Sayaka Murata

Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.”

I hear the faint rattle of a new plastic bottle rolling into place as a customer takes one out of the refrigerator, and look up instantly.

Everyone was crying for the poor dead bird as they went around murdering flowers, plucking their stalks, exclaiming, “What lovely flowers! Little Mr. Budgie will definitely be pleased.” They looked so bizarre I thought they must all be out of their minds.

When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I’m as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine.

The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.

“So even though you hate people meddling in your life, you’re deliberately choosing a lifestyle they won’t be able to criticize?”

Up until now he’d been ranting about people meddling in his life, yet here he was attacking me with the same kinds of reproaches that were making him suffer.

I hadn’t added a teabag since I didn’t really feel any need to drink flavored liquid.

I was beginning to lose track of what “society” actually was. I even had a feeling it was all an illusion.

Unlike you, there are many things I don’t really care about either way. It’s just that since I don’t have any particular purpose of my own, if the village wants things to be a certain way then I don’t mind going along with that.