After the Quake is a collection of six short stories, all of which are set in Japan in 1995 between two terrible national disasters: the Kobe earthquake (hence the title) and the Tokyo gas attacks by a radical terrorist cult. These stories attempt to process the nature of life in specific contexts, and, unlike most of Murakami's writings, they don't include many supernatural elements. Murakami insists that all of the titles be made up of entirely lowercase letters in English.
ufo in kushiro
Komura is a young salesman living in Tokyo. His wife, an unattractive yet fulfilling woman, leaves him after five days of blankly watching the news about the earthquake, saying that living with him is like living with "a chunk of air." Komura takes a week off from work, and his associate Sasaki asks him if he would deliver his sister Keiko a small package in the city of Kushiro. He does so, and when he arrives, there are two women to greet him: Keiko Sasaki and her vague friend/associate, Shimao. The three go to a "love hotel," and Keiko leaves. After talking about Komura's wife and Shimao's "bear story," the two try to have sex, but it doesn't work. Komura ponders the contents of the mysterious package and the hole inside him.
landscape with flatiron
Junko is a young woman living in a small town on the coast, having run away from her home and her responsibilities. Her boyfriend, Keisuke, is an aspiring musician. Around midnight, they go down to see Miyake, a middle-aged man living alone on the coast who has built yet another bonfire. Keisuke doesn't get it and soon leaves, but Junko and Miyake stay out, talking about the bonfire, dreams, Miyake's paintings (including the title piece, "Landscape with Flatiron"), and, ultimately, death. Junko feels empty and breaks down crying, and she gradually falls asleep next to the old man and the fire.
all god's children can dance
Yoshiya has been told his whole life by his single mother that he is the "child of God." His mother has converted to the believers, and the circumstances around his birth are indeed strange: his mother became pregnant three times despite extremely careful contraceptive measures, leading her to believe that Yoshiya is the product of immaculate conception. Yoshiya, who doesn't believe any of his mother's religion, is convinced that his father is the third man who get his mother pregnant, an older obstetrician with a mutilated right earlobe.
One day, coming home from work, Yoshiya sees an older man with just such an earlobe. He follows this man out through deserted places until he reaches an old baseball field and realizes that he's alone. He does a strange and heartfelt dance, thinking over his life and his "guide," Mr. Tabata, who confessed to having lusts for Yoshiya's mother (a feeling from which not even Yoshiya himself has been innocent). When Yoshiya ends his dance, he hears a siren in the distance, and he closes the story by saying, "Oh God."
thailand
Satsuki, an endocrinologist, takes a vacation to Thailand. While there, she entrusts her week to her driver, Nimit, an older, wise guide-esque figure who drives her everywhere, arranges her activities, and serves her food. Satsuki spends the week relaxing by the pool. On the last day, Nimit takes her to see an old woman in a poor part of town. She stares into Satsuki's eyes and pronounces her diagnosis: she has a white stone in her stomach, and she must have a dream where she grasps a giant snake, who eats the stone for her. The woman also tells her that her ex-husband was not injured by the earthquake in Kobe. Satsuki realizes that she has been holding on to life too tightly, and she must value death as much as life. She gives Nimit a tip for giving her a wonderful week and flies back to Thailand.
super-frog saves Tokyo
Katagiri, a bank worker in Tokyo, returns home to find a six-foot frog waiting for him. Frog introduces himself and says that he needs Katagiri's help to defeat Worm, a giant worm beneath the bank building, in order to prevent a giant earthquake from devastating Tokyo, one more deadly than the one in Kobe a few days ago. Katagiri, confused, agrees to help, but on the way to the fight, a man shoots him in the street and he falls unconscious. In the hospital, he finds out that he hasn't actually been shot, and there hasn't been an earthquake either. The story ends with Frog appearing to him again and declaring that his help was valuable in holding Worm back, before exploding and deteriorating. Katagiri resolves to read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy before falling asleep again.
honey pie
Junpei is a young writer approaching middle age, and he's involved in a strange family square that involves his longtime crush and closest female friend, Sayoko, her ex-husband and Junpei's good friend, Takatsuki, and Sayoko's and Takatsuki's daughter, Sala. Junpei fills in the role of father that Takatsuki abandoned. He tells Sala the story of a bear named Masakichi who makes money by selling honey, and she suggests that she should sell honey pies as well to increase revenue.
Junpei, Sayoko, and Takatsuki were good friends through university, where they studied literature together. Sayoko became a translator, Takatsuki a journalist, and Junpei a short story writer. All of them did relatively well, and Junpei's stories were starting to win some minor awards. At the end of the story, he decides to ask Sayoko to marry him after they sleep together at Sayoko's house. He plans to extend the story of Masakichi the bear and ensure that nothing happens to Sayoko and Sala.
