RoAdToNoWhErE

"Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana?

I read this somewhere a long time ago. It affects farmers living in Siberia

Try to imagine this. You’re a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra.

Day after day you plough your fields.

As far as the eye can see, nothing.

To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same.

Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields.

When it’s directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep.

In the winter they stay at home and do indoor work. When spring comes, they go out into the fields again. You’re that farmer. Imagine it.

And then one day something inside you dies...

Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies...

You begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun.

Like someone possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die.

That’s hysteria siberiana."

~ Haruki Murakami (村上春樹)

The quotes from"South of the Border, West of the Sun" just came to me when the plane was flying over Siberia last week...