Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

The narrator looks at birds outside his window and drinks tea. The Colonel brings him snow boots and a cap. After putting on other winter accessories, he heads out to read dreams. He walks to the Library in the snow. When he arrives early, the Librarian offers food, which he is not interested in, but he takes her up on a cup of coffee. He tells her about his shadow dying and how he has to leave the Town tomorrow because he can’t bear to sacrifice his shadow and the beasts for a peaceful mindless life in the Town.

While he does not want to leave her, he feels like his love will not be real if he loses his mind. He knows that helping his shadow escape but not going with him means that he will be exiled to the Woods. She cannot follow because she has no mind, and she remembers her mother having to go into the Woods for having a mind. He asks if she believes in what her mother taught her about the importance of the mind, and she says yes. This causes him to think she still has some traces of her mind in the memories of her mother.

He asks if the old dreams—the beast skulls—would have parts of her mind. She explains that mind-pieces from different residents of the Town are all mixed together in many beasts. They go to the stacks, where he plans to find all the remnants of her mind in the skulls. She encourages him to find her mind.

At 5:25, the narrator arrives at the library. Since he is early, he walks to a coffee shop and watches a golf game then plays a video game at an entertainment center. He next buys nail clippers at a hardware store and listens to music in the car. When the library closes, the librarian gets in the rented car. They talk about music, and she suggests an Italian restaurant about 15 minutes away.

As she chooses the wine, he looks at the plum trees outside the window. They order a huge amount of food, as both are feeling very hungry. She notes that his common responses in conversation are uncertain. They talk about books and exchange compliments. As they have their appetizers, he talks about his alternate consciousness—the unicorns, the town, and the loss of minds. He surprises himself by adding in information about the river, which the Professor did not mention like the other elements. He gives her the nail clippers he bought at the hardware store.

As they eat their entrees, she asks about the destruction of his apartment, and he tells her it was related to the unicorn business and part of information warfare. Then, they talk about how to cook a butter sauce. As they have dessert, the chef comes out, and they compliment him. While drinking coffee, she is impressed with him being able to keep up with her eating. He says he could still eat more, and she invites him to her place for frozen pizzas and wine.

As the pizza heats up in the oven, he puts on some music, and they talk about musical taste. She talks about her dead husband. He gets the unicorn skull from the car in fair autumn weather. She cannot believe the skull is not real, and they both tap it with the tongs. Then, they undress and have sex three times on her good sofa. They take a shower, cuddle, and he sings “Danny Boy” with Bing Crosby, and she plays the song again so he’ll sing again. She asks him to write to her when he leaves (he has not specified how he is leaving, only that he is leaving soon). He says he will if he can and wonders about the time.

The narrator and the Librarian sit on the floor and look up at the stacks of skulls. He seeks her mind in them but is unsure how to proceed. She suggests playing the accordion, and he plays some chords. As he thinks about different parts of the Town, the people of the Town, and how he does not want to leave the Town, he finds the melody “Danny Boy.”

After his longing for music, he now feels the whole Town as himself. She cries, and he kisses her on the eyelids. When the skulls start to glow, he feels his eyes healing, and he sees the pieces of her mind. He asks her to leave because it will take all night to find the pieces of her mind and his old dreams.

The skull in the librarian’s apartment starts to glow, and she wakes up the narrator to show him. The light is like a collection of stars above the skull. She is unnerved, but he picks up the skull and puts it in his lap. When he closes his eyes, he sees images by holding his hands above the skull, and the light warms his hands, which he puts on her cheeks. She can feel the light but does not understand it, and he cannot explain it.

At 4:16 a.m., he dials his own number, but no one picks up. He wonders about the Professor’s granddaughter, and while he is sure she will be ok without him, he is sad he will not see her again. The librarian asks if the skull is glowing in response to him, he thinks that is correct. When he looks at his clothes on the floor, he feels like they belong to a different person and tries to pay attention to the little details. She asks if she should clean, but he does not want her to. As he smokes and looks at their clothes some more, he asks how she became a librarian. She says she did not want to do anything else. She asks about his past.

He tells her he was born by the sea and would go beachcombing after typhoons and find very clean junk. He compares his life to the sea moving around and cleaning junk. She makes them some drinks, he compliments her legs, and she admits she likes his compliments. When the sun rises, the skull stops glowing, and they have sex on the sofa again. After she falls asleep, he goes into the kitchen and listens to the radio and cooks. When she wakes up, he asks if he can get dressed before her, and she agrees. After they get dressed, they eat.

