Chance Traveller - Haruki Murakami

A strange connection that arrives by chance at some moment in life, and the series of events it sets in motion. We call it coincidence, or perhaps a miracle.

No. It is a heartfelt longing. Even if it has lain so long that we have forgotten it ever existed, it is the manifestation of a desire that still pulses, holding its breath. It is also a wind that blows now and then. And the one who suddenly notices the wind slipping between my fingers is none other than myself, and the one who calls that wind a small flutter of wings is also myself. Of course, no one knows where the wind will lead me. But to summon the courage to grasp the wind and take a single step toward an unknowable future is not a matter of chance but the part that falls to a human being.

Yet in most cases, such an attempt is unlikely to go well. We merely waver back and forth, not even knowing what it is we want. Meanwhile, the wind passes by before we even realize it came. Even the small attempt we courageously began gets trampled by a little hardship, or, before we know it, turns into a monster born of lingering regret and obsession. Repeated mistakes and failures remain as wounds, knotted up with no way to unravel them.

Fortunately, Murakami offers a small consolation. The misfortune in this story was originally a parting born of a trivial misunderstanding and an unavoidable fate. And led by a chance occurrence and unexpected courage, the parted lovers meet again. As though it were only natural for things to be that way. As though it were one of those small things that could happen to anyone.

And yet we know. A novel is only a novel, a happy ending that can never be realized in the cruel reality we face. But watching their quiet joy, we, too, find ourselves wishing without knowing it that someday such a chance happening might come and soothe our own wounds.

Still, whether we have the courage to seize a small wind, and even if we do, whether—no matter how fully we exercise our finest virtues—we will meet anything but a Macbethian ending, remains uncertain.

Chance Traveller, Tokyo Strange Tales Collection, Haruki Murakami, translated by Lim Hong-bin, 2006, Munhaksasang