Awful, Mysterious Things - Rebeca Felix

I think we tell stories where terrible things happen to characters to give us some kind of idea of what resilience looks like in beautiful language. When I know that a character in a story can make it through terrible events, I feel as if I am a) more fortunate to be in my real-life situation and b) I can more easily deal with the problems I do have. Because if Frodo Baggins could travel in an epic saga to throw a ring into the fires of Mordor, I can sure as hell finish my paper and deal with my roommate’s hysterics about breaking up with her boyfriend.

At the same time, it is interesting to see what an author chooses to inflict on characters. Creativity is intriguing when there is malice in the events that occur in stories and how protagonists and antagonists handle these near-unbelievable hurdles.

There is a sense that horrible things happening to good characters in stories reflects a lot of what happens in actual life. Terrible things do happen, and they happen often, and they happen to good people. It’s a sort of warning and it’s a sort of truth the author is disclosing to you in the form of entertainment.

Having recently read 1Q84, this story was refreshing to read (and incredibly short) and engaged me in a mind game with myself about what could possibly be going on. Komura’s wife leaves and we never really find out what caused her to leave at this specific time, in relation to the earthquakes. Sasaki asks Komura to take a box to Hokkaido, but does not tell him what is in it. The not knowing plunged me forward into the mystery of the story. When we get to the airport, Sasaki’s sister and friend recognize Komura even though he did not give the signal. There is something so eerie about it and Komura shakes it off and continues, so I did the same as a reader. Another mysterious story about the UFO enters in as a subplot and again, we have no idea where the woman went and why she left in the first place. The suspicion of aliens is also a factor that kept me reading. I love well-done scifi. The whole tone of the story felt like a puzzle that I wanted to put together and understand and this piece definitely drove me to do so.

[Rebeca Felix]