all too familiar;

"Tell me something, Toru," she said. "Do you love me?"

"You know I do," I answered.

"Will you do me two favors?"

"You may have up to three wishes, madame."

Naoko smiled and shook her head. "No, two will be enough. One is for you to realize how grateful I am that you came to see me here. I hope you'll understand how happy you've made me. I know it's going to save me if anything will. I may not show it, but it's true."

"I'll come to see you again," I said. "And what is the other wish?"

"I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?"

"Always," I said. "I'll always remember."

*

"Do you really promise never to forget me?" she asked in a near whisper.

"I'll never forget you," I said. "I could never forget you."

*

Once, long ago, when I was still young, when the memories were far more vivid than they are now, I often tried to write about Naoko. But I was never able to produce a line. I knew that if that first line would come, the rest would pour itself onto the page, but I could never make it happy. Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start - the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless. Now, thought, I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts.

The more the memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her. I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her. Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget her, to remember that she had existed.

The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.

- Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

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x can't believe I took forever to get started on his books.. 

x ... so familiar, so familiar.. 

x L