Hollow man

Swallowed by the world, a shadowless man wandered past me. He asked me for directions and a way to go. I saw his lips move but heard no voice. I saw his searching eyes but no light in them. I heard the hollow ring of a tin box when he walked and not the sound of footsteps. Deserted by his shadow with no where to go, he said he was the hollow man, the King of Pain. Staring into the well of echoes that was bored into his soul I saw the reflection of a face I know well. And then I saw darkness more primitive than the ancient night.

All these sticky spider webs of feelings came and engulfed me through the day. I slept half awake, floating in the space in between; semi conscious, aware of my slumber. At times I sank deeper and deeper and imagined myself meeting Nakata and watching him converse with a cat and hoping for fish rain. I woke up feeling strangely still as if in a dream and spent the subsequent hour reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle. At the end of it, I was Toru Okada, I had a well inside me where I went and yelled “The Emperor has donkeys’ ears”, every time I felt upset and sad. And the dark well swallowed up my thoughts in which she walked every day.