Author: murakami, haruki (Keywords)

K, a primary school teacher, is in love with Sumire. But Sumire is in love with an older woman - Miu. Frustrated, K has an affair with the mother of one of his pupils. Then Miu asks him to meet her as something very strange has happened to Sumire.

Okada is apparently a happy man - his domestic life seems familiar and comfortable, but admittedly he has just quit his job, the cat has disappeared and a strange woman is bothering him with explicit phone calls.

Toru Watanabe is looking back on the love and passions of his life and trying to make sense of it all. As his first love, Naoko, sinks deeper and deeper into mental despair, he is inexorably pushed to find new meanings and new love to survive.

Included in this collection of stories is one in which a mirror appears out of nowhere and a night-watchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him, and another in which a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining on exquisite crab while on holiday.

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. They realise they've been acquainted through Erl, Marl's beautiful sister.

Okada is apparently a happy man - his domestic life seems familiar and comfortable, but admittedly he has just quit his job, the cat has disappeared and a strange woman is bothering him with explicit phone calls.