“He sat there in silence, without moving a muscle.

Then something very odd began to happen to Noboru Wataya’s face. Little by little, it started to turn red. But it did this in the strangest way. Certain patches turned a deep red, while others reddened only slightly, and the rest appeared to have become weirdly pale. This made me think of an autumn wood of blotchy colors where deciduous and evergreen trees grew in a chaotic mix.”

—Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, translated by Jay Rubin, 1997.