West of the Sun
"Inside the darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it's raining." "Do you think it will turn to rain?" Shimamoto asked, tapping the tip of her boot on the ground. I looked at the sky. "I think it'll hold out for a while," I said. "No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, will the child's ashes flow to the sea, mix with the seawater, evaporate, form into clouds, and fall as rain?" I looked up at the sky one more time. And then at the river flowing. "You never know," I replied. "Because memory and sensations are so uncertain, so biased, we always rely on a certain reality- call it an alternate reality- to prove the reality of events. To what extent facts we recognize as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as suc...