After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Why am I so concerned about that rubber plant?
Aomame spent the next several minutes crying. 
What’s wrong with me?
she 
wondered, shaking her head. 
I’m crying too much these days
. Crying was the last 
thing she wanted to do. But she couldn’t stop the tears. Her shoulders trembled. 
I’ve 
got nothing left. Anything of value I ever possessed has disappeared, one thing after 
another. Everything is gone—except for the warmth of my memory of Tengo
. 
I’ve got to stop this crying
, Aomame told herself. 
Here I am, inside of Tengo, like 
the scientists in
Fantastic Voyage. 
Yes, that’s it! The movie’s title was
Fantastic 
Voyage. Satisfied that she had recalled the title, Aomame calmed down and stopped 
crying. 
No matter how many tears I shed, it’s not going to solve anything. I’ve got to 
go back to being the cool, tough Aomame
. 
Who wants that to happen?
I want that to happen
. 
She looked at her surroundings. There were still two moons in the sky. 
“That will be a sign. Watch the sky with great care,” one of the Little People, the 
small-voiced one, had said. 
“Ho ho,” said the keeper of the beat. 
. . . 
Just then Aomame noticed something: she was not the only person looking up at the 
moons. She could see a young man in the playground across the street. He was sitting 
on top of the slide and looking in the same direction that she was. 
He is seeing two 
moons, just like me
, she knew intuitively. 
No mistake, he is looking at what I am 
looking at. He can tell: there are two moons in this world. But Leader had said that 
not everyone living in this world could see both moons
. 
There was no room for doubt: this large young man was looking at a pair of moons 
in the sky. 
I’d bet anything on that. I can tell. He’s sitting there, looking at the big, 
yellow moon and the small, lopsided, greenish mossy-colored moon. He appears to be 
thinking hard about their meaning. Could he too have drifted into 1Q84? Maybe he is 
confused, unable to grasp the meaning of this new world. Yes, that must be it. That 
must be why he had to climb to the top of the slide in this playground at night, staring 

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487
at the moons all alone, mentally listing all the possibilities, all the hypotheses he 
could think of, and examining them in detail
. 
But no, that might not be it at all. He could be working for Sakigake. He could be 
here looking for me
. 
The thought set Aomame’s heart racing. Her right hand unconsciously reached for 
the automatic pistol in her waistband, tightening on its hard grip. 
It was impossible, though, to find any sense of tension or urgency in the man on 
the slide, and there was nothing about him that suggested violence. He was just sitting 
up there alone, his head against the handrail, looking straight up at the moons in the 
sky, absorbed in his own thoughts. Aomame was on her third-story balcony, and he 
was down below. She sat in the garden chair, looking down at the man through the 
gap between the balcony’s opaque plastic screen and the metal railing. Even if he 
were to look up toward Aomame, he would probably not be able to see her, but in any 
case the man appeared to be completely engrossed, staring at the sky without the 
slightest sense that someone might be staring at him. 
Aomame calmed herself down and quietly released the breath that she was holding 
in. She relaxed the tension in her fingers and took her hand from the pistol. 
Maintaining her position, she continued to observe the man. From her vantage point, 
she could only see his profile. The playground’s mercury-vapor lamp cast its bright 
light on him from above. He was a tall man with broad shoulders. He had a stiff-
looking head of hair, cut short, and he wore a long-sleeved T-shirt, its sleeves rolled 
up to his elbows. Not exactly handsome, but he had good, solid features, and the 
shape of his head was not bad. If he were a little older and his hair thinning, he would 
be quite nice-looking. 
Then Aomame suddenly knew: