After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

one who listened to the voices
, as the representative of the 
people. Such a person would take it upon himself to become the circuit connecting 
‘us’ with ‘them.’ And slaughtering the 
one who listened to the voices
was the 
indispensable task of the community in order to maintain a balance between the minds 
of those who lived on the earth and the power manifested by the Little People. In the 
ancient world, ‘to rule’ was synonymous with ‘listening to the voices of the gods.’ 
Such a system was at some point abandoned, of course. Kings were no longer killed, 
and kingship became secular and hereditary. In this way, people stopped hearing the 
voices.” 
Unconsciously opening and closing her elevated right hand, Aomame listened to 
what the man was saying. 
“
They
have been called by many different names, but in most cases have not been 
called anything at all. 
They were simply there
. The expression ‘Little People’ is just 
an expedient. My daughter called them that when she was very young and brought 
them with her.” 
“Then you became a king.” 
The man drew a strong breath in through his nose and held it in his lungs for a time 
before releasing it slowly. “I am no king. I became 
one who listens to the voices
.” 
“And now you are seeking to be slaughtered.” 
“No, it need not be a slaughter. This is 1984, and we are in the middle of the big 
city. There is no need for a brutal, bloody killing. All you have to do is take my life. It 
can be neat and simple.” 
Aomame shook her head and relaxed the muscles of her body. The point of the 
needle was still pressed against the spot on the back of his neck, but she found it 
impossible to summon the will to kill this man. 
Aomame said, “You have raped many young girls—girls barely ten years old, 
some perhaps even younger.” 
“That is true,” the man said. “There are aspects to what I did, I must admit, that 
can be viewed that way in the light of commonly held concepts. In the eyes of earthly 
law, I am a criminal. I did have physical relations with girls who had still not reached 
maturity—even if it was something that I myself did not seek.” 
All that Aomame could do was inhale and exhale deeply. She had no idea how to 
go about quieting the intense emotional currents streaming through her body. Her face 
was greatly distorted, and her right and left hands seemed to be longing for entirely 
different things. 

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391
“I would like you to take my life,” the man said. “It makes no sense for me to go 
on living in this world. I should be obliterated in order to maintain the world’s 
balance.” 
“What would happen after I killed you?” 
“The Little People would lose one who listens to their voices. I still have no 
successor.” 
“How is it possible to believe this?” Aomame practically spit the words out 
between her taut lips. “You may just be a sexual pervert trying to justify your 
despicable actions with convenient rationalizations. There never were any ‘Little 
People,’ no voices of the gods, no heavenly grace. You may be just another phony 
claiming to be a prophet or religious leader.” 
“See the clock over there?” the man said without lifting his head. “On the right-
hand chest of drawers.” 
Aomame looked to the right. There was a rounded, waist-high chest, on top of 
which sat a clock embedded in a marble frame—obviously, a heavy object. 
“Keep your eyes on it. Don’t look away.” 
As instructed, Aomame kept her neck turned in that direction and fixed her eyes on 
the clock. Beneath her fingers, she could feel every muscle in the man’s body turning 
to stone and filling with an incredibly intense power. As if in response to that power, 
the marble clock rose slowly from the surface of the chest. She watched it begin to 
tremble, as if hesitating, come to rest at a point some three inches in the air, and stay 
there for a full ten seconds. Then the man’s muscles lost their strength, and the clock 
dropped back to the chest with a dull thud, as if it had just remembered the earth’s 
gravity. 
The man took a long time to release a deep, exhausted-sounding breath. 
“Even a little thing like that takes a huge amount of energy,” he said once he had 
expelled every last breath in his body. “Enough to shorten my life. But I hope you see 
it now: at least I am no phony.” 
Aomame did not answer him. The man took time bringing his strength back with a 
series of deep breaths. The clock went on silently displaying the time as though 
nothing had happened. Only its position on top of the chest had shifted slightly on a 
diagonal. Aomame stared hard at the clock while the second hand made a circuit. 
“You do have special powers,” Aomame said drily. 
“As you have now seen.” 
“There is an episode involving the devil and Christ in