murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

etter. As you say, this is probably what we should do: get to know
each other better.
Goodbye.
I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I would be filled
with that same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko
herself stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I
could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body,
it had neither shape nor weight nor could I wrap myself in it. Objects
in the scene would drift past me, but the words they spoke never
reached my ears.
I continued to spend my Saturday nights sitting in the hall. There was
no hope of a phone call, but I didn't know what else to do with the
time. I would switch on a baseball game and pretend to watch it as I
cut the empty space between me and the television set in two, then cut
each half in two again, over and over, until I had fashioned a space
small enough to hold in my hand.
I would switch the set off at ten, go back to my room, and go to sleep.
At the end of the month, Storm Trooper gave me a firefly. It was in an
instant coffee jar with air holes in the lid and containing some blades
of grass and a little water. In the bright room the firefly looked like
some kind of ordinary black insect you'd find by a pond somewhere,
but Storm Trooper insisted it was the real thing. "I know a firefly
when I see one," he said, and I had no reason or basis to disbelieve
him.
"Fine," I said. "It's a firefly." It had a sleepy look on its face, but it
kept trying to climb up the slippery glass walls of the jar and falling
back.
"I found it in the quad," he said.
"Here? By the dorm?"
"Yeah. You know the hotel down the street? They release fireflies in
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