Free Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

"Once you begin to work, there will not be time."
    She brings out a pot of vegetable stew and warms it on the stove. The minestra simmers, filling the room with a wonderful aroma. She ladles it out into two bowls, slices walnut bread, and brings this simple fare to the table.
    We sit facing each other and speak not a word as we eat. The seasoning is unlike anything I have ever tasted, but good nonetheless. By the time I finish eating, I am warmed inside. Then she brings us cups of hot tea. It is an herbal infusion, slightly bitter and green.
    Dreamreading proves not as effortless as she has explained. The threads of light are so fine that despite how I concentrate the energies in my fingertips, I am incapable of unravelling the chaos of vision. Even so, I clearly sense the presence of dreams at my fingertips. It is a busy current, an endless stream of images. My fingers are as yet unable to grasp any distinct message, but I do apprehend an intensity there.
    By the time I finally manage to extract two dreams, it is already past ten o'clock. I return to her the dream-spent skull, take off my glasses, and rub my eyes. "Are you tired?" she asks.
    "A little," I reply. "My eyes are not accustomed to this. Drinking in the light of the old dreams makes my eyes hurt. I cannot look too long for the pain."
    "I am told it is this way at first," she says. "Your eyes are not used to the light; the readings are difficult. Work slowly for a while."
    Returning the old dream to the vaults, the Librarian prepares to go home. She opens the lid of the stove, scoops out the red coals with a tiny shovel, and deposits them in a bucket of sand.
    "You must not let fatigue set in," she warns. "That is what my mother said. Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself." "Good advice."
    "To tell the truth, I do not know this thing called 'mind', what it does or how to use it. It is only a word I have heard."
    "The mind is nothing you use," I say. "The mind is just there. It is like the wind. You simply feel its movements."
    She shuts the lid of the stove, takes away the enamel pot and cup to wash, and returns wrapped in a blue coat of coarse material. A remnant torn from a bolt of the sky, worn so many years that it too has lost memory of its origins. She stands, absorbed in thought, in front of the extinguished stove.
    "Did you come from some other land?" she asks, as if the thought had only then occurred to her.
    "I think so."
    "And what was that land like?"
    "I cannot remember," I say. "I cannot recall a single thing. They seem to have taken all memory of my old world when they took my shadow. I only know it was far, far away."
    "But you understand these things of mind?"
    "A little."
    "My mother also had mind," she says. "But my mother disappeared when I was seven. Perhaps it was because she had this mind, the same as you."
    "Disappeared?"
    "Yes, she vanished. I do not want to talk about it. It is wrong to talk about people who have disappeared. Tell me about the town where you lived. You must remember something."
    "I can only remember two things," I say. "That the town I lived in had no wall around it, and that our shadows followed us wherever we walked."
    Yes, we all had shadows. They were with us constantly. But when I came to this Town, my shadow was taken away.
    "You cannot come into Town with that," said the Gatekeeper. "Either you lose the shadow or forget about coming inside."
    I surrendered my shadow.
    The Gatekeeper had me stand in an open space beside the Gate. The three-o'clock afternoon sun fixed my shadow fast to the ground.
    "Keep still now," the Gatekeeper told me. Then he produced a knife and deftly worked it in between the shadow and the ground. The shadow writhed in resistance. But to no avail.
    Its dark form peeled neatly away.
    Severed from the body, it was an altogether poorer thing. It lost strength.
    The Gatekeeper put away his blade. "What do you make of it? Strange thing once you cut it off," he said.