After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

What should I do?
Aomame could not decide. Her breathing became harsh. A jumble of thoughts 
came to her, one after another, tangled thoughts defying all her attempts to impose 
order upon them. What was right? What was wrong? She knew only one thing for 
sure: she wanted those thick arms of his to be holding her right now. What happened 
after that would happen: let God or the devil decide. 
. . . 
Aomame made up her mind. She went to the bathroom and wiped away the traces of 
her tears. She looked in the mirror and swiftly straightened her hair. Her face was an 
absolute mess. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her outfit was terrible—faded jersey 
workout clothes with a weird bulge in back where she had a 9mm automatic pistol 
shoved into her waistband. This was no way to present herself to the man for whom 
she’d been burning with desire for twenty years. Why wasn’t she wearing something 
a little more decent? But it was too late. She had no time to be changing clothes. She 
slipped on a pair of sneakers and ran down three floors on the condo building’s 
emergency stairway, crossed the street, entered the empty playground, and walked to 
the slide, where there was no sign of Tengo. Bathed in the artificial light of the 
mercury-vapor lamp, the top of the slide was deserted—darker, colder, and emptier 
than the far side of the moon. 
Could it have been a hallucination?
No, it was no hallucination
, Aomame told herself, out of breath. 
Tengo was there 
until a moment ago, without a doubt
. She climbed to the top of the slide and stood 
there, looking all around. 
No sign of anybody. But he could not have gone very far. He 
was here until a very few minutes ago—four or five minutes at the most. If I run, I 
should be able to catch up with him
. 
But Aomame changed her mind. She stopped herself almost by force. 
No, I can’t 
do that. I don’t even know which way he walked from here. I don’t want to be running 
aimlessly around the streets of Koenji at night. That is not something I should be 
doing
. While Aomame had hesitated on the balcony, wondering what she should do, 
Tengo had climbed down from the slide and left. 
Come to think of it, this is the fate I 
have been handed. I hesitated and hesitated and momentarily lost my powers of 
judgment, and in that time Tengo went away. That is what happened to me
. 
It’s just as well this way
, Aomame told herself. 
It’s probably the best thing that 
could have happened. At least I succeeded in finding Tengo. I saw him just across the 
street. I trembled with the possibility of having his arms around me. If only for a few 
moments, I was able to taste that intense joy and anticipation
. She closed her eyes and 
grasped the slide handrail, biting her lip. 

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490
Aomame sat down on top of the slide in the same posture that Tengo had adopted. 
She looked up at the southwestern sky, where the two moons, large and small, hung 
side by side. Until only moments ago, she had been watching Tengo from the balcony 
of her apartment, where her deep hesitation seemed to be lingering still. 
1Q84: that is the name given to this world. I entered it six months ago without 
meaning to, and now I am about to leave it quite deliberately. Tengo will stay here 
after I am gone. I have no idea, of course, what kind of world it will be for Tengo
. 
There is no way I can see it through to the end. But so what? I am going to die for 
him. I was unable to live for myself: that possibility had already been stripped from 
me. Instead, I will be able to die for him. That is enough. I can die smiling
. 
This is no lie
. 
Aomame struggled to feel whatever hint of Tengo’s presence might be left at the top 
of the slide, but no warmth of any kind remained there. The night wind, with its 
presentiment of autumn, cut through the leaves of the zelkova tree, removing all 
traces of Tengo. Even so, Aomame went on sitting there, looking up at the moons, 
bathed in their odd, emotionless light. The city sounds blended together into one 
urban noise surrounding her with its basso continuo. She thought of the little spiders 
that had spun their webs on the emergency stairway of the Metropolitan Expressway. 
Were those spiders still alive and maintaining their webs? 
She smiled. 
I’m ready
, she thought. 
I’ve made my preparations
. 
But there was one place she would have to visit first. 

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