“Long
after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained
inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick
darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul.

More than once I tried stretching my hand out in that darkness. My
fingers touched nothing. The faint glow remained, just beyond their
grasp.”

—Haruki Murikami, Norwegian Wood, 1989; translated by Jay Rubin, 2000.