it's no big deal. Not to brag or anything, but finding another job won't be hard-I'm a great driver and a good worker. So I'm not worried about that, and neither should you be. What I'm trying to say is that I don't have any regrets about being with you. These past ten days there's been a lot of bizarre stuff going on. Leeches falling from the sky, Colonel Sanders popping up out of thin air, hot sex with this drop-dead-gorgeous philosophy major, swiping the entrance stone from that shrine… A lifetime of weird stuff packed into ten days. Like we've been doing test runs on a roller coaster or something.'
Hoshino stopped here, thinking how to go on. 'But you know what, Gramps?'
'Yes?'
'The most amazing thing of all has been you, Mr. Nakata. You changed my life. These past ten days, I don't know-things look different to me now. Stuff I never would've given a second glance before seems different. Like music, for instance-music I used to think was boring really gets to me now. I feel like I've gotta tell somebody about this or bust, somebody who'll understand what I've gone through. Nothing like this ever happened to me before. And it's all because of you. I've started to see the world through your eyes. Not everything, mind you. I like how you look at life, so that's why it happened. That's why I've stayed with you through thick and thin, why I couldn't leave you. It's been one of the most meaningful times I've ever had in my life. So there's no need for you to be thanking me-not that I mind it. I should be thanking you. All I'm trying to say is you've done me a lot of good, Mr. Nakata. Do you know what I'm saying?'
But Nakata wasn't listening anymore. His eyes were shut, his breathing regular as he slept.
'What a happy-go-lucky guy,' Hoshino said, and sighed.
Hoshino carried the old man in his arms up to the apartment and put him to bed. He took off Nakata's shoes but left his clothes on, and covered him with a light comforter. Nakata squirmed a bit, then settled down as usual, on his back facing the ceiling. His breathing was quiet and he was still.
Bet we're in for another three-day sleep marathon, Hoshino thought to himself.
But that's not how things turned out. Before noon the next day, Wednesday, Mr. Nakata was dead. He died peacefully in his sleep. His face was as calm as always, and he looked like he was just sleeping-only not breathing. Hoshino shook the old man's shoulders and called out his name, but there was no mistaking it-he was dead. Hoshino checked his pulse-nothing-and even put a hand mirror near his mouth, but it didn't cloud up. He'd stopped breathing completely. In this world, at least, he was never going to wake up again.
Alone in the room with the corpse, Hoshino noticed how, very gradually, all sounds disappeared. How the real sounds around him steadily lost their reality. Meaningful sounds all ended up as silence. And the silence grew, deeper and deeper, like silt on the bottom of the sea. It accumulated at his feet, reached up to his waist, then up to his chest. He watched as the layers of silence rose up higher and higher. He sat down on the sofa and gazed at Nakata's face, trying to accept the fact that he was really gone. It took him a long time to accept it. As he sat there the air began to feel strangely heavy and he could no longer tell if his thoughts and feelings were really his. But there were a few things he started to understand.
Maybe death would take Nakata back to the way he used to be. When he was alive, he was always good old Nakata, a not-so-bright, cat-talking old man. Maybe death was the only road back to being the 'normal Nakata' he'd always talked about.
'Hey, Gramps,' Hoshino said. 'Maybe I shouldn't say this, but if you gotta die, this isn't such a bad way to go.'
Nakata had passed away calmly in his sleep, most likely not thinking of anything. His face was peaceful, with no signs of suffering, regret, or confusion. Very Nakata-like, Hoshino concluded. But what his life had really meant, Hoshino had no idea. Not that anybody's life had more clear-cut meaning to it. What's really important for people, what really has dignity, is how they die. Compared to that, he thought, how you lived doesn't amount to much. Still, how you live determines how you die. These thoughts ran through his head as he stared at the face of the dead old man.
But one critical thing remained. Someone had to close up the entrance stone. Nakata had finished everything he'd set out to do except that. The stone was right there, at Hoshino's feet, and he knew that when the time came he had to roll it over and shut up the entrance. But Nakata had warned him that if you mishandled it, the stone could be very dangerous. There had to be a right way of turning the stone over-but also a wrong way. If you just powered it over, that could screw up the entire world.
