Im Rah­men ihrer phan­tas­ti­schen Fach­ar­beit (PDF) über den Roman After­d­ark des japa­ni­schen Autors Haru­ki Mura­ka­mi (Ama­zon) hat mei­ne LK-Schü­le­rin Eli­sa­beth Weber eine eige­ne Geschich­te im Stil Mura­ka­mis geschrieben. 

Ein­lei­tend schreibt sie:

After my ana­ly­sis of After­d­ark, I deci­ded to wri­te a sto­ry mys­elf, that embraces Murakami’s cine­ma­tic approach. I also tried to take up com­mon Mura­ka­mi the­mes” such as ali­en­ati­on, search for iden­ti­ty and gro­wing up. It goes wit­hout say­ing that unrea­li­stic ele­ments are included, as well as Murakami’s affi­ni­ty to cats, music and refe­ren­ces to Wes­tern cul­tu­re. Befo­re I star­ted wri­ting, I read his “ins­truc­tions”:

Whe­ther in music or in fic­tion, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natu­ral, ste­ady rhythm, or peo­p­le won’t keep rea­ding your work. I lear­ned the importance of rhythm from music — and main­ly from jazz. Next comes melo­dy — which, in lite­ra­tu­re, means the appro­pria­te arran­ge­ment of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beau­tiful, you can’t ask for any­thing more. Next is harm­o­ny — the inter­nal men­tal sounds that sup­port the words. Then comes the part I like best: free impro­vi­sa­ti­on. Through some spe­cial chan­nel, the sto­ry comes wel­ling out free­ly from inside.

Enter Cat

Red. Cars are slo­wing down, sque­al­ing tires, hon­king. The noi­se aba­tes. A wall of machi­nes and metal. Hip-hop at high volu­me. Green. The noi­se is rising and the wall beg­ins to disper­se, slow­ly, then fas­ter, until we can see the other side of the street, inter­rupt­ed by traf­fic. A girl of 15, may­be 16, is sit­ting at a bus stop. She’s wea­ring Jeans, a green shirt and a black coat. We can’t make out details, so we zoom in clo­ser and con­cen­tra­te our visi­on on her face only. To our sur­pri­se, there’s a scar on her left cheek, but we find that she still looks pret­ty. Then the bus approa­ches and she stands up. The doors slide open and peo­p­le, young and old, rich and poor, are oozing out of the bus, going about their busi­nesses. A woman kis­ses her hus­band on the cheek befo­re they part. New peo­p­le of all kinds sur­ge into the bus. Someone is try­ing to dodge the ticket, but the bus dri­ver, under con­stant yel­ling, makes him pay. Final­ly, the bus dri­ves on. Sur­pri­sin­gly, the girl is still stan­ding at the same spot, loo­king some­what irre­so­lu­te. As she walks on hesi­tant­ly, we deci­de to fol­low her.

After a while we rea­li­ze that she is wal­king to the beach. Slow­ly, she des­cends the stairs that lead to the water. The rows of fold­ed para­sols cast an army of shades that grows dar­ker by the minu­te. Few peo­p­le strol­ling around. A life guard is on duty; next to the Ren­tal & Shop sits its owner.

“Hi Tami!” The man waves at her.

“Hi Jacob. Can I have your equip­ment for an hour, or may­be one and a half? Please.”

“What’s up with you? You know the beach is clo­sing in 45 minu­tes. And ever­y­bo­dy is alre­a­dy off to the fes­ti­val down­town any­ways. You should enjoy the party.”

“You’re not the­re, either.”

“That’s not the point. What I actual­ly mean to say is, I can’t give it to you. In case some­thing hap­pens, the­re won’t be any qua­li­fied per­son to help you.”

He glan­ces at the col­lege life guard who is immer­sed into a fashion magazine.

“I know you’ve done that a zil­li­on times and I know I can trust you, but still…it’s my responsibility.”

“Jake…I thought we were fri­ends. Remem­ber when we went to the Mac Donald’s and your ex-girlf–”

“I know, I owe you a favor. A big favor. But still…Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. Abso­lut­e­ly 100 % sure. Trust me.”

“I guess I have to then. Here’s the keys”

“Thanks Jake, you’re the best.”

“Oh shut up!”

After Tami has dis­ap­peared into the store, we turn to look at the red sea. Seagulls call out into the wide. Con­cen­t­ra­ting our spi­rits, we free our minds, lea­ve gra­vi­ty behind and take to the ski­es. Our point of view is that of a wide ang­le came­ra tra­ve­ling through the air. Soft winds wave around, abo­ve, and through us. We draw in cir­cles with the seagulls and gra­du­al­ly move away from the coast. The flas­hing spot­light of a light­house in the distance. The oce­an below us. The land behind us.

After a while, we hurt­le back in one giant cir­cu­lar move­ment towards the beach, whe­re we can see a slen­der sil­hou­et­te against the light, gent­ly gli­ding into the water. Whoe­ver it is, wears a giant back­pack of some sort, and eager to find out more, we zoom in fur­ther, but the per­son has alre­a­dy dis­ap­peared into the water. In a ter­ri­fy­ing run, we aim for the sea until we land on the sur­face with a smack, and, ins­tead of dwel­ling on the­re, sink deeper and deeper. Fish, yel­low, white and red. Sea­weed and gar­ba­ge. Darkness.

