After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

tenacious bug. I don’t give up easily. Once I get ahold of a clue, I pursue it to the 
bitter end. I’ll climb up the highest wall you’ve got. I have to get back that cold core 
inside me. Right now, that’s exactly what I need
. 
Ushikawa rubbed his hands together in front of the camera, and checked to make 
sure all ten fingers were working properly. 
There are lots of things ordinary people can do that I can’t. That’s for sure. 
Playing tennis, skiing, for instance. Working in a company, having a happy family. 
On the other hand, there are a few things I can do that most other people can’t. And I 
do these few things very, very well. I’m not expecting applause or for people to 
shower me with coins. But I do need to show the world what I’m capable of
. 
At nine thirty Ushikawa ended his surveillance for the day. He heated a can of 
chicken soup over the portable stove and carefully sipped it with a spoon. He ate two 
cold rolls, then polished off an apple, peel and all. He peed, brushed his teeth, spread 
out his sleeping bag, stripped down to his underwear, and snuggled inside. He zipped 
the bag up to his neck and curled up like a bug. 
And thus Ushikawa’s day was over. It hadn’t been a very productive day. All he 
had been able to do was watch Fuka-Eri exit the building with all her belongings. He 
didn’t know where she had gone. 
Somewhere
, but 
where
? Inside the sleeping bag he 
shook his head. Wherever she went, it didn’t concern him. After a time his frozen 

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body warmed up, his mind faded, and he fell into a deep sleep. Once more, the tiny 
frozen core occupied a solid place in his soul. 
Nothing much happened the next day. Two days later was Saturday, another warm, 
peaceful day. Most people slept in during the morning. Ushikawa, though, sat by the 
window, listening to a tiny radio—the news, traffic updates, the weather report. 
Just before ten a large crow flew up and stood at the empty front steps of the 
building. The crow looked around meticulously, moving its head a few times like it 
was nodding. It bobbed its thick large beak up and down, its brilliant black feathers 
glistening in the sunlight. The mailman pulled up on his small red motorcycle and the 
crow reluctantly spread its wings wide and flew off. As it flew away it squawked 
once. After the mailman had sorted all the mail into the mailboxes and left, a flock of 
sparrows twittered over. They bustled around the entrance but found nothing 
worthwhile and flew away. Next it was a striped cat’s turn. He had on a flea collar 
and probably belonged to a neighbor. Ushikawa had never seen the cat before. The cat 
peed in the dried-up flower bed, sniffed the result, and—apparently displeased with 
what it found—twitched its whiskers, as if it were bored. Tail up, it disappeared 
behind the building. 
In the morning several residents exited the building. From the way they were 
dressed, it looked like they were going out for a relaxed day, or going shopping in the 
neighborhood—one or the other. Ushikawa knew almost all their faces by now, but he 
had not a speck of interest in their personalities or private lives. He never even tried to 
imagine them. 
Your own lives are surely very important to each one of you. Very precious to you. 
I get it. But to me they don’t matter one way or the other. To me, you’re just flimsy 
paper dolls walking across a stage. There’s only one thing I’m asking of all of you—
remain paper dolls and don’t interfere with my job here
. 
“Isn’t that right, Mrs. Pear?” He had given the woman currently passing this 
nickname, because she was pear shaped with a huge rear end. “You’re just a cutout 
paper doll. You’re not real. Do you realize that? Though you are a bit on the chunky 
side for a paper doll.” 
As he thought this, though, everything in the scene before him began to seem 
meaningless, to