Julie, meet me by the coffee machine...

Martin had always struggled with Murakami; something about the whole magical element that he found difficult to connect with. True, he had enjoyed ‘South Of The Border, West Of The Sun’ when he had read it two years ago, but the thought of reading anything more by someone who so openly paid homage to The Beatles was more than he could really cope with. Still, Julie had insisted that ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ would appeal, and she was usually right about those kinds of things. He remembered the conversation about it, just ten days before. They sat outside a café, which had a yellowing Herman’s Hermits album cover in the window, and a Go-Go’s one over the counter. They both drank strong black coffee, no sugar. She had smoked too many cigarettes, and they had looked at each other through glasses neither of them really needed to wear. His were darkly tinted despite the clouds but with prescription lenses so he could see, and hers clear glass, her vision twenty-twenty. “I feel like I am looking through windows” she said, “and sometimes it feels so strange, and I trip on the street when I am walking.” She tugged nervously on her shirt as she spoke, pulling the collar closed as though worried Martin was looking at her breasts. But all he had thought of was how the tiny white polka dots looked like spots of snow on a red carpet.

They had talked about books and records that afternoon. Martin liked how she talked fast and passionately about the things she loved and how, when she spoke English, she sounded vaguely Scottish. It made him oddly homesick, even though he had not lived there for twenty years and had hated every moment when he had. He wondered if he still sounded as passionate about the things that he loved. He doubted it. But then he doubted so much these days that it could hardly matter. Julie blew smoke over her shoulder and looked at the upturned ceramic plant pot that acted as an ashtray. She smiled and told him that ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ was a beautiful book.

And she had been right.

Comments

[Rod Crowley]

Still stealing your storylines from Del Amitri songs eh Alistair? ;-) Well sort of anyway.

[alistair]

ha ha, god, i hadn't actually thought about that! hey, did you ever read that 'Sarah' piece in (i think) the first 'Melody Haunts My Reverie'? That was ripped wholesale from 'deceive yourself' for sure :) Maybe this one is the bastard offspring of that piece...