After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

And even if I did, they wouldn’t believe me
. The girl has often been scolded by the 
grown-ups around her for saying what is in her mind. People have said that she does 
not distinguish between reality and her imagination. The shape and color of her 
thoughts seem to be very different from those of other people. She can’t understand 
what they consider so wrong about her. In any case, she had better not tell anyone 
about the Little People. 
After the Little People have disappeared and the goat’s mouth has closed, the girl 
does a thorough search of the area where they hid the air chrysalis, but she is unable 
to find it. They did such a good job of hiding it! The space is confined, but still she 
can’t discover where it might be. Where could they have hidden it? 
After that, she wraps herself in the blankets and goes to sleep—her first truly 
restful sleep in a long time: no dreams, no interruptions. She enjoys the unusually 
deep sleep. 
The dead goat stays dead all day, its body stiff, its eyes clouded like marbles. 
When the sun goes down, though, and darkness comes to the storehouse, the eye 
sparkles in the starlight, the mouth snaps open, and the Little People emerge, as if 
guided by the light. This time there are seven from the beginning. 
“Let’s pick up where we left off last night,” the hoarse-voiced one says. 
Each of the other six voices his approval in his own way. 
The seven Little People and the girl sit in a circle around the chrysalis and continue 
to work on it, plucking white threads from the air and adding them to the chrysalis. 
They hardly speak, concentrating their energies on the job. Engrossed in moving her 
hands, the girl is not bothered by the night’s coldness. She is hardly aware of the 
passing of time, and she feels neither bored nor sleepy. The chrysalis grows in size, 
slowly but visibly. 
“How big are we going to make it?” the girl asks when dawn is nearing. She wants 
to know if the job will be done within the ten days she is locked in the storehouse. 
“As big as we can,” the screechy-voiced one replies. 
“When it gets to a certain size, it will break open all by itself,” the tenor says 
gleefully. 
“And something will come out,” the baritone says in vibrant tones. 
“What kind of thing?” the girl asks. 
“What will come out?” the small-voiced one says. 
“Just you wait!” the bass says. 
“Ho ho,” says the keeper of the beat. 
“Ho ho,” the other six join in. 
. . . 
A peculiar darkness pervaded the novella’s style. As she became aware of it, Aomame 
frowned slightly. This was like a fabulous children’s story, but hidden down deep 
somewhere it had a strong, dark undercurrent. Aomame could hear its ominous 
rumble beneath the story’s simple phrases, a gloomy suggestion of illness to come—a 
deadly illness that quietly gnaws away a person’s spirit from the core. What brought 

---

472
the illness with them was the chorus-like group of seven Little People. 
There is 
something unhealthy here, without question
, Aomame thought. And yet she could 
hear in their voices something that she recognized in herself—something almost 
fatally familiar. 
Aomame looked up from the book and recalled what Leader had said about the 
Little People before he died. 
“We have lived with them since long, long ago—from a time before good and evil 
even existed, when people’s minds were still benighted.” 
Aomame went on reading the story. 
The Little People and the girl continue working, and after several days the air 
chrysalis has grown to something like the size of a large dog. 
“My punishment ends tomorrow. After that I’ll get out of here,” the girl says to the 
Little People as dawn is beginning to break. 
The seven Little People listen quietly to what the girl is telling them. 
“So I won’t be able to make the air chrysalis with you anymore.” 
“We are very sorry to hear that,” the tenor says, sounding genuinely sorry. 
“You helped us very much,” the baritone says. 
The one with the screechy voice says, “But the chrysalis is almost finished. It will 
be ready once we add just a little bit more.” 
The Little People stand in a row, staring at the air chrysalis as if to measure the 
size of what they have made so far. 
“Just a tiny bit more!” the hoarse-voiced one says as if leading the chorus in a 
monotonous boatman’s song. 
“Ho ho,” intones the keeper of the beat. 
“Ho ho,” the other six join in. 
The girl’s ten days of isolation end and she returns to the Gathering. Her communal 
life starts again, and she is so busy following all the rules that she has no more time to 
be alone. She can, of course, no longer work on the air chrysalis with the Little 
People. Every night before she goes to bed, she imagines to herself the seven Little 
People continuing to sit around the air chrysalis and make it bigger. It is all she can 
think about. It even feels as if the whole air chrysalis has actually slipped inside her 
head. 
The girl is dying to know what could possibly be inside the air chrysalis. What will 
appear when the chrysalis ripens and pops open? She is filled with regret to think that 
she cannot witness the scene with her own eyes.