"That night, in our darkened bedroom, I lay beside Kumiko, staring at the ceiling and asking myself just how much I really knew about this woman. The clock said 2:00 am. She was sound asleep. In the dark, I thought about blue tissues and patterned toilet paper and beef and green peppers. I had lived with her all this time, unaware how much she hated these things. In themselves they were trivial. Stupid. Something to laugh off, not make a big issue out of. We'd had a little tiff and would have forgotten about it in a couple of days."
"But this was different. It was bothering me in a strange new way, digging at me like a little fish bone caught in the throat. Maybe — just maybe — it was more crucial than it had seemed. Maybe this was it: the fatal blow. Or maybe it was just the beginning of what would be the fatal blow. I might be standing in the entrance of something big, and inside lay a world that belonged to Kumiko alone, a vast world that I had never known. I saw it as a big, dark room. I was standing there holding a cigarette lighter, its tiny flame showing me only the smallest part of the room. Would I ever see the rest? Or would I grow old and die without ever really knowing her? If that was all that lay in store for her, then what was the point of this married life I was leading? What was the point of my life at all if I was spending it in bed with an unknown companion?"
* * *
"This was what I thought about that night and what I went on thinking about long afterward from time to time. Only much later did it occur to me that I had found my way into the core of the problem."'
[edit] Introduction
Me (on the left) and one of my classes in China
Hello, and welcome to my user page!
According to this list from 27 April 2005, I was the 645th most active Wikipedian with 2325 edits. I created the South African Collaboration of the Week on 24 November 2004 with the intent to further develop the quality of South African Wikis. On 12 December, I was made an administrator according to the results of this vote. I also have written seven featured articles, namely South Africa, MTR, Johannesburg, History of Cape Colony from 1806 to 1870, History of Cape Colony from 1870 to 1899, Hong Kong, and Washington gubernatorial election, 2004. You will now find me mostly poking around South Africa-related articles.
I am also a member of the Scandinavian Mediators Club, so if you need mediation or assistance in the Danish language, please feel free to contact me!
These are my French, Danish, and Afrikaans user pages.
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