The young bachelor

The young bachelor hits the sack directly after an 宴会　dinner party on Monday night and wakes up at 3:30am Tuesday morn, roused by a strange shifting sound in his apartment. Still half asleep beneath the comforter, he imagines leaping up unclothed, flinging aside the sliding door to the living room and tackling the thief that has stolen into his house. Will he be able to grab the miniature crowbar from the tool drawer in time to crack the intruder's skull, or should he just rely on his fists and feet? Maybe two robbers are out there, so the first would have to be dispatched quickly. Better go for the crowbar.

He wonders what the Japanese laws regarding physical harm done to strangers on one's own property might be. He wonders what his chances against two hardened criminals might be. His guess is "not good". Straining his ears in the darkness for another sound, he hears nothing but the usual cars on the highway and the two clocks. Relief. His tense muscles slowly relax. Though deep down he knew the house was empty all along. And what would he have really done had there been a stranger out there? Who knows. Hopefully what his Long Island-dwelling Grandpa did a few weeks ago when he awoke to hear a burglar rustling outside his bedroom. Leap up, throw the door open and bellow "GET OUT OF HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH!". How would he say that in Japanese? Doesn't matter, the bellowing should do the job. Always best to avoid physical confrontation. His Grandpa is as much wiser and tougher than his grandson as he is better at skiing, fly fishing, and theoretical physics.

Now the young bachelor is wide awake, and after another half hour studying the dim contours of his bedroom waiting to be drawn back into an unfinished dream, he gives up, gets up and takes the thick red fleece robe off its hook and steps into a pair of wool-lined slippers. The apartment is cold and quiet. He pours a bowl of cereal and makes a pot of tea in the kitchen, then moves to the living room couch to sit and eat. For some reason this particular bachelor finds a big bowl of late night cereal both mind-blowingly delicious and uniquely comforting, and tonight is no exception. Contented, the young man opens the Murakami novel lying nearby and reads the A.M. hours away, sipping tea with the perfect balance of honey dropped in, the pleasant reality around him slowly bleeding into that of another world. Around six he sets down the book and goes for a run under the purple sky and through the green fields, and around seven he sits down at his laptop and recounts the morning before getting showered and dressed for work. A surreal start to an otherwise normal weekday, but not entirely foreign to the bachelor lifestyle.