Kafka on the Shore (Fanfiction)

Kafka on the Shore (Missing Chapter)

A young man of about seventeen - perhaps just out of school - dined alone at a booth of a small restaurant in the corner of the Takamatsu train station. It appeared that he was having one of those set dinners - inclusive of a bowl of miso, a cup of salad, a bowl of rice and some fish. It was rather peculiar of him to feast on salmon, as the restaurant was well known for its eel specialty. 

Kafka looked downwards at his plate, then looked upwards again. Something shifted within his eyes, glazing them over. He was no longer Kafka. He was The Boy Named Crow.

The Boy Named Crow signalled for a waiter. He paid his bill in cash, then arose from the booth. He stood at a good, solid height. It was clear that he was of muscular build as his muscles appeared to be well defined through his dark T-shirt. He wore a pair of camouflage shorts, and carried a dark brown backpack. On his feet were a pair of white Nikes.

Crow strode with confidence towards a ticket dispenser. He pressed a couple of buttons, deposited a handful of coins and removed the ticket from the dispenser. He boarded the east-bound train to Tokyo and alighted at the Nogota station of Nakano ward.

Crow left the station, crossing the main roads and countless other streets. He walked familiarly along the beaten path, slipping into an alleyway every so often. He emerged from a side lane and walked towards an isolated old house.

On closer inspection, the old house was revealed to be a studio, disguised as a house for the purpose of concealment. The wooden board hoisted above two open doors read, ‘Welcome to Koichi Tamura’s sculpting studio’. Crow walked through the corridors, towards the study of the old house, as if he’d known what he had to do all along.

Upon reaching the study, Crow stopped. Laying right before his eyes was a body covered in a pool of blood. Crow knelt to the floor to have a closer look at the body, appearing to recognise it almost instantly. The body was of a middle-aged man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the symbol familiar to whisky drinkers all over the world - Johnnie Walker, who wore a strange hat and held a walking stick in his right hand. A steak knife protruded from the back of this strange figure. The large, ferocious-looking black dog which was licking its owner’s wounds -  slinked away from Crow when the boy removed the steak knife from the corpse in one swift motion. Blood slowly seeped into his clothes while the boy remained unaware.

The Boy Named Crow glanced at the table. The heads of three slaughtered cats on a single metal tray stared back at him. Despite the brutality each and every one of the cats went through, the expressions on their faces neglected to explain the horror of their stories. They’d suffered such agony, yet their faces were strangely vacant.

In close proximity to Johnnie Walker and the cat heads was an older man who appeared to have passed out from the ordeal. Two cats stood on his belly, softly mewling to him over and over again. One of the cats was a siamese, and the other was a tortoiseshell. The old man’s face expressed an almost indescribable sense of implausibly guiltless peace, despite the ravage the study appeared to have endured. Nakata’s clothes were soaked with blood, yet his unconscious figure expressed a sense of pure, taintless innocence, despite overwhelming evidence that pointed to his responsibility of Johnnie Walker’s death.

The Boy Named Crow appeared to be unfazed despite having seen the insanity of the study firsthand. His face held a stoic, calm expression, as if he’d be expecting something like this to happen all along. His eyes remained glazed over as he casually slung the body over his shoulder. Crow made his way through the studio as if he knew it by heart, making no wrong turns even when the chance presented itself. He stood at the steel laboratory refrigerator and opened the door on the right. Not the left, because he knew that it only contained cat heads, which was useless to his plan. 

Crow lowered the body of Johnnie Walker to the floor before slowly lifting him up. Crow shoved Johnnie Walker through the vast open vacuum that was contained in the refrigerator. Through the expanse of space and time, the costume donned by the man who was Johnnie Walker was stripped off his body while simultaneously replaced with the regular clothes of famous sculptor Koichi Tamura. The blood, however, stayed in place as if frozen in time, resuming its bleeding only when the body tumbled into the study of Kafka’s home.

Satisfied, The Boy Named Crow slammed the door of the refrigerator shut. He made his way back to the study with ease. Crow’s eyes scanned the room, appearing to make a final acknowledgement of the events that unfolded in the room. Though there was one strange thing that occurred when he was gone - the cat heads had disappeared from their places on the metal tray. Crow walked over to Nakata. The cats which stood on his belly apparently had their paws and feet glued to the old man.

Crow knelt to the floor and carried the old man with the cats in his two arms to the refrigerator. Blood continued to seep into his clothes, now setting in a permanent stain that he would later find near impossible to clean. Crow opened the door on the right of the refrigerator once again. He propped the old man up on his own two feet, while stepping into the door of the refrigerator himself at the same time. Crow wrapped his arms onto the waist of the old man, pulling him and the two cats into the vacuum together. 

The sensation of floating through the expanse of time and space seemed inexpressible. It was as if all the air had been removed from his body and his heart stopped beating. Every living processed slowed down to a grinding halt in an almost peaceful, natural manner. One simply didn’t age in a stasis, a limbo like this vacuum. Nothing would happen unless ordained by above or decided upon beforehand. 

Crow had searched through Nakata’s memories and had determined for the vacuum to send the two cats, Nakata and himself to some vacant lot - the last place Nakata had been before he was led to Koichi Tamura’s sculpting studio. The blood in Nakata’s clothing appeared to be absorbed by the vacuum as his unconscious figure floated through time and space. Though there was a price to pay - as the vacuum was unwilling to punish Nakata for his life on Earth, it removed away his ability to communicate with cats.

Eventually, Nakata and the cats emerged through a portal at the end of the vacuum. Nakata and the cats fell onto the ground with a soft thud. Neither the cats nor Nakata were harmed in the process. Nakata slept facedown in the midst of weeds, his clothes free from blood. The siamese and the tortoiseshell were no longer glued to his body, now free to roam around in the weeds. The cats continue their mewling, but Nakata would no longer understand what they were attempting to say.

Crow, on the other hand, was not expelled from the portal. The gods had looked down on him, studied his actions and cast their judgment. The vacuum started to malfunction, tossing Crow around and jerking him from side to side. He hit the wall of the vacuum multiple times, hurting his head and bruising his left shoulder. Crow lost his consciousness and was subsequently expelled from the vacuum, landing head-first at some shrine in Takamatsu. This particular shrine held the long yearned and searched-for entrance stone, but Kafka did not know that. Yet. 

When the boy came to, he was no longer Crow. He was Kafka. He was vaguely aware of the prickly brambles from the vacant lot, the faint whiff of dog crap from the large black dog which remained in his father’s studio, and the moon-less, star-less yet strangely bright ceiling of the vacuum. Then the illusion splits, and Kafka regains his full consciousness.