Now, I fully admit to being slightly kooky. I also fully admit to being a sponge. I easily absorb people's styles and writing styles. The latter absorption becomes problematic after reading authors like Faulker because my sentences grow from lengthy to unending. However, when reading a slightly kooky book like A Wild Sheep Chase--a book which I highly recommend--the absorption tendency can lead to some, well, interesting, results...
A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
Translated from Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum
Chapter 35 ¾
—¶ð
Pliers That Jabber and Rap
The glaring sun seemed to have a way of hooking weights surreptitiously onto my eyelids. I looked out over the pasture through diminishing slits and it wasn’t long before my head drooped over with its heavy load.
I dreamed about the dairy cow again. Except this time, it had an uncanny resemblance to the Sheep Man. The cow still wanted pliers in exchange for the old electric fan so I ransacked the Rat’s house looking for those evasive pliers. Dust flew in little clouds around me like those hastily drawn in a comic strip. Then one of the dust clouds pulled together with a loud sucking *thwooop* and materialized into the Sheep Man. He was staggering around in circles like a drunkard because of the weight of a gigantic pair of red furry pliers. The pliers had a star on what would be its back, if pliers had backs. I started to wrestle with the Sheep Man for the pliers when a sudden spurt of efficient raps on the door made me start and loose my grip.
I opened my eyes and squinted violently at the sunbeam that fell across the door. The raps became more insistent. How is it that the manner in which one knocks on a door sounds exactly like the manner of their voices? There were deep booming door knocks that shook the foundations of the earth. Those went with the deep booming voices that blew you off your feet and onto the floor with an ungainly crash. Then there are voices and door knocks like this present jabbering rap that eats its way into every fiber of your being, annoying and aggravating every cell until the one responsible for the rapping is pacified.
The raps grew faster and faster and increased in insistence - if that was even possible. When I could no longer stand the shockwaves having a mosh pit in my eardrums, I crossed the room with deliberate strides and flung the door wide open. It didn’t fly off its hinges (surprisingly), though it thwacked with three earth-shaking booms against the wall, paused for a moment then thwacked once more for good measure.
It took the door rapper a good full minute or so to realize that there was no door before him to rap on. He stood a towering six feet and three quarters tall with an alarmingly straight back. His arm was poised perfectly still in an exact angle while his hand twisted and shook convulsively from the wrist against the imaginary door. Then, in a sudden rapid movement, his arm sliced down through the air and whacked into his side. That was when I noticed his wide pants... his wide red furry pants.
“Whatchew staringat?” he demanded in a rapid jabber.
“Pliers,” I said.
He nodded as if it were the most natural answer in the world.
Pinched eyes surveyed the room with a quick and efficient glance that took in everything from cigarette butts to the few strands of wool. Then he started to jabber again.
“The Sheep Man came by to see you?”
Without waiting for an answer the Pliers rushed on.
“Sheep Man is a friend of mine. We go far back. But what is this here? You smoke Seven Stars? You see, that is a surprise then because Sheep Man doesn’t like smokers. He cannot stand smokers! Seven Stars is by far the worse for him. You see, I don’t even know why we’re friends we’re so different. I love smokers, he cannot stand smokers. Like I said before as you know already. And he refuses to drink though I’ve done my best to get him to try some whiskey. We’re so different! Oh, and Sheep Man doesn’t like to talk. And when he does talk, he doesn’t even talk at a normal pace. He talks so slowly and deliberately it drives me insane! But we’re friends. We go far back. He’s a very shy person you know. Sheep Man is always quiet when he talks. I have never in my entire life heard him raise his voice beyond a whisper. And you know, I have been friends with him for a long time! We go far ba…”
The Pliers’s talked like he knocked. He jabbered on in perpetual motion, repeated constantly like a broken record and gained speed like a humongous snowball barreling down a steep hill. His words ran together, bumping and jostling for lack of space into a swirling vortex that whirled me out of time and space
Ah, perhaps the Pliers could have a use in the restaurant… He and the Sheep Man could do something together. After all, they were good friends judging by the way the Pliers’s river of words kept running with the Sheep Man.
“…And he’s painfully shy. Especially of any woman. Oh it is a laugh!! He refuses to utter a single little word while any woman is around…”
Every now and then, I would be pulled back into the wordy vortex as the Pliers’s persistent voice broke through my consciousness. His voice was something I could not stand to hear for too long. Retreat! Retreat back into my time and space!
My thoughts strayed again to my beautiful-eared girlfriend. But something was amiss. How could the Sheep Man be painfully shy of women if he had chased away my girlfriend? And on that note, he smoked Seven Stars when he was here. And he asked for a drink. And he talked so fast… it was a different type of fast from the Pliers though. The Sheep Man talked in spurts like a car handled by a frightened new driver who doesn’t understand the concept of steady fluid driving. It took me a while to realize that the Pliers was rapping incessantly on the table while glaring at me accusingly.
“…you understand that don’t you? I’m sure you do--”
“About the Sheep Man,” I butted in trying to get a word in edgewise. “He--“
“Good. So in that case - gotta be going,” The Pliers barely even registered a second voice. He just stood up abruptly, swiveled on his toes to face the still open door.
“Nice to meet you—” His final words were briskly swept away by the fierce wind as he flew out the doorway.
I watched his stick figure slice through the grass until, like the Sheep Man, he became a fuzzy red dot in the distance. How could the loud Sheep Man I met be the same as the Pliers’s shy Sheep Man? They were on completely opposite ends, opposite poles, opposite sides of the galaxy!
I had to talk to the Sheep Man again. I figured that if he didn’t show his furry white face for a few more days I’d search for him. I needed exercise anyway.
With a sigh, I grabbed my cold onions and settled back into my whirling time and space.
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