The Seventh Man
For some reason this passage really struck me deeply. This is a passage in a TAKS book that I had my 8th grade kiddos read. But to me it is so much more than that. I hope you enjoy.
From The Seventh Man
By Haruki Murakami
“A huge wave nearly swept me away,” said the seventh man, almost whispering. “It happened one September afternoon when I was 10 years old.”
The man was the last one to tell his story that night. The hands of the clock had moved past ten. The small group that huddled in a circle could hear the wind tearing through the darkness outside, heading west. IT shook the trees, set the windows to rattling, and moved past the house with one final whistle.
“It was the biggest wave I had even seen in my life,” he said. “A strange wave. An absolute giant.”
He paused.
“It just barely missed me, but in my place it swallowed everything that mattered most to me and swept it off to another world. I took years to find it again and to recover from the experience-precious years that can never be replaced.”
The seventh man appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He was a thin man, tall, with a moustache, and next to his right eye he had a short but deep-looking scar that could have been made by the stab of a small blade. Stiff, bristly patches of white marked his short hair. His face had the look you see on people when they can’t quite find the words they need. In his case, though, the expression seemed to have been there from long before, as though it were a part of him. The man wore a simple blue shirt under a grey tweed coat, and every now and then he would bring his hand up to his collar. None of those assembled there knew his name or what he did for a living.
He cleared his throat, and for a moment or two his words were lost in silence. The others waited for him to go on.
“In my case, it was a wave,” he said. “There’s no way for me to tell, of course, what it will be for each of you. But in my case it just happened to take the form of a gigantic wave. It presented itself to me all of a sudden one day, without warning. And it was devastating.”
From The Seventh Man
By Haruki Murakami
“A huge wave nearly swept me away,” said the seventh man, almost whispering. “It happened one September afternoon when I was 10 years old.”
The man was the last one to tell his story that night. The hands of the clock had moved past ten. The small group that huddled in a circle could hear the wind tearing through the darkness outside, heading west. IT shook the trees, set the windows to rattling, and moved past the house with one final whistle.
“It was the biggest wave I had even seen in my life,” he said. “A strange wave. An absolute giant.”
He paused.
“It just barely missed me, but in my place it swallowed everything that mattered most to me and swept it off to another world. I took years to find it again and to recover from the experience-precious years that can never be replaced.”
The seventh man appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He was a thin man, tall, with a moustache, and next to his right eye he had a short but deep-looking scar that could have been made by the stab of a small blade. Stiff, bristly patches of white marked his short hair. His face had the look you see on people when they can’t quite find the words they need. In his case, though, the expression seemed to have been there from long before, as though it were a part of him. The man wore a simple blue shirt under a grey tweed coat, and every now and then he would bring his hand up to his collar. None of those assembled there knew his name or what he did for a living.
He cleared his throat, and for a moment or two his words were lost in silence. The others waited for him to go on.
“In my case, it was a wave,” he said. “There’s no way for me to tell, of course, what it will be for each of you. But in my case it just happened to take the form of a gigantic wave. It presented itself to me all of a sudden one day, without warning. And it was devastating.”
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