"now it's just a matter of grace"

"It had vanished into thin air.

No, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE MENTIONED THE ELEPHANT. The topic was - what? - too complete, too closed.

What struck me immediately when I saw the elephant and keeper alone together was the obvious liking they had for each other - something they never displayed when they were out before the public. Their affection was evident in every gesture. It almost seemed as if they stored away their emotions during the day, taking care not to let anyone notice them, and took them out at night when they could be alone. Which is not to say that they did anything different when they were by themselves inside. The elephant just stood there, as blank as ever, and the keeper would perform those tasks one would normally expect him to do as a keeper. But there was no way to mistake the special warmth, the sense of trust, between them.

Nothing happened, really. The elephant and the keeper were doing what they always did. Cleaning, eating, playing around with each other in that friendly way of theirs. It wasn't what they did that was different. It's the way theu looked. Something about the balance between them.

Looking through the vent, I had the feeling that a different, chilling kind of time was flowing through the elephant house - but nowhere else. And it seemed to me, too, that the elephant and the keeper were gladly giving themselves over to this new order that was trying to envelop them - or that had already partially succeed in enveloping them.

I'm hardly thinking about what happened after that. The visual image I have is so strong that, to be honest, IT'S PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO GO BEYOND IT.

I often get the feeling that things around me have lost their proper balance, though it could be my perceptions are playing tricks on me. SOME KIND OF BALANCE INSIDE ME HAS BROKEN DOWN SINCE THE ELEPHANT AFFAIR, and maybe that causes external phenomena to strike my eye in a strange way.

THE ELEPHANT AND KEEPER HAVE VANISHED FOREVER. THEY WILL NEVER COME BACK AGAIN".

Haruki Murakami - The elephant vanishes (trechos)