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murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

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"I will."<br />

I beckoned to the waiter and ordered two more vodka and tonics.<br />

"Remember how, when you came over that Sunday, you kissed me?"<br />

Midori asked. "I've been thinking about it. It was nice. Really nice."<br />

"That's nice."<br />

""That's nice'," she mimicked. "The way you talk is so weird!"<br />

"It is?"<br />

"Anyway, I was thinking, that time. I was thinking how great it would<br />

be if that had been the first time in my life a boy had kissed me. If I<br />

could switch around the order of my life, I would absolutely,<br />

absolutely make that my first kiss. And then I would live the rest of<br />

my life thinking stuff like: Hey, I wonder whatever happened to that<br />

boy named Watanabe I gave my first kiss to on the laundry deck, now<br />

that he's 58? Wouldn't that be great?"<br />

"Yeah, really," I said, cracking a pistachio nut.<br />

"Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still<br />

haven't answered me."<br />

I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world.' I said after<br />

giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real<br />

world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me."<br />

Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was<br />

something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure."<br />

"People are strange when you're a stranger."<br />

"Peace," said Midori.<br />

Peace," I said.<br />

"You really ought to go to Uruguay with me," Midori said, still<br />

leaning on the bar. "Girlfriend, family, university - just dump 'em all."<br />

"Not a bad idea," I said, laughing.<br />

"Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and<br />

everybody and just go somewhere where you don't know a soul?<br />

Sometimes I feel like doing that. I really, really want to do it<br />

sometimes. Like, suppose you whisked me somewhere far, far away,<br />

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