Kafka on the Shore Read Online Free PDF

you find at those little boutiques girls shop at. Her fingers are long and thin but look strong, the nails are short and nicely trimmed with a light pink polish. Her hands are resting lightly on the knees thrust out from her miniskirt.
    I want to touch those hands, but of course I don't. Asleep, she looks like a young child.
    One pointy ear peeks out from the strands of hair like a little mushroom, looking strangely fragile.
    I shut my book and look for a while at the passing scenery. But very soon, before I realize it, I fall asleep myself.

Chapter 4
    U.S. ARMY INTELLIGENCE SECTION (MIS) REPORT
    Dated: May 12, 1946
    Title: Report on the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, 1944
    Document Number: PTYX-722-8936745-42216-WWN
    The following is a taped interview with Doctor Juichi Nakazawa (53), who ran an internal medicine clinic in [name deleted] Town at the time of the incident. Materials related to the interview can be accessed using application number PTYX-722-SQ-162 to 183.

    Impressions of the interviewer Lt. Robert O'Connor: Doctor Nakazawa is so big boned and dark skinned he looks more like a farm foreman than a doctor. He has a calm manner but is very brisk and concise and says exactly what's on his mind. Behind his glasses his eyes have a very sharp, alert look, and his memory seems reliable.
    That's correct—at eleven a.m. on November 7, 1944, I received a phone call from the assistant principal at the local elementary school. I used to be the school doctor, or something close to it, so that's why they contacted me first.
    The assistant principal was terribly upset. He told me that an entire class had lost consciousness while on an outing in the hills to pick mushrooms. According to him they were totally unconscious. Only the teacher in charge had remained conscious, and she'd run back to school for help just then. She was so flustered I couldn't grasp the whole situation, though one fact did come through loud and clear: sixteen children had collapsed in the woods.
    The kids were out picking mushrooms, so of course my first thought was that they'd eaten some poisonous ones and been paralyzed. If that were the case it'd be difficult to treat. Different varieties of mushrooms have different toxicity levels, and the treatments vary. The most we could do at the moment would be to pump out their stomachs. In the case of highly toxic varieties, though, the poison might enter the bloodstream quickly and we might be too late. Around here, several people a year die from poison mushrooms.
    I stuffed some emergency medicine in my bag and rode my bike over to the school as fast as I could. The police had been contacted and two policemen were already there. We knew we had to get the unconscious kids back to town and would need all the help we could get. Most of the young men were away at war, though, so we set off with the best we had—myself, the two policemen, an elderly male teacher, the assistant principal and principal, the school janitor. And of course the homeroom teacher who'd been with the kids. We grabbed whatever bicycles we could find, but there weren't enough, so some of us rode two to a bike.

    —What time did you arrive at the site?
    It was 11:55. I remember since I happened to glance at my watch when we got there. We rode our bicycles to the bottom of the hill, as far as we could go, then climbed the rest of the way on foot.
    By the time I arrived several children had partially regained consciousness. Three or four of them, as I recall. But they weren't fully conscious—sort of dizzily on all fours.
    The rest of the children were still collapsed. After a while some of the others began to come around, their bodies undulating like so many big worms. It was a very strange sight. The children had collapsed in an odd, flat, open space in the woods where it looked like all the trees had been neatly removed, with autumn sunlight shining down brightly. And here you had, in this spot or at the edges of it, sixteen elementary-school