The City and Its Uncertain Walls

That summer, the protagonist and his girlfriend talk of nothing but the town. She paints a picture for him, both of how it looks and what its community is like. She claims she was there as a child, and that her real self remains. In the fall, her letters stop coming, and the boy grows nervous. He calls her house but cannot reach her. As the year comes to an end, the protagonist realizes he knows nothing about her, yet yearns for her constantly. Time marches on until finally, he receives another letter.

South of the walled-in town, the river forms a pool. The protagonist hears that under it, extending out past the wall, is a system of caves and dark tunnels. The girl from the library warns him that the pool calls to people, and anyone who enters it is sucked under, never to be seen again. He convinces her to take him there, and at the pool, he feels an urge to dive in.

Afterward, the old man tells him that his shadow is dying. The protagonist visits his shadow, and it explains that it cannot survive without the protagonist. The shadow questions whether the girl the protagonist seeks here is actually the real girl and not a shadow of her. The shadow wants them to jump in the pool, saying it is the only way to the real world. It chastises the protagonist for avoiding the real world, telling him he needs to accept the flow of time in the real world. The shadow suggests that time works differently in the walled-in town and that the unicorns die so no one else here does.

The protagonist opens his girlfriend’s letter. He reads that she is struggling and cannot leave the house or even speak. She tells him more about the walled-in town, explaining that when she was three, she was separated from her real self. She was pushed out of the town, raised by the parents she has now. Now, she is fading. She tells him she was honest about wanting to be one with him, and hopes that a day will come soon that she can write again. It is the last letter she writes.

The protagonist and the girl work in the library every day. The town has no days of the week and no days off. One night, the protagonist has a dream in which he leads a patrol of soldiers in a war. They watch a group of people, all dressed in white, who follow a man as he walks off a cliff. They all calmy fall to their deaths. When the protagonist asks why they did it, one soldier suggests that “Probably they wanted to obliterate their minds” (94). One night as they sit together, the protagonist tells the girl that his shadow is dying and that he is worried it will change him. She tells him not to worry, that it is necessary and that everyone is impressed with him.

After receiving the girl’s last letter, the protagonist keeps writing, receiving no word back. He calls her house, but the number is disconnected. He knows he cannot continue to do nothing while he waits, and he goes to college in Tokyo. Despite the physical distance, he makes no friends and thinks of her constantly, living through memories of her. During summer break, he goes back to the park and even looks up her house. She is nowhere, and another family now lives where she once did.

The protagonist visits his shadow and finds it ailing, near death. The shadow asks to be reunited, suggesting that the town is actually a town filled with shadows. It hypothesizes that the real bodies are ripped from the shadows and exiled, meaning the real girlfriend is in the real world. The protagonist is still skeptical about reuniting, and his shadow suggests that the town, which both think is alive, is working against him. The protagonist asks his shadow why he thinks they need him as Dream Reader. The shadow believes that old dreams are actually seeds of emotion from the real people, and they need a real person, with emotions and empathy, to soothe them and destroy them before they destroy the town.

After receiving the final letter and not hearing from the girl in so long, the protagonist becomes lost. As he reaches his 18th birthday, he wonders what happened to the girl and feels abandoned and worthless. As he ages, he cannot move on from her, waiting with no direction of where he should go or who he should become.

Dreams do not become any clearer to the protagonist. As he walks the girl home, he tells her that he may be leaving the town with his shadow. He also tells her that he met a version of her outside the town. She assures him her shadow died, but he tells her he loved that girl and came here to see her. The girl tells him they are not the same, and the protagonist agrees.

When the protagonist turns 20, he realizes that he must change his life or be lost. He struggles to make friends but graduates and finds a job. Though he tries romance, the idea that his girlfriend may return, combined with the fear that any woman could just disappear, prevents him from having a serious relationship. Soon the man is 40, his life unfulfilling. When he is 45, he falls into a hole, and when he wakes, the Gatekeeper stands over him, telling him he had better move, because he is in the hole he burns the unicorns in.

The protagonist visits his shadow while the Gatekeeper is out burning dead unicorns. The shadow is on the verge of death, but excited that the protagonist has finally decided to leave. The protagonist wants to leave now and carries the shadow on his back to the pool. Just as they are about to reach the pool, the wall appears and threatens the protagonist, saying it will always be in his way. The shadow assures the protagonist that it is just a trick and to walk through it.

The protagonist and shadow make it through the wall to the pool. They rest, and the protagonist asks the shadow why the town lies about the pool being deadly. The shadow explains that the town must equalize its contradictions, such as allowing the beasts to die so no one else does. The fear created by the lie about the pool keeps people from leaving the town. The protagonist tells the shadow to go without him, saying he must stay.

The shadow asks if the protagonist is serious or just scared to jump in. The protagonist explains that there is nothing in the other world for him, and that if he is to be alone, he wants to do it in the town, where he has responsibilities. The shadow realizes that the protagonist hopes to find his girlfriend’s dream remnant and read it. The protagonist tells the shadow to go, to be him in the real world for as long as he can. The shadow agrees and jumps in, never to resurface. The protagonist walks back to his house, and when night falls, he goes to the library.