After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

rightness
. The girl has been taught that, in order to keep her body and her 
thoughts clean, she must limit her contact with the outside world. Otherwise, her mind 
will become “po-loo-ted.” 
The Gathering is composed of some fifty relatively young men and women, 
divided into two groups. One group aims at “rev-a-loo-shun,” while the other group 
aims at “peese.” The girl’s parents tend to belong to the “peese” group. Her father is 
the oldest member of that group, and he has played a central role since the founding 
of the Gathering. 
The ten-year-old girl cannot, of course, give a logical explanation of the opposition 
of the two groups, nor does she understand the difference between “rev-a-loo-shun” 
and “peese.” She has only the vague impression that “rev-a-loo-shun” is a kind of 
pointed way of thinking, while “peese” has a rather more rounded shape. Each “way 
of thinking” has its own shape and color, which wax and wane like the moon. That is 
about all she understands. 
The girl does not know much about how the Gathering came into being, either. She 
has been told that, almost ten years earlier, just after she was born, there was a big 
movement in society, and people stopped living in the city and came out to an isolated 
village in the mountains. She does not know much about the city. She has never 
ridden on a subway or taken an elevator. She has never seen a building with more 
than three stories. There is just too much she doesn’t know about. All she can 
understand are the things around her that she can see and touch. 
Still, the girl’s low-angled line of vision and unadorned narrative voice vividly and 
naturally depict the small community called the Gathering, its makeup and scenery, 
and the customs and ways of thinking of the people who live there. 
Despite the split in the residents’ ways of thinking, their sense of solidarity is 
strong. They share the conviction that it is good to live separately from “cap-i-tal-
izum,” and they are well aware that even though the shape and color of their ways of 
thinking may differ, they have to stand together if they hope to survive. They are 
barely able to make ends meet. People work hard every day without a break. They 
grow vegetables, barter with the neighboring villages, sell their surplus products, 
avoid the use of mass-produced items as much as possible, and generally spend their 
lives in nature. When they must use an electrical appliance, they find one in a pile of 

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discards somewhere and repair it. Almost all the clothes they wear are used items sent 
to them from somewhere else. 
Some members of the community, unable to adapt to this pure but difficult life, 
eventually leave the Gathering, but others come to join it. New members outnumber 
those who leave, and so the Gathering’s population gradually increases. This is a 
welcome trend. The abandoned village in which they make their life has many homes 
that can be lived in with a few repairs, and many fields remaining that can be farmed. 
The community is delighted to have new workers. 
The number of children in the community varies between eight and ten. Most of 
the children were born in the Gathering. The eldest child is the heroine of the story, 
the girl. The children attend a local elementary school, walking together to and from 
the school each day. They are required by law to attend a school in the district, and 
the Gathering’s founders believe that preserving good relations with the people of the 
district is indispensable to the survival of the community. The local children, 
however, are unnerved by the children of the Gathering, and they either avoid them or 
bully them, as a result of which the Gathering children move as one. They stay 
together to protect themselves, both from physical harm and from “po-loo-shun” of 
the mind. 
Quite separate from the district public school, the Gathering has its own school, 
and members take turns teaching the children. This is not a great burden, since most 
of the members are highly educated, and several of them hold teaching certificates. 
They make their own textbooks and teach the children basic reading, writing, and 
arithmetic. They also teach the basics of chemistry, physics, physiology, biology, and 
the workings of the outside world. The world has two systems, “cap-i-tal-izum” and 
“com-yoon-izum,” that hate each other. Both systems, though, have big problems, so 
the world is generally moving in a direction that is not good. “Com-yoon-izum” was 
originally an outstanding ideology with high ideals, but it was twisted out of shape by 
“self-serving politicians.” The girl was shown a photograph of one of the “self-
serving politicians.” With his big nose and big, black beard, the man made her think 
of the king of the devils. 
There is no television in the Gathering, and listening to the radio is not allowed 
except on special occasions. Newspapers and magazines are also limited. News that is 
considered necessary is reported orally during dinner at the Assembly Hall. The 
people respond to each item of news with cheers or groans—far more often with 
groans. This is the girl’s only experience of media. She has never seen a movie. She 
has never read a cartoon. She is only allowed to listen to classical music. There is a 
stereo set in the Assembly Hall and lots of records that someone probably brought in 
as a single collection. During free moments, it is possible to listen to a Brahms 
symphony or a Schumann piano piece or Bach keyboard music or religious music. 
These are precious times for the girl and virtually her only entertainment. 
Then one day something happens that makes it necessary for the girl to be punished. 
She has been ordered that week to take care of the Gathering’s small herd of goats 
each morning and night, but, overwhelmed with her homework and other daily 
chores, one night it slips her mind. The next morning, the oldest animal, a blind goat, 

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is found cold and dead. As her punishment, the girl is to be isolated from the rest of 
the Gathering for ten days. 
That particular goat was thought by the community to have a special significance, 
but it was quite old, and some kind of illness had sunk its talons into the goat’s wasted 
body, so whether anyone took care of it or not, there was no hope it would recover. 
Still, that does not lessen the severity of the girl’s crime in any way. She is blamed not 
only for the death of the goat itself but for the dereliction of her duties. Isolation is 
one of the most serious punishments that the Gathering can impose. 
The girl is locked in a small, old earthen storehouse with the dead blind goat. The 
storehouse is called the Room for Reflection. Anyone who has broken the Gathering’s 
rules goes there in order to reflect upon his or her offense. No one speaks to the girl 
while she is in isolation. She must endure ten full days of total silence. A minimal 
amount of water and food is brought to her, but the storehouse is dark, cold, and 
damp, and it smells of the dead goat. The door is locked from the outside. In one 
corner of the room is a bucket where she can relieve herself. High on one wall is a 
small window that admits the light of the sun and the moon. A few stars can also be 
seen through it when the sky is not clouded over. There is no other light. She stretches 
out on the hard mattress on top of the board floor, wraps herself in two old blankets, 
and spends the night shivering. It is April, but the nights are cold in the mountains. 
When darkness falls, the dead goat’s eye sparkles in the starlight. Afraid, the girl can 
hardly sleep. 
On the third night, the goat’s mouth opens wide. It has been pushed open from the 
inside, and out of the mouth comes a number of tiny people, six in all. They are only 
four inches high when they first emerge, but as soon as they set foot on the ground, 
they begin to grow like mushrooms sprouting after the rain. Even so, they are no more 
than two feet tall. They tell the girl that they are called the Little People.