(essay)

“Maybe that’s what it looks like because of the light. Maybe the balance of distances is a little disturbed. And still the palm seemed to shrink. Wait. I wanna speak. I have to say something. I have something to say. If I don’t, I’ll get bored, dry up, and then turn to stone. Like the others.”
– Haruki Murakami ”TV-people“

Like the others? Who? What others? There was not a word about it, the author simply wrote these lines in the middle of the text, as if aliens had invaded him and turned people who couldn’t say anything into stones. Perhaps the author just felt such a strong need to say something that it seemed to him that he was turning to stone because he was silent. Perhaps it’s a metaphor, and people who are silent look like a stone, feel like a stone. Perhaps…

Personally, I sometimes feel that I have to say something in the middle of a conversation, because my interlocutor may think that I’m not interested. I feel like a stone when I can’t be heard, even when I speak. But being a stone isn’t so bad. You can listen more, you can hear more, you can understand more, I guess… Although only I think so. I could be either a tree or a stone in the next life. I’ll not be offended by such a reality. It doesn’t matter who you are, it matters that you exist. Am I right?