“I’m sorry to have woken you.”
“It’s all right. I’m glad to know that time still keeps on flowing at four in the morning. Is it light out yet?”
“Not yet. But it will be in a little while. The birds will start chirping.”
“The early bird catches the worm.”
“In theory.”
“But I don’t think I’ll be able to stay up to see that.”
“Goodnight,” he said.
“Tsukuru?” Sara said.
“Mmm?”
“Goodnight,” Sara said. “Relax, and get some rest.”
And with that, she hung up.
Shinjuku Station is enormous. Every day nearly 3.5 million people pass through it, so many that the Guinness Book of World Records officially lists JR Shinjuku Station as the station with the “Most Passengers in the World.” A number of railroad lines cross there, the main ones being the Chuo line, Sobu line, Yamanote line, Saikyo line, Shonan–Shinjuku line, and the Narita Express. The rails intersect and combine in complex and convoluted ways. There are sixteen platforms in total. In addition, there are two private rail lines, the Odakyu line and the Keio line, and three subway lines plugged in, as it were, from the side. It is a total maze. During rush hour, that maze transforms into a sea of humanity, a sea that foams up, rages, and roars as it surges toward the entrances and exits. Streams of people changing trains become entangled, giving rise to dangerous, swirling whirlpools. No prophet, no matter how righteous, could part that fierce, turbulent sea.
It’s hard to believe that every morning and evening, five days a week, this overwhelming crush of human beings is dealt with efficiently, without any major problems, by a staff of station employees that no one would ever accuse of being adequate, in terms of numbers, to the task. The morning rush hour is particularly problematic. Everyone is scurrying to get to where they need to be, to punch their time clock, and no one’s in a great mood. They’re still tired, half asleep, and riding the bursting-at-the-seams trains is physically and emotionally draining. Only the very lucky manage to find a seat. Tsukuru was always amazed that riots don’t break out, that there are no tragic, bloody disasters. If a fanatical band of terrorists did happen to target one of these jam-packed stations or trains, it would be lethal, with a horrific loss of life. For the people working on the rail lines, and the police, and, of course, the passengers, this remained the one unimaginable, nightmare scenario. And there was no way to prevent it, even now, after such a nightmare actually did take place in Tokyo in the spring of 1995.
Station employees bark out endless announcements over the loudspeakers, a repetitious tune marking train departures plays constantly, the automated wickets silently input a huge amount of information from all the rail cards, tickets, and train passes they scan. The long trains, their arrivals and departures timed down to the second, are like long-suffering, well-trained farm animals, systematically exhaling and inhaling people, impatiently closing their doors as they rush off toward the next station. The crowds surge up and down the stairs, but if someone steps on your foot from behind and your shoe comes off, good luck ever retrieving it. The shoe is sucked into the intense rush-hour quicksand, where it vanishes forever. The person who suffers this fate has a long day ahead, clomping around on one shoe.