Nightmare in the washroom -Afternoon on the Islands of Langerhans-　Haruki Murakami

    When I was a student, a classmate once said to me, "You always seem like you're lost in thought, do you have something on your mind?" I was surprised because I had no memory of ever being lost in thought in the classroom. Looking back, I realize that I've been in a "daze" ever since then, and even now, I find myself in this state more often than before. I rarely experience this around others because I get nervous, but when I'm alone, I sometimes find myself in a completely blank state of mind for several minutes. It's especially bad in the bathroom, where I've brushed my teeth with a hairbrush or put shampoo on my toothbrush. I've washed my hair with conditioner and conditioned it with shampoo one out of every three times, and I've even applied shaving cream to my face and then gone out without shaving. Once, when I went to the bathroom to pee, I accidentally took off all my clothes, thinking I was going to take a bath. I didn't even realize what I was doing until some time had passed. Sometimes, I unconsciously stare at meaningless things. I suddenly realize, "Why was I staring at this thing?" and find it strange, but when I was staring, I wasn't aware of it at all. Once, I stared at a poster for shape underwear or something for several minutes at a subway station, and I was really embarrassed.

This is a problem. If young girls say, "Haruki, you're so scatterbrained and cute!" that's fine, but if I keep doing this for years, I'll become a complete senile old man. That thought depresses me. But well, I make a living by writing novels, so I can laugh it off and say that this is just a side effect of artistic activity. Nobody would want to have an appendectomy by a surgeon who's always taking the wrong train or giving the ticket collector a disco discount ticket by mistake, right?