3 posts tagged with "Murakami-esque"

The rain wouldn't stop, like the final looping track of a cheap record – hoarse, stubborn, carrying a sense of weary fatalism. I was killing time in the old bookstore downstairs from my apartment building, the air thick with the mingled scent of musty paper and cheap coffee. The owner, a taciturn old man, was always behind the counter reading well-worn philosophy books, as if not even the apocalypse could disturb his rendezvous with Kant or Nietzsche.

Three seventeen AM. Outside the window, the city was like a weary beast refusing to sleep, breathing low. Neon light filtered through the thin curtains, casting indistinct geometric patterns on the floor. I sat at my desk, the pages of the book spread before me unmoving, yet my ears were stuffed with noise—the argument of the couple upstairs, the canned laughter from the TV in the next room, the rumble of trucks passing on the distant street, even the subtle, persistent hum of the refrigerator compressor kicking in. All of it mingled together, like countless sticky little insects, burrowing into my cerebral cortex, crawling ceaselessly.

April First hadn't arrived yet, but the air was already permeated with a scent of uncertainty. Like accidentally knocking over a pepper shaker, fine particles hung everywhere, ready to make you sneeze abruptly. My cat had been missing for three days. He wasn't the type to run away from home; he always slept in his fixed spot on the sofa or, when I listened to Bill Evans records, tapped the floor lightly with the tip of his tail, marking an almost inaudible beat. This time, he just vanished, without even a farewell meow.

I made coffee as usual, watching the hot water slowly seep through the coffee grounds, dark brown liquid dripping into the glass pot. Outside the window, the sky was that typical, characterless city grey. Maybe the cat just got tired of this grey and went looking for a patch of real, green grass. There was no basis for this thought, but it was better than nothing.