Sud­den­ly, a diver is approa­ching. We move back­wards, con­stant­ly wat­ching her. Again, we deci­de to keep track on Tami, who is diving deeper, fast. The ground grows slimier, but she seems to be very used to the sinis­ter sur­roun­dings. After a while, we make out a green glow in the distance. Tami beg­ins to swim hasti­ly towards it, as if pul­led by a strong magne­tic force. Our high-resol­ving came­ra eye makes out two distinct points of light now and after some fur­ther advan­ce, we can tell that they belong to a giant cat’s face. Hor­ri­fied, we wit­ness as Tami takes off her oxy­gen mask and kis­ses the black beast on the snout. Wit­hout war­ning, it opens up its tre­men­dous mouth and, tog­e­ther with Tami, we are being sucked inside.

Our visi­on is blur­red and the jer­ky pic­tu­re trans­mit­ted to our eyes does not­hing but con­ti­nue being jer­ky. After a see­mingly end­less time – like wat­ching a film in slow moti­on – it gets ste­ady again. From a fixed – and hop­eful­ly safer – came­ra ang­le, we see Tami kne­e­ling befo­re an old man. Her head is res­t­ing on his lap. A clo­se-up of his face reve­als that he is inde­ed very old, 85 at least. We can’t see Tami’s face, but our litt­le micro­pho­ne is recor­ding quiet sobs. We move clo­ser until we are able to cir­cle around her face so that we can take in every detail of her skin, every sin­gle tiny pore. Tears on her face.

“When are you coming back?” She is wee­ping hea­vi­ly, her body rocking back and forth.

“I want you to come back now!” We note anger in her voice. She sud­den­ly stops crying and looks at the old man

“Grand­pa, you pro­mi­sed to come back! You can’t just dis­ap­pear and lea­ve me!”

The old man shows no indi­ca­ti­on that he has eit­her unders­tood or even heard what his grand­child was saying.

“This is so unfair. I’ve been wai­ting for you every day sin­ce the day you left six weeks ago.”

No reac­tion. Sob­bing. She sta­res at him with a weird glan­ce. He looks like a sce­ne in a movie that has been acci­den­tal­ly pau­sed. 24 pic­tures per second that look exact­ly the same. The­re is not even the sligh­test twitch of his eyes. Ten minu­tes pass like this. Then Tami gets up and the giant mouth opens.

“I miss you. I’ll be back. Good-Bye.”

She swims away wit­hout loo­king back, until we can’t distin­gu­ish her from the water any­mo­re. Slow­ly, the mouth is clo­sing. It beco­mes dar­ker until our came­ra records not­hing but pitch-black.

At the bus stop. Tami is sit­ting on the same seat as the day befo­re. Jeans, red shirt, black coat, blue umbrel­la. Rain­drops gent­ly tap­ping on win­dows, cars, foot­s­teps. The bus arri­ves. Doors slide open and even more peo­p­le than yes­ter­day pour out. Tami wat­ches careful­ly, but does not move. After a while, the bus lea­ves and Tami is sta­ring into not­hing­ness. She walks on slow­ly, but then turns around and goes back to the bus stop on the other side of the street. Ten minu­tes later she is on the bus, lea­ving the city behind. Through the win­dows we obser­ve our sur­roun­dings. Cars, peo­p­le, trees, dogs, streets, birds, trees, more trees, a hor­se, a few hou­ses, the ent­rance to the forest. The bus comes to a halt. This is the last stop. Tami, a woman and we are the only ones left. Tami’s shoes touch the ground. They rest for a split second, are being lifted up and set down again. She is wal­king towards the forest.

Our view­point rises until Tami is just a tiny black dot on a field of green. We hang in the air abo­ve the forest. A shot. A bar­king dog. Silence. Our came­ra noti­ces a second black dot which is coming from the forest, hur­ry­ing towards Tami. Worried, we zoom in hasti­ly and reco­gni­ze the black cat from last night. Should we be reli­e­ved? Should we be scared? We don’t know, and wha­te­ver the case may be, we can’t help Tami any­ways. We are just a tool coll­ec­ting data. We can’t intervene.

Nevert­hel­ess, we still fol­low her as she walks into the forest. We get deeper and deeper, and the sun­light that shi­nes through the trees covert­ly beco­mes less. After a while it is hard to make out the blue of the sky until it’s impos­si­ble. To avo­id stumb­ling, Tami rides on the cat and we fol­low sound­less­ly, dit­ching bran­ches that cross our aeri­al paths.

“Ouch!” At first we don’t rea­li­ze that it is Tami who hit her fore­head with a branch. We have to look up to her. We gain on her and sta­re into two giant green eyes from below. Tami is alre­a­dy on her feet again. She kis­ses the gigan­tic crea­tu­re and is sucked insi­de in a swirl. This time we deci­de not to fol­low her. Ins­tead we use the time to obser­ve in the natu­re around us. Birds sin­ging, wild flowers in all varia­ti­ons, knot­ty roots, soft moss. Slow­ly, we move upwards, fly over the forest to the way that leads into it and wait.

A girl is hop­ping out, car­ry­ing some­thing in her arms. We know it is Tami with the cat, befo­re we even reco­gni­ze them. We move back­wards, but she comes clo­ser fast, until the upper half of her body fills in the screen. The black cat, which has to our reli­ef shrun­ken to a nor­mal size, is pur­ring intri­guin­gly. They pass us and walk back to the bus stop. The next bus takes them to the city. We remain whe­re we are and watch them disappear.

As the the sun goes down, all is red again.