After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

it was there
. She could feel its presence. No doubt it would soon appear before 
her. 
Ever since she had gone into hiding, she had been able to intentionally shut 
thoughts out of her mind. Especially when she was on the balcony like this, gazing at 
the playground, she could make her mind a complete blank. She kept her eyes focused 
on the playground, especially on the slide, but she wasn’t thinking of anything—no, 
her mind might have been thinking of something, but this was mostly below the 
surface. What her mind was doing below the surface, she had no idea. At regular 
intervals something would float up, like sea turtles and porpoises poking their faces 
through the surface of the water to breathe. When that happened, she knew that 
indeed she 
had been thinking of something
up till then. Then her consciousness, lungs 
full of fresh oxygen, sank back below the surface. It was gone again, and Aomame no 
longer thought of anything. She was a surveillance device, wrapped in a soft cocoon, 
her gaze absorbed in the slide. 
She was seeing the park, but at the same time she was seeing nothing. If anything 
new came across her line of vision, her mind would react immediately. But right now 
nothing new was happening. There was no wind. The dark branches of the zelkova 
tree stuck out, unmoving, like sharp probes pointed toward the sky. The whole world 
was still. She looked at her watch. It was after eight. Today might end as always, with 
nothing out of the ordinary. A Sunday night, as quiet as could be. 
The world stopped being still at exactly 8:23. 

---

711
She suddenly noticed a man on top of the slide. He sat down and looked up at one part 
of the sky. Aomame’s heart shrunk to the size of a child’s fist, and stayed that size so 
long she was afraid it would never start pumping again. But it just as quickly swelled 
up to normal size and started beating again. With a dull sound it began furiously 
pumping fresh blood throughout her body. Aomame’s mind quickly broke through to 
the surface of the water, shook itself, and stood by, ready to take action. 
It’s Tengo
, she thought instinctively. 
But once her vision cleared, she knew it wasn’t him. The man sitting there was 
short, like a child, with a large square head, wearing a knit hat. The knit hat was 
stretched out oddly because of the shape of his head. He had a green muffler wrapped 
around his neck and wore a navy-blue coat. The muffler was too long, and the buttons 
on his coat were straining around his stomach, ready to pop. Aomame knew this was 
the 
child
she had seen last night coming out of the park. But this was no child. He was 
more near middle age. He was short and stocky, with short limbs. And his head was 
abnormally large, and misshapen. 
Aomame remembered what Tamaru had said about the man with a head as large as 
a Fukusuke good-luck doll, the one they had nicknamed Bobblehead. The person who 
had been loitering around outside the Azabu Willow House, checking out the safe 
house. This man on top of the slide perfectly fit the description Tamaru had given her 
last night. That weird man hadn’t given up on his investigation, and now he had crept 
up on her. 
I have to get the pistol. Why of all nights did I leave it back in the 
bedroom?
Aomame took a deep breath, let the chaos of her heart settle and her nerves 
calm down. 
I mustn’t panic. There’s no need for the pistol at this point
. 
The man wasn’t, after all, watching her building. Seated at the top of the slide, he 
was staring at the sky like Tengo had done, at the very same spot. And he seemed lost 
in thought. He didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, like he had forgotten how to 
move. He didn’t pay any attention to the direction of her room. This confused 
Aomame.