They Might All Go to the Moon

Murakami writes about an artist who flees to the mountains in “Killing Commendatore”. Early in the book, the artist throws his phone into a river. When his ex finally gets in touch with him, she complains that he wasn’t picking up his phone. It’s probably in the Japan Sea, he shrugs.

Can you name a more intoxicating feeling than throwing your phone in a river? I want you to imagine this, right now. The feeling of that slice of glass and metal, the warmth and the weight of it in your hand. You raise your arm and wind up, using muscles that have been dormant since you last played volleyball in gym class. Your shoulder might twinge. Maybe the phone slips a little as you release your grip at the top of the throw: the case is filmy with finger grease and lotion. You often dropped it in the bathroom because of this. But by now it’s a glass bird arcing then plummeting with an inelegant plop into the nearest body of water.

It’s gone. Maybe the phone lights up with distress as the water sensors detect something is horribly wrong. But it’s too late.

How do you feel knowing that you cannot check if your ex viewed your latest post? How do you feel knowing that you can’t post about this moment to your followers because you have no other electronic device to soothe yourself? Are you twitching with distress? Are you wading into the river, sobbing, diving to the bottom and searching the slick stones of the riverbed?

Or are you smiling? Are you, at last, finally aware of what a robin sounds like at 2:30 on a Spring afternoon? Have you noticed the blooming tree on your street corner? Are you finally unreachable and now a living god?