After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

knew a lot
about him. The last time an 
NHK fee collector had come around had been about a year ago. At that time he had 
stood at the door and politely explained to the man that there was no TV in his 
apartment. He never watched TV, he continued. The fee collector hadn’t been 
convinced, but he had left without saying any more, muttering some snide remark 
under his breath. 
Was it the same fee collector who had come today? He had the impression that that 
man had also said something about his being a 
thief
. It was a bit odd that the same 
collector would show up a year later and say he 
knew a lot
about Tengo. They had 
only stood at the door and chatted for five minutes or so, that’s all. 
Whatever. What was important was that Fuka-Eri had kept the door locked. The 
fee collector wouldn’t be paying another visit anytime soon. He had a quota to meet 
and had to be tired of standing around quarreling with people who refused to pay their 
subscription fees. In order not to waste time, he would skip the troublesome 
customers’ places and collect the fees from people who didn’t have a problem paying. 
Tengo looked again at the hollow his father had left in the bed, and he remembered 
all the pairs of shoes his father had worn out. As his father had pounded the Tokyo 
pavement collecting fees, he had consigned countless pairs of shoes to oblivion. All of 
the shoes looked the same—cheap, no-nonsense leather shoes, black, with thick soles. 
He had worn them hard, until they were worn out and falling apart, the heels warped 
out of shape. As a boy, every time Tengo saw these terribly misshapen shoes it pained 
him. He didn’t feel sorry for his father, but for the shoes. They reminded him of a 
pitiful work animal, driven as hard as possible and hovering on the verge of death. 

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550
But come to think of it, wasn’t his father now like a work animal about to die? No 
different from a worn-out pair of leather shoes? 
Tengo gazed out the window again as the colors of the sunset deepened in the 
western sky. He remembered the air chrysalis emitting a faint, pale light, and 
Aomame, as a young girl, sleeping inside. 
Would that air chrysalis ever appear here again? 
Was time really a straight line? 
“It seems I’ve reached a deadlock,” Tengo mumbled to the wall. “There are too 
many variables. Even for a former child prodigy, it’s impossible to find an answer.” 
The walls didn’t have a response. Nor did they express an opinion. They simply, 
and silently, reflected the color of the setting sun. 

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