““The situation got worse when they came back to her apartment after and someone put on music. An advert interrupted during a moment when I was the person nearest the laptop, and so somebody said to me—quite threateningly, I felt— Put something else on . Obviously I forgot every song I have ever heard in my entire life. In one swift tug, like the tablecloth trick where everything is supposed to remain on the table gone wrong, every name of every artist disappeared too. The only keywords I could think of were the ones on a toy keyboard-and-tape-recorder combo I'd been given as a child, and I hadn't known their meaning even then. Bossa nova , for example. I said I couldn't think of anything, any music , except silence, and retreated to the corner of the room, pretending to busy myself by scouring the bookcase there, which held little gatherings of figurines as well as Mizuko's many books.””
