Icon: enlarge
Murakami in front of an avenue of old ginko trees
Photo: Noriko Hayashi / DER SPIEGEL
A young man who does not yet know where his life will lead him.
Maybe he will never know that for sure, after all, he is a character from the literary cosmos of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
This young man receives an invitation to a piano concert.
A few years earlier he had taken piano lessons with a young woman, now she's inviting him.
Your concert will take place on the outskirts of Kobe, in a hall on a hill.
The young man buys a bouquet of red flowers and takes the bus to the address mentioned.
But there he only finds a locked gate.
Nothing else.
At a loss, he goes back, sits down in a small park in an ivy-covered arbor and feels a kind of panic attack rise within him.
When he looks up, an older man is sitting across from him.
“All older people looked the same to me.
Sixty or seventy, what was the difference?
Unlike me, they weren't young anymore, ”says the first-person narrator.
Read more with Spiegel Plus
More perspectives, more understanding.
Your advantages with SPIEGEL +
Icon: Check
SPIEGEL as a magazine
as an app, e-paper and on the e-reader
Icon: Check
All articles on SPIEGEL.de
Exclusive texts for SPIEGEL + readers
Icon: Check
Try one month for free
Cancel anytime online
A price
only € 19.99 per month
One month for € 0.00
Try now for 0.00 € Buy nowArrow to the right
Already have a digital subscription? Register here
Restore iTunes subscription
SPIEGEL + is processed via your iTunes account and paid for with a purchase confirmation.
24 hours before it expires, the subscription is automatically renewed by one month at the current price of € 19.99.
You can cancel the subscription at any time in the settings of your iTunes account.
In order to use SPIEGEL + outside of this app, you have to link the subscription to a SPIEGEL ID account immediately after purchase.
With the purchase you accept our general terms and conditions and privacy policy.
