Daniel Phillips’s Reviews > The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle > Status Update

After a while, I feel my body floating naturally through the water, as if riding on a soft wind. The only sound reaching my ears is that of my own regular breathing. I'm floating on the wind like a bird in the sky, looking down at the earth below. I see distant towns and tiny people and flowing rivers. A sense of calm envelops me, a feeling close to rapture.

"That's good enough," said the lieutenant, using his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow. "OK, now, try to do it in one good, clean swing. Don't let him suffer."
What he really wanted to say was, "I don't want to do this any more than you do. Who the hell could have thought of anything so stupid? Killing a guy with a baseball bat . . ." But an officer could never say such a thing to an enlisted man.

The room was so utterly still that when I held my breath I was overcome by a sense that the world had stopped in its tracks and everything in time would be swallowed up by water, sinking to eternal depths. But no, the world was apparently still moving. Before long, a woman opened the door and stepped quietly into the room.

May Kasahara sat there for a long time taking small, regular breaths. There were no other sounds, no bird or insect cries. A terrible quiet settled over the yard, as though the world had become empty.

May Kasahara sat there for a long time taking small, regular breaths. There were no other sounds, no bird or insect cries. A terrible quiet settled over the yard, as though the world had become empty.

I moved through the darkness as the woman drew me on. I could hear the doorknob turning slowly. The sound sent chills down my spine. At the very moment the light from the corridor pierced the darkness, we slipped into the wall. It had the consistency of a gigantic mass of cold gelatin; I clamped my mouth shut to prevent it entering. The thought struck me: I'm passing through the wall.

The surface of the earth was flooded with blinding summer light. I pictured to myself a stream sparkling in the sunlight and green leaves trembling in the breeze. The light up there overwhelmed everything, and yet below it, down here, there existed such darkness. All you had to do was climb a little way underground on a rope ladder, and you could reach a darkness this profound.

The grass underfoot had lost the living, breathing greenness it had seemed to possess during the spring rains, and now it wore the dull look typical of summer grass. From among these blades a green grasshopper would leap out now and then as I walked along. Sometimes even frogs would jump away. The alley had become the world of these little creatures, and I was simply an intruder come to upset the prevailing order.

I thought about the seashore again. I imagined myself barefoot and moving along the beach at the water's edge. The sand was burning hot, and the wind carried the heavy smell of the tide. I inhaled deeply and looked up at the sky. Stretching out my hands, palms upward, I could feel the summer sun burning into them. Soon a cold wave washed over my feet.

Holding his knife, the bearlike Mongolian officer looked at Yamamoto and grinned. To this day, I remember that smile. I see it in my dreams. I have never been able to forget it. No sooner had he flashed this smile then he set to work. His men held Yamamoto down with their hands and knees while he began skinning Yamamoto with the utmost care. It truly was like skinning a peach. I couldn't bare to watch.