, in this clearing of the forest. Sasuke is lonely. There is a palpable loneliness that rests inside as a gooey, almost nougat center that is, nonetheless, very much alive. He thinks he can just cut open his stomach and throw the loneliness into one of the wells, where no one will get to it again. Or, perhaps better yet, after doing that, he will go into another well. But what if the wells are connected at the bottom? Then he’d find it, and it would be very difficult to throw it up out of the well.

Before he started walking in the forest, a stranger told him two things. One, that it was going to rain. And, as all protagonists know, if someone tells you it is going to rain, it is going to rain. And, two, don’t go too deep into the woods or you’ll get lost forever. But, as any protagonist knows, you’re going to go deep into the woods and get lost and freak out, and then eventually come back. What is Sasuke going to do with two comments, one guaranteed to come true, the other guaranteed to not?

Unfortunately, as he has been going through this forest, he has slowly began to lose his memories. Instead he is gaining waking dreams. Things are not making much sense. Is that a kappa with a single long horn coming out of his head emerging from that well? Is there such a thing as a unappa? Sasuke, not knowing what to do, waves at it. The unappa waves back with his webbed hand and goes into another well.

“Clearly the wells aren’t connected,” thinks Sasuke, “or he would not have bothered to come out one to go into the other.” Sasuke then gets an idea. He should see if two of the wells are occupied, in case he wants to go down one and throw his loneliness in another. He gets some small rocks and drops them one by one into a well. But he stops. Because he sees the multitude of errors in his ways.

What if the Unappas can’t speak? Perhaps he is just hitting them senselessly with rocks and perhaps from such a height that they reach terminal velocity and really hurt? Of course, you can’t kill someone with a penny dropped from the Empire State Building—assuming you could reach that far out so it went directly down. But he isn’t hearing these rocks make any sound. He knows if he waits about 45 minutes, and then there is a sound, he will know the well is as deep as the Earth. But how would that sound be loud enough to reach him at the top of the well?

Also, there were other problems. Such as, how to get down the well in any way that could have him go up the well easily? Hmm, maybe someone will put a metal ladder on the side of the well. He reaches inside, but there is no ladder. That would be silly, anyway. And how was he going to get the loneliness out of him without a blade to cut it out? Assuming he knew where to cut, of course. Being in the well with his loneliness seems rather depressing. He tries to remember. Did someone with the name of Honda tell him to find something really deep and go to the bottom? Or did he say: “It’s natural for a sumo wrestler to become the world’s strongest! Can’t you do better than that?” Or could it have been “we make it simple” or “the power of dreams” or he could have been introducing a woman named Chun Li that he was having sex with as “you meet the nicest people on a Honda.”

He decides he’ll throw another rock in, this time a bigger one. Maybe that one will make a sound. And he hears someone yell from inside, “What the hell was that for! That really hurt!”

“Oh, there is someone in there! Hello! Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you! Are you an unappa?”

“No, but I am a Capricorn. I was just lying here in this well, minding my business, when someone threw a rock at me. Was that you?”

“Well, I did say, ‘sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ So shouldn’t it be obvious?”

“I’ve been hurt many times by many people, so I don’t make snap judgments. Those are how people make presumptions that there isn’t anyone in a well and they can just throw rocks in it. I assume you threw the rock to see how deep it was.”

“No, actually, I threw the rock mostly to know if there was someone inside. I saw a weird creature come out of one and go into another. So, I thought maybe you were one of them.”

“You idiot. Why didn’t you just call out to see if there was someone inside, instead of pelting them with stones?” The voice grumbles incoherently. Sasuke feels a slight drizzle from above.

“Well,” says Sasuke, “I didn’t know if the unappa could talk and would understand what I was saying. Of course, then there’s the issue of how could they reply, whether I called to them or hit them with rocks. But that’s neither here nor there. It seems like it is starting to rain. I imagine the unappa can breathe underwater or swim or maybe crawl out of the well with their claws, but you might drown down there if you are just a regular human.”

“No, I’ll be fine. I like it down here. And I have a way to get out, when I want to. You can’t trust an unappa to save you. If it finds you alive in a well, it’ll leave you there. If it finds you dead in a well, it’ll have sex with you, then leave you there. And if it rains, you can’t swim out, because the rain hasn’t reached the top of the well since they’ve been made, more likely you’d just drown. They are very deep. But, like I said, I like it here.”

“You like it down there?” Sasuke was incredulous. What could possibly be down there to like? He has heard the expression “all’s well that ends well,” but that doesn’t exactly mean “go down a well it’s lots of fun.” But of course, just a few moments ago, he was thinking of going down it himself.

“Yeah it’s great. This used to be a wishing well. So, people would throw coins into it for wishes. But the only wishes that seemed to come true were ones that were small and likely to come true anyway. Like, ‘gee I hope she makes me a really tasty sandwich today.’ And she would, as she would be known for making great sandwiches. So, the people thought, naturally, for bigger wishes they would need to throw down more valuable offerings. There are treasures of immense value down here. It’s really great.”

