Pinball 1973 by Murakami Haruki

Author:Murakami, Haruki [Murakami, Haruki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: #genre
Published: 2010-10-18T21:24:11+00:00

Pinball, 1973

http://web.archive.org/web/20040112045606/www.geocities.com/os...

Park” clicked into position.

“So tell me then, what does a cat think about?”

“All sorts of things. Just like you and me.”

“Gee, that’s tough,” the Rat laughed.

J laughed too, then reflected a moment and ran his finger along the counter. “Crippled in one leg.”

“Crippled?” the Rat asked.

“The cat, it’s lame. Four winters ago, I think. It came home all covered with blood. The poor thing’s paw was all pulpy like marmalade.

The Rat set his glass down on the counter and looked J in the face. “What on earth happened to it?”

“Don’t know. I guess it got hit by a car. But y’know, it was somehow worse than that. Getting run over by a tire wouldn’t do that. I mean, it looked as if it’d been mangled in a vise. Flat as a pancake. I’d almost bet it was someone’s idea of a practical joke.”

“Come on,” the Rat said shaking his head in disbelief. “Who’d want to do that to a cat’s paw?”

J tamped one of his filterless cigarettes over and over again on the counter, then put it to his lips and lit up.

“You said it. Not a reason in the world to crush a cat’s paw. It’s a real well-behaved cat, never done anything wrong. Nothing anyone would have to gain by crushing its paw. It’s just senseless and cruel. But y’know, the world’s full of that kind of groundless ill will. I’ll never understand it, you’ll never understand it. But it exists all the same. You might even say it’s got us hemmed in.

The Rat nodded once more, his eyes fixed on his beer glass. “I just can’t understand why.”

“That’s all right. If you can let it go at not understanding, that’s the best anyone could expect.”

So saying, J blew cigarette smoke out into the dark emptiness beyond the bar. He followed the white smoke with his eyes until it completely vanished in the air.

A long silence passed between the two of them. The Rat gazing at his glass, lost in thought, J

running his finger back and forth along the counter top as usual. The jukebox began to play the last record. A soul ballad in falsetto.

“Say J,” said the Rat, eyes still on the glass, “I’ve lived here for twenty-five years, and it seems to me I haven’t really learned a thing.”

J said nothing, but just stared at his fingers. Then he gave a little shrug. “Me, I’ve seen forty-five years, and I’ve only figured out one thing. That’s this: if a person would just make the effort, there’s something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commonplace things, there’s always something you can learn. I read somewhere that they say there’s even different philosophies in razors. Fact is, if it weren’t for that, nobody’d survive.”

The Rat nodded, then finished off the last inch of beer in his glass. The record ended, the jukebox 42 of 81

05-08-05 01.27

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