A Murakami Mad Lib

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A Murakami Mad Lib

• Time between 5am and 11am: 6:50am
• Fruit: mango
• Beverage: Sprite
• Japanese City: Sapporo
• Animal: kangaroo
• Number between 2 and 9: 4
• Russian author: Anton Chekhov
• Singer: Frank Sinatra
• Classical musician: Bach
• Piece by the same classical musician: The Art of Fugue
• Adjective 1: slippery
• Facial feature: eyebrows
• Female Japanese name: Midori
• Alcoholic beverage: gin and tonic
• Adjective 2: mediocre
• Painter: Monet
• Adverb ending in ly: breathlessly
• City: Seattle
• Pasta dish: lasagna
• Jazz musician: Miles Davis
• Verb: sneeze
• Adjective 3: glacial
• Natural disaster: asteroid impact
• Adjective 4: dazzling

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An Uncommon Occurrence

The day began the same as the one before.

I woke at 6:50am, took a shower, and donned my clothes. In the kitchen, I ate a whole mango, and washed it down with a tasteless cup of Sprite. You know, the stuff of everyday.

Thirty minutes later, I left my apartment in Sapporo and walked to the nearby train station. A single gray cloud hung in the sky, shaped like a(n) kangaroo. An uncommon occurrence.

I was still contemplating the kangaroo cloud when the train arrived. The train only 4 little cars coupled together and each was completely empty. Not a soul in any of the cars. Confronted with all the seats where no one sat, I suddenly felt like a tiny child in a Anton Chekhov novel. I decided I wouldn't think about it. I sat down, took out my headphones, and instead focused on Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra was followed by Bach's The Art of Fugue and soon I felt myself dozing off.

I awoke with a start. I had no idea how much time had passed. The train car was completely quiet. Or rather everything was completely quiet. Even my music had stopped. Outside, the sky had darkened and a light rain had begun to fall. The kangaroo cloud was no longer visible.

'What if lightning struck this train car.'

I did not notice the woman sitting in the seat next to mine until she spoke. She had a face that would have been beautiful had it not been for her slightly slippery eyebrows. For some reason, her slightly slippery eyebrows reminded me of Midori, a girl I had dated in college. We spent most of it drinking gin and tonic and engaging in mediocre sex. I had not loved her and she had not loved me. Why the woman's slightly slippery eyebrows made me think of Midori, I have no idea. Midori's eyebrows had been quite normal.

'It'd kill us wouldn't it,' the woman with the slightly slippery eyebrows continued.

I supposed it would.

'I suppose it would,' I replied. 'There would be no tomorrow for us.'

The woman with the slightly slippery eyebrows seemed to think this over for a moment. Sitting like that, she reminded me of a Monet painting. 'When I was young, my mother used to say, don't worry, there's always tomorrow. And after that, there's the day after tomorrow.' The woman with the slightly slippery eyebrows tried to smile but couldn't. 'Though sometimes there isn't any tomorrow at all. Sometimes tomorrow is just imaginary.'

She brought a hand to her slightly slippery eyebrows, and I fell suddenly and breathlessly in love with her. I wanted to take her to Seattle and promise her infinite tomorrows over plates of lasagna. Then we'd walk to our hotel, listen to Miles Davis and make love.

But of course, none of this happened. It was one of the imaginary tomorrows.

The train car began to slow until it stopped. The doors opened, though no station had been announced. The woman with the slightly slippery eyebrows stood and turned to me. 'I think you have many real tomorrows left to live,' she said. 'But at some point, even your tomorrows will all become imaginary.' With that, she stepped on to the platform.

As the train lurched forward, I found myself unable to sneeze. I did not know where I was going, but it no longer seemed to matter. I wondered if yesterdays could be as imaginary as tomorrows. The person I was before I stepped on to the empty train, the person who had eaten a whole mango and washed it down with a cup of Sprite, was a stranger to me now, as imaginary as the woman with the slightly slippery eyebrows should have been. But I could remember her more vividly than anything. She was more real to me than Bach's The Art of Fugue which had begun playing on my walkman again. I felt as though I had stepped into a glacial asteroid impact and emerged a different person. And just like that, a dazzling life is blown to bits.

Through the train window, I noticed the sky had cleared but for the single gray kangaroo cloud. I stared at it until the track cut a curve and the kangaroo cloud slipped out of sight.