After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

appeared
. I think it must have been 
something like her alter ego. I came to this town again and have stayed here this long 
because I have been hoping I could see her one more time. Honestly, that’s why I 
came.” 
Tengo sighed and brought his hands together on his lap. 
“But she didn’t come. What brought her here last time was a thing called an air 
chrysalis, a capsule she was encased in. It would take too long to explain the whole 
thing, but an air chrysalis is a product of the imagination, a fictitious object. But it’s 
not fictitious anymore. The boundary between the real world and the imaginary one 
has grown obscure. There are two moons in the sky now. These, too, were brought 
over from the world of fiction.” 
Tengo looked at his father’s face. Could he follow what Tengo was saying? 
“In that context, saying your consciousness has broken away from your body and 
is freely moving about some other world doesn’t sound so farfetched. It’s like the 

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rules that govern the world have begun to loosen up around us. As I said before, I 
have this strange sense that you are 
actually doing that
. Like you have gone to my 
apartment in Koenji and are knocking on the door. You know what I mean? You 
announce you’re an NHK fee collector, bang hard on the door, and yell out a threat in 
a loud voice. Just like you used to do all the time when we made the rounds in 
Ichikawa.” 
He felt a change in the air pressure in the room. The window was open, but there 
was barely any sound coming in. There was just the occasional burst of chirping 
sparrows. 
“There is a girl staying in my apartment in Tokyo. Not a girlfriend or anything—
something happened and she’s taking shelter there temporarily. A few days ago she 
told me on the phone about an NHK collector who came by, how he knocked on the 
door, and what he did and said out in the corridor. It was strange how closely it 
resembled the methods you used to use. The words she heard were exactly the same 
lines I remember, the expressions I was hoping I could totally erase from my memory. 
And I’m thinking now that that fee collector might actually have been you. Am I 
wrong?” 
Tengo waited thirty seconds. His father didn’t twitch a single eyelash. 
“There’s just one thing I want: for you to never knock on my door again. I don’t 
have a TV. And those days when we went around together collecting fees are long 
gone. I think we already agreed on that, that time in front of my teacher—I don’t 
remember her name, the one who was in charge of my class. A short lady, with 
glasses. You remember that, right? So don’t knock on my door ever again, okay? And 
not just my place. Don’t knock on any more doors anywhere. You’re not an NHK fee 
collector anymore, and you don’t have the right to scare people like that.” 
Tengo stood up, went to the window, and looked outside. An old man in a bulky 
sweater, clutching a cane, was walking in front of the woods. He was probably just 
taking a stroll. He was tall, with white hair, and excellent posture. But his steps were 
awkward, as if he had forgotten how to walk, as if with each step forward he was 
remembering how to do it. Tengo watched him for a while. The old man slowly made 
his way across the garden, then turned the corner of the building and disappeared. It 
didn’t look like he had recalled the art of walking. Tengo turned to face his father. 
“I’m not blaming you. You have the right to send your consciousness wherever 
you want. It’s your life, and your consciousness. You have your own idea of what is 
right, and you’re putting it into practice. Maybe I don’t have the right to say these 
things. But you need to understand: