Making Each Day Count

My favorite Haruki Murakami short story is “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning”.

There was no real dialogue between the two main characters of this story. Yet I loved the way it was written as I felt the narrator’s wonder, hint of recognition, internal dilemma on how to make the most out of the moment, until he realized it was too late.

It is a story about two young people finding THE perfect love. Yet despite their happiness together, they felt unworthy of the happiness and love they felt. So they tested fate and parted, agreeing that if they meet again, then that was a sign that
they were really meant to be.
Eventually as the years passed, so too did their memories of each other. What they shared became a distant unfamiliar past. And then fate was once again kind to them, and one beautiful April in a street in Harajuku their paths crossed. But though they felt something in their hearts, they walked on to their separate ways.

This story beautifully captures love: be it young love, first love, or true love. It tells of the all too familiar cliche of living with regrets and asking the “what ifs”, or simply having “the one that got away”. It also captures how time heals all wounds, and yet even when one has moved on, they can never really completely forget.