He invites her to drink in the park with him, and then he plans to go for a drive after that alone. She says she will do laundry, clean, and think about sex as he goes for his drive. As she gets ready, he does the dishes, shaves with her dead husband’s things, and reads the morning paper. He gives her the skull as a gift, saying it will glow again, and embraces her. 

The light of the skulls fades as the sun rises and the narrator draws in the glow until the last moment. He has read as much of her mind as he can, and the warmth lingers after the glow goes out. He wonders about how to make the fragments coherent and give them to her. While he worked with the skulls, she slept in the reading room. When she sees him, she makes coffee. He is exhausted and wants to nap. He asks her to wake him at 2:30 p.m. She covers him in blankets, and he puts his warm hand on her cheek and says the warmth from her mind feels like spring.

When she wakes him at 2:30 p.m., he puts on his winter outerwear and tells her to guard the accordion. He sees the smoke of the Gatekeeper burning corpses of beasts and sneaks into the Gatehouse, where he steals the Gatekeeper’s keys. At the gate to the Shadow Grounds, none of the keys work until he warms them in his pocket. Once inside, he finds his shadow is too weak to climb the ladder out of his cellar, and the narrator says he will carry his shadow. As they leave the enclosure and lock the gate, the shadow says they have to go to the Southern Pool and dive in.

They walk south with the shadow on the narrator’s back while the Gatekeeper is still occupied with burning the corpses of beasts. The narrator leaves footprints in the snow and thinks of the Librarian. When they take a break, they talk about the shadow revealing information about the price of the Town’s utopia and the narrator learning there is everything and nothing in the Town. The shadow explains they will escape where the River does. The Southern Pool is only surrounded by fear—no one guards it. The shadow believes the River will take them past the Wall and into freedom. They talk about the real world and start moving again as snow falls.

The narrator and librarian buy beer. The day is a pleasant one for sitting in Hibiya Park. As they look at the sky, they talk about the narrator’s wife walking out on him one day and his limited perspective. She reminds him of his ex, and he compares his life to Kolya’s life in The Brothers Karamazov—a miserable future but a happy life. She heads out to do some shopping and tells him to call her. He says he will try to visit her at the library.

After she walks toward the subway, the narrator looks at another woman with her daughter in the park. He thinks more about The Brothers Karamazov, finishes the six-pack of beer, and smokes. There is about an hour left before his mind is cut off from the real world. He deposits his trash in a trashcan and decides to burn his credit cards in the can as well. Then, he buys many bags of popcorn and scatters most of it on the ground for the pigeons. As he sits on a park bench eating the last bag, the mother reminds the narrator of his classmate, and he thinks about meeting up with the classmate. He does not want to lose his life and feels a wave of moaning in his mind. When the moan in his mind stops, he wonders if he should have told the librarian about his brain operation and wonders what is fair.

After he buys more cigarettes, he calls his apartment again, and the Professor’s granddaughter answers. She says she came back to finish reading the Balzac after helping her grandfather. The Professor has gone to Finland, and she decided to live in the narrator’s apartment. Before he called, Big Boy and Junior, the gorilla guy and his little trainer (as she calls them) came by, and she shot the big guy. She plans to put the narrator in deep freeze after he loses consciousness. He tells her he will be at the Harumi Pier in a rented car. She asks if he will sleep with her if she can get him reanimated in the future, and he agrees to. She tells him she will always remember him, even if she cannot get him reanimated. After they hang up, he goes to a bathroom in the park.

At Harumi Pier, he parks by a deserted warehouse near the waterfront and plays Bob Dylan. He wants a beer but is out, so he smokes, enjoys the sun, and hopes he gave a few people happiness, like the Professor and his granddaughter. Even the taxi driver deserves happiness. Before he falls asleep, he thinks about books, food, the girl at the car rental place, and rain.

Snow falls as the narrator and his shadow reach the Southern Pool. They are in awe of the scene—it drives home the feeling of the End of the World. It is snowing so heavily that the narrator’s footprints will have disappeared by now. His shadow says they are as free as the birds, and the Pool must be the exit. He walks towards it and takes off his boots.

However, the narrator says he is not going with his shadow. The shadow blames the Librarian—since the narrator found her mind, he wants to live in the Woods with her. The narrator says it is because he realized he made the Town. The shadow says he already knew that he did. The narrator feels responsible for his world, and he wants to know why he made it, but the shadow says there is no reason to discover. The narrator is sure he will recover his memories and how to undo his world therein. The shadow says the narrator will not be able to figure it out without him and that he loved the narrator. The narrator says he will not forget the shadow, and the shadow jumps in the Pool. As the narrator walks back toward his Librarian and his accordion, he sees a bird fly over the Wall and can only hear the snow.