NE YORK MIINING DISAStER

    By MURAKAMI haruki

    translated by Philip Gabriel

    t to save on air, and darkness surrounded ter dripping from the ceiling every five seconds.

    “O.K., everybody, try not to breat ,” an old miner said. o a unnel creaked faintly. In togetraining to he sound of life.

    ted for y began to melt ao feel as if it  ure, in a different far-off world?

    Outside, people o reac was like a scene from a movie.

    A friend of mine  of going to typen years. At a time orm sters or running our to stock up on mineral er or co see if ts are uffs a couple of cans of beer into s, and sets off.  a fifteen-minute walk away.

    If o inclement s gates are locked. s doone statue of a squirrel next to trance, drinks hen heads back home.

    But ime rance fee, ligte, and surveys t of treated ters. Some stare blankly at ted, jumping around in the gale-force winds.

    Some are frigric pressure; oturn vicious.

    My friend makes a point of drinking  beer in front of tiger cage. (Bengal tigers al t violently to storms.) side t of time t t bit disturbed by typare at s like a mermaid on te floor sipping ually felt sorry for him.

    “It’s like being in an elevator rapped inside rangers,” my friend tells me.

    typ from anyone else.  company, managing foreign investments. It’s not one of tter firms, but it does tle apartment and gets a nes on ’s ally six montand. t clones of one anot tell t.

    My friend oed , a black tie, and black s are perfect for attending funerals. Every time someone dies, I call  and too big for me.

    “Sorry to bot time I called. “Another funeral’s come up.

    “ be in a  you come over right away?”

    and tie  on table, neatly pressed, ted beer. t’s the kind of guy he is.

    “t at the zoo,” he said, opening a beer.

    “A cat?”

    “Yea asleep in a cage  said ‘Cat.’ “

    “ kind of cat?”

    “Just an ordinary one. Broripes, s tail. And unbelievably fat. It just plopped dos side and lay there.”

    “Maybe cats aren’t so common in hokkaido.”

    “You’re kidding, rigonis be cats in  be t unusual.”

    “ell, look at it anot ts in a zoo?” I said.

    “too, right?”

    “Cats and dogs are your run-of-type animals. Nobody’s going to pay money to see t look around you-th people.”

    t and tie and so a large paper bag.

    “Sorry to keep doing to you,” I said. “I kno some around to it. I feel like if I buy funeral clot’s O.K. if somebody dies.”

    “It’s no problem,”  using t’s better to o , right?”

    It rue t in t made .

    “It’s  since I got t nor a single person I know has died,” he explained.

    “t’s t goes.”

    “Yes, t’s t goes,” he said.

    For me, on t er anot. I y-eig ty-seven, ty-eigy-nine. Not t age to die.

    A poet dies at ty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at ty-four. But after t you assume t everyto be all rig past Dead Man’s Curve and you’re out of tunnel, cruising straigination doo be or not. You get your ; you s a poet anymore, or a revolutionary or a rock star. You don’t pass out drunk in p t four in tead, you buy life insurance from your friend’s company, drink in el bars, and keep your dental bills for medical deductions. t’s normal at ty-eight.

    But t ly arted in our lives. It tack on a lazy spring day—as if someone, on top of a metapaps. One minute e t fit anymore: t, and  pair. It was a mess.

    But deat t. A rabbit is a rabbit  of a  or a  it is—black smoke rising from a chimney.

    t person to straddle ty and unreality (or unreality and reality) was a friend from college waug a junior-o s’ o heir baby.

    One unusually ernoon in January,  to a department store and bougor, dotle of Scotco tub, and slit s. er. took a lot of pograpomato juice. t a suicide. After all, t t o use? No one knew.

    Maybe it

    tment store t in a couple of  t o kill himself.

    leave a e. On tcable ty o fill, knocking back glass after glass of  ared at t someto shave again.

    A man’s deat ty-eiger rain.

    During t ths, four more people died.

    One died in Marc at an oil field in Saudi Arabia or Ku, and ttack and a traffic accident. From July to November t ther friend died, also in a car crash.

    Unlike my first friend, o realize t t aircase times before and suddenly finding a step missing.

    “ould you make up t attack ure designer. It  nine, o tc. But t ake a nap,”  o sleep, and never woke up again.

    t, and ty-four, like a revolutionary or a rock star. One cold rainy evening just before Cmas, stened in tragic yet quite ordinary space betruck and a concrete telephone pole.

    A feer t funeral, I  to my friend’s apartment to return t, le of hank him.

    “Muc once again,” I said.

    As usual, able sofa reflected a faint ray of sunligable tray and a pot of Cmas poinsettias.

    ed t, in its plastic covering, s leisurely—like t coming our of ion—and quietly put it away.

    “I  doesn’t smell like a funeral,” I said.

    “Clot important. t’s inside them.”

    “Um,” I said.

    “One funeral after anotretc on to a glass. “ogether?”

    “Five,” I said, spreading out t  I t’s got to be it.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “Enough people have died.”

    “It’s like t someil enougar appears in the sun.

    After ed on ter sunligly into the room.

    “You look a little glum these days,” he said.

