Down in the Well with Murakami

Based on the Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The cat left long ago.
The well dried too.
Now Kumiko’s gone
Behind the wall.

And I’m down in the well
with Murakami again.

Noboru Wataya has her.
Noboru Wataya is everywhere.
Noboru Wataya is on TV.
Noboro Wataya is on every screen.

This alleyway doesn’t exist.
Nor the old hanging house
Where there is no good end.
Nor the wind-up bird,
That I and only a few others can hear.

(two men dressed in black with hats
are digging in my backyard. I cannot
move. I cannot scream. I’m only 7.
Why can’t they hear the wind-up bird
that winds the world’s spring. It’s a heart.
It’s a beating heart. The short one climbed
up the tree. They’ve buried a live human heart.
I cannot scream. Why can’t they hear me scream?)

Down here the darkness is pure.
Down here I can think.
Down here I don’t question existence.
Down here, there’s only darkness.

May Kurasawa, the precocious 16 -year-old
girl from across the alleyway that doesn’t exist
is holding on to the squishy thing, the squishy
living thing that rolls away when the body stops.

Down here I do not know time,
Not the time we take for time.
Down here the stars. Down
here the light is real. Down
here the light is not some
decorative thing. The light
was so real that when it hit
Lieutenant Mamiya at the
bottom of the well, he
could no longer live in this
world; though his body
refused to die for many
years after, even after
losing several limbs
to numbness.

May is my angel.
May’s gone and taken my step ladder.
May’s taken my way out.
May’s placed the lid over the well.
May has been a very naughty angel.
May wants me to think my way out.
Or to cease thinking at all.

Several hats hang on the wall
like a prized moosehead.
Several hats that used to be
what i called me. But I am
neither me nor moose nor
taxidermist.

Creta Kano is a whore.
Creta Kano fucks me in my dreams.
Creta Kano is a psychological whore.
Creta Kano wears Kumiko’s clothes.
Kumiko is gone.

All that remains is this burning mark
on my cheek at the bottom of
a pure dark well.

The wall is squishy.
The wall is a living squishy thing.
On the other side, there’s a man
without a face.

A waiter carries a tray of Cutty Sark
whistling the tune to the Thieving Magpie.
In the lobby the well heeled gentlemen
and ladies are watching Noboru Wataya
on the screen. Noboro Wataya is an image.
Noboru Wataya doesn't exist. We cannot
help but fall under his spell.

I follow the waiter into room 207.
The waiter disappears.
A woman lies naked in the bed.
The room is thick with the smell
of pollen. Dead flowers suddenly
rise to the occasion. Thick and
sticky; though it is too dark to see.

‘You should not have come here.
You cannot be here. It is not time.
Go..before it’s too late.’

May Kurosawa knows I need her.
May Kurosawa is far away.

I’ve come for the cat.
I’ve come for Kumiko.
I’ve come for the well
That is dried up in me.
I’ve come for the squishy thing.

May Kurosawa stretches
Her naked body in the moonlight.
May Kurosawa cries real tears.
May Kurosawa’s shadow is
bigger than her small body.

May Kurosawa’s shadow cries
tears that are bigger than the body.

Only a few can hear the creak
of the wind-up bird. It’s a living
human heart. They’re burying
it in my backyard, where the
well once flowed.