_OceanofPDF.com_Dance_Dance_Dance_-_Haruki_Murakami

glass. “No, it’s not that. Magazines don’t have anything to do with it.
If something gets printed, what do I care? The management might get
all bent out of shape, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s the
whole place. The whole hotel, well, I mean, there’s always something
a little weird about it. Something funny … something … warped.”
She stopped and was silent. I’d finished my whiskey, so I ordered
another round for the both of us.
“What do you mean by ‘warped’?” I tried prompting her. “Do you
mean anything specific?”
“Of course I do,” she said sharply. “Things have happened, but it’s
hard to find the words to describe it. So I never told anyone. I mean,
it was really real, what I felt, but if I try to explain it in words, then it
sort of starts to slip away.”
“So it’s like a dream that’s very real?”
“But this wasn’t a dream. You know dreams sort of fade after a
while? Not this thing. No way. It’s always stayed the same. It’s always
real, right there, before my eyes.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Okay, this is what happened,” she said, taking a drink of her
Bloody Mary and dabbing her lips with the napkin. “It was in
January. The beginning of January, right after New Year’s. I was
working the late shift, which I don’t generally like, but on that day it
was my turn. Anyway, I didn’t get through until around midnight.
When it’s late like that, they send you home in a taxi because the
trains aren’t running. So after I changed clothes, I realized that I’d left
my book in the staff lounge. I guess I could have waited until the next
day, but the girl I was going to share the taxi with was still finishing
up, so I decided to go get it. I got in the employee elevator and
punched the button for the sixteenth floor, which is where the staff
lounge and other staff facilities are—we take our coffee break there
and go up there a lot.
“Anyway I was in the elevator and the door opened and I stepped
out like always. I didn’t think anything of it, I mean, who would? It’s
something that you do all the time, right? I stepped out like it was the
most natural thing in the world. I guess I was thinking about
something, I don’t remember what. I think I had both hands in my
pockets and I was standing there in the hallway, when I noticed that
everything around me was dark. I mean, like absolutely pitch black. I