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  • 7-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami

7-NOV-2024 | Excerpt from “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami

Author

Dan Bogachek
November 07, 2024

Excerpt from “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami

The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was so slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn’t moving at all. But let’s just assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I’d gone up twelve stories, then down three. Maybe I’d circled the globe. How would I know?

Every last thing about this elevator was worlds apart from the cheap die-cut job in my apartment building, scarcely one notch up the evolutionary scale from a well bucket. You’d never believe the two pieces of machinery had the same name and the same purpose. The two were pushing the outer limits conceivable as elevators. 🏁

We’re in the narrator’s head. The train of thought feels organic in part because it stays fixated on this elevator — just like how we’re prone to do ourselves.

And even in a novel, take note of that 2nd person “you.” That one detail tints the previous paragraph with the suggestion that he’s talking to someone specific. Or that he intends this to be read. A bit meta.

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and crack open the laptop.

Or… it could go like this:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 10:27 — polished draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

You had Copygloss handle it yesterday afternoon.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].