“Wow! I could use some treasure.”

“Oh, there’s plenty here for both of us. Come down and I’ll get us both out of it when we’ve gathered our arms full of sacks of gold doubloons and Faberge eggs.”

“I don’t know. There’s no ladder on the side of the well and I have no rope to lower myself down. If I jump down I might break something or land on top of you.” Sasuke is hesitant, though he is poor. Perhaps he could get enough money to buy some friends, or at least get a proper doctor to remove the loneliness inside.

“Naw, it is really soft. Some people threw some really expensive pillows in here. I’ll arrange them in the middle of the well and stand with my back on the side. So you can just drop right in the middle and I’ll be fine.”

Sasuke thinks about this. He wonders what he has to lose, but he’s forgotten everything before he went into the forest. He doesn’t remember if he told anyone he was going in here, but he doubts they’d find this field of wells anyway. All he could hope for is someone with a magical sense of direction and intuition to find him. But, hey, there’s someone in there already. If the guy is lying about the stuff in there, at least he probably isn’t lying about having some way of getting out. If it can only get one person out at a time, Sasuke will just overpower him and take it from him.

“Alright,” Sasuke says, “I’m coming in.” And he jumps. It is a long fall. Long enough for him to think, “I really hope those pillows are soft.” And, of course, “Why am I doing this?” And, “Wouldn’t Fabrege eggs break if you tossed them down a well?” But of course, they could be in protective cases. He keeps falling.

From out of the forest comes a young boy. He sees another young boy hiding behind a bush near the well.

“What are you doing?” asks the first boy.

“Oh, nothing, just practicing throwing my voice,” says the other boy. “Let’s go catch some fish at the river.” And with that, they leave for the river.

By Alfred Brown

1.

I was lying in a pool of warm mud. No. I was the mud. And then I woke up. At least, I think I did.

I woke up and noticed beside me a small, brown, striped cat. I thought to myself, I hate cats. Then I remembered, no I love cats. I must still be groggy.

“Do you mind if I give you a name?” I said to the cat. “How about Noboru Wataya? No, that’s the name of someone I dislike. How about Noboru Watanabe? I’ve always liked that name. Or I could call you something ironical. Like Crow or Rat.”

“No thank you,” said the cat. “I eat those, it wouldn’t make sense to be called that. I already have a name, it is Haruki Murakami.”

“Oh, like the author,” I said.

“I am the author,” he said defiantly. He licked his paw while I waited for him to continue. He pulled out a manuscript of nowhere and handed (pawed?) to me. I looked at it, it was just the word “meow” written a hundred thousand times on hundreds of pages. “Of course, I have other people like Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin, and Philip Gabriel translate it for me. It loses something in the translation, of course.”

“How do you write without opposable thumbs to hold the pen? Or without fingers to type the keys?”

“I dip my tail into ink and write calligraphy on long scrolls. Of course, I use only non-toxic ink, because I bathe myself clean with my tongue after I am done. You must excuse me, I feel a need to lick my privates.” To which, the cat licked his privates with ease.

“I feel blessed to have Haruki Murakami lick his privates in my presence.” I thank him and bow.

“Well, don’t feel too special. I am a cat. I do this all the time. I’m sure humans would do it too if they could bend enough. It is very relaxing. Like sitting in a pool of warm mud.” The cat gets up and walks toward the kitchen. “Would you like a sandwich? I make excellent sandwiches.”

He goes and opens the refrigerator door with ease. He is a very strong cat. “Hmm, no dead mice in here. Can’t make a decent sandwich without them,” the cat said. I think of the weirder things kept in refrigerators in his stories, like the one Johnny Walker had. But I think better of telling him so. I change the topic.

“You must be very strong to open that refrigerator with just your paw.”

“Well,” he said, “I run a lot of marathons. Of course, I take naps regularly in the middle of them. Get distracted with pieces of string. But I finish them eventually. I refuse to wear the numbers on my body though. Cats don’t like having to wear things, as you know.”

I think of having a cigarette. Then I remembered I had quit and suck on a lemon drop. There was much I wanted to ask him. “I really liked Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I was a little surprised by the ending. I know you were setting it up so that it wouldn’t be shocking for the protagonist to eventually get stuck in his mind at the end. But it was just the second of your novels that I had read. After a while I got used to the bittersweet endings that go with all your works.”

“What was the first novel you read?” he asked. But he wasn’t too interested, it seemed. He was licking his privates again.

“Hear the Wind Sing. It was really hard to get in America. Let me tell you. I had to order it online. Twenty-seven bucks and the thing was tiny. Even tinier when I realized a lot of the back of the book was just notes. Notes, by the way, they never bothered to translate into English. Maybe they were just translating notes. But it was really good. I was hooked after that. I want to read the rest of the trilogy, but the other books are also hard to come by.”

“Eh, I never really liked my first novels, I never thought they were very good,” the cat said.