Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl was sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
Oh, look, it’s Murakami again. Hello. If only every day was a smattering of tortured philosophy, saccharine narrative, and such bittersweet reality. I read, more and more, each passing day, slowly breaking free of the shackles and sinewy vines that have ensnared me all this while, in the company of one that, just like me, drippingly fills our minds, almost as empty as the young D.H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.
One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, both along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighbourhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very centre of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. And they knew:
She is the 100% perfect girl for me.
He is the 100% perfect boy for me.
But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don’t you think?
- On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, Harumi Murakami
All that was terrifyingly unsaid now rolls off the tongue, yes, happily. All that I should have said.