'I can't do anything about your having died, Gramps, but you've left me in a real bind here,' Hoshino said, addressing the corpse, which of course didn't respond.
There was also the question of what to do with the body. The normal response would be to ring up the police or the hospital and have them take it. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world would have done exactly that, and Hoshino wanted to. But the police were hunting for Nakata in connection with that murder case, and getting in touch with the authorities at this point would definitely put Hoshino in a precarious position. The police would haul him off and grill him for hours. Explaining everything that had happened was the last thing he wanted to do, plus there was the fact that he was no fan of law enforcement. If he could avoid having anything to do with cops, so much the better.
And how the hell do I explain this apartment? he wondered.
An old man dressed up like Colonel Sanders lent us the place. Said he'd prepared it specially for us and that we could use it as long as we liked. Would the police really buy that? Colonel Sanders? Is he with the U.S. army? No, you know-the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. You must've seen their billboards, right, detective? Yeah, that's the guy-glasses, white goatee… He was a pimp working the back alleys of Takamatsu. He got a girl for me. Explain stuff like that and the cops would call him an idiot and give him a swift punch to the head. Cops, Hoshino concluded, not for the first time in his life, are just gangsters who get paid by the state.
He let out a deep sigh.
What I've got to do, he thought, is get out of here right now, as far away as I can. I can make an anonymous call to the cops from a pay phone at the station. Give them the address here, say that somebody's died. Then hop a train back to Nagoya. They'll never connect me to the case. The old man died a natural death, so the cops won't launch some investigation. They'll hand over the body to his relatives and there'll be a simple funeral, end of story. Then I'll go to my company, bow and scrape in front of the president: It'll never happen again, I swear. I'll work hard from now on. Whatever it takes to get my old job back.
He started packing, cramming a change of clothes in his bag. He put on his Chunichi Dragons cap, pulling his ponytail through the opening in back, and his dark green sunglasses. Thirsty, he got a Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator. As he leaned back against the fridge and drank, he noticed the round stone next to the sofa. He went into the bedroom and looked at Nakata's corpse one more time. He still didn't look like he was dead. He looked like he was quietly breathing, and Hoshino half expected him to suddenly sit up and say, Mr. Hoshino, it's all a mistake. Nakata's not really dead! But he didn't. Nakata was most definitely deceased. There weren't going to be any miracles. The old man had already crossed the great divide.
Pepsi in hand, Hoshino stood there, shaking his head. I can't just go off and leave the stone behind, he thought. If I did, Mr. Nakata won't be able to truly rest in peace. He was such a conscientious type, always making sure things were done just right. And he would've finished this final task, if his batteries hadn't run out. Hoshino crushed the empty aluminum can and tossed it in the trash. Still thirsty, he went back into the kitchen and popped open another Pepsi.
Mr. Nakata told me how he wanted, if only one time, to be able to read, Hoshino remembered. He said he wanted to go to a library and be able to choose any book and read it. But he died before he could make that dream come true. Maybe now that he's dead he's gone on to another world, where he's become a normal Nakata, and can read. As long as he was in this world, though, he never could. In fact, his final act on earth was quite the opposite-burning up writing. Sending all those words on the pages off into the void. Kind of ironic, when you think about it. That being the case, though, Hoshino thought, I need to fulfill his final wish. I've got to close the entrance. I wasn't able to take him to the movies, or the aquarium-so it's the least I can do for him, now that he's gone.
He drained his second can of Pepsi, went over to the sofa, crouched down, and tried lifting the stone. It wasn't so heavy. Not exactly light, either, but it didn't take all that much to lift it up. About as heavy as when he and Colonel Sanders had stolen it from the shrine. About as heavy as the kind of stones used to weigh down pickles as they ferment. That means right now it's just a stone, Hoshino thought. When the stone's acting as an entrance, it's so heavy you have to kill yourself to pick it up. But when it's light like this, it's just an ordinary stone. Something