    “Really?” I said.

    “You must be t too muc,” opped t t night.”

    “?”

    “ depressed, I start to clean. Even if it’s tove, mop toill I’m exed, to sleep. In t up and by time I’m putting on my socks I can’t even remember  .”

    I looked around again. As alhe room was clean and orderly.

    “People t t’s  our own way of fig off”

    “You’re probably right,” I said.

    “Even animals t 3 A.M.,” o a zoo at 3 A.M.?”

    “No,” I ans.”

    “I’ve only done it once. A friend of mine  a zoo, and I asked o let me in  supposed to, really.”  range experience. I can’t explain it, but I felt as if tly split open and somet of it. And t  air ed. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it, and t it, too. It made me t t t to t t of time.”

    I didn’t say anything.

    “Any to go again—to t, I mean.”

    “You prefer a typhoon?”

    “Yeaake a typhoon any day.”

    t to o take t o tell o call it a day, but ing and scV. It y-seven-inc e control, to touco cV  sound. I’d never seen sucV.

    I made te rounds of ttling on a ne on car imports, an outdoor er s, a family suicide. All ts of news seemed someed, like people in a ion po.

    “Any interesting nehe room.

    “Not really,” I said.

    “Do you c of tV?”

    I s V.”

    “t least one good t tV,” er a  off whenever you like. And nobody complains.”

    ton on te control. Immediately, t blank. till. Outside ts in otarting to come on.

    e sat tes, drinking alk about. telep ended not to . Just as topped ringing,  tton, as if ure returned instantly, and a commentator standing in front of a grapured er as he price of oil.

    “See?  even notice t ces.”

    “true enough,” I said.

    “?”

    It oo mucrouble to t through, so I shook my head.

    “c off, one side ceases to exist. It’s us or   tcions blackout. It’s easy.”

    “t’s one ,” I said.

    “t trees. In Argentina it rains political prisoners from ers.” cV off again. “I don’t  to say anyt ot consider t t t don’t end in funerals. types of deat smell.”

    I nodded silently. I felt t I kneing at. At time, I felt t I  . I ired and a bit confused. I sat ttia’s green leaves.

    “I’ve got some cly. “I broug back from a business trip to France a o be great. ould you like some? C be just ter a string of funerals.”

    out ttle and t tly on table, tely useless, you kno you pop the cork.”

    “I can’t argue here,” I said.

    e popped talked for a  live t.

    ty at ty at a bar in Roppongi, rio played, and t of good food and drink.  for a  in an appearance every year. Parties aren’t my t to take. I o do on Ne stand by myself in a corner, relax, o be introduced to strangers and listen to t for  arian diet cures cancer.

    But t evening someone introduced me to a er talk, I tried to retreat to my corner again. But to my seat, whiskey glass in hand.

    “I asked to be introduced to you,” she said amiably.

    S type to turn ainly attractive. S s ty-to t rouble. t smile played on her lips.

    “You look exactly like someone I knoalk, t’s an amazing likeness. I’ve been ching you ever since you came in.

    “If  muco meet t else to say.

    “You would?”

    “I’d  to see  feels like to meet someone wly like me.”

    ant, tened. “But it’s impossible,” s the same age you are now.

    “Is t right?” I said.

    “I killed him.”

    trio  finiss second set, and ttering of ed applause.

    “Do you like music?” she asked me.

    “I do if it’s nice music in a nice world,” I said.

    “In a nice elling some vital secret. “In a nice  vibrate.”

    “I see,” I said, not knowing o respond.

    “ty plays t club?”

    “No, I .”

    “Elizabetaylor is one of tomers at the club, and she’s really poor and miserable.”

    “hmm.”

    “So arren Beatty asks Elizabetaylor if ss.”

    “And does she?”

    “I forget. It’s a really old movie.” e requests. t’s like  of tart to read it, all I can t is w.”

    S a cigarette betc it for her.

    “Let’s see,” salking about the person who looked like you.”

    “how did you kill him?”

    “I to a beehive.”

    “You’re kidding, right?”

    “Yes,” she said.

    Instead of sigook a sip of  barely tasted like whiskey anymore.

    “Of course, legally I’m not a murderer,” sher.”

    “Neit  to, but I revies s you did kill someone?”

    “Rig like you.”

    Across t out a loud laugoo. Glasses clinked. It sounded very far a extremely clear. I don’t kno  as if I  ing on er.

    “It took less to kill him.”

    e  for a he silence.

    “Do you ever t freedom?” she asked.

    “Sometimes,” I said. “hy do you ask?”

    “Can you draw a daisy?”

    “I ty test?”

    “Almost.” She laughed.

    “ell, did I pass?”

    “Yes” so . Intuition tells me you’ll live a good long life.”

    “thank you,” I said.

    the band began playing ‘Auld Lang Syne.”

    “Eleven-fifty-five,” s tc. “I really like ‘Auld Lang Syne.’  you?”

    “I prefer ‘elope.”

    S like animals.”

    “I do,” I said. And I t of my friend w.

    “I enjoyed talking to you. Goodbye.”

    “Goodbye,” I said.