After dark/haruki murakami

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner.

Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude.

Both have missed the last train home.

Later, Mari is interrupted a second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel; a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, the girl has heard Mari speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help.

Meanwhile Eri is at home and sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is too perfect, too pure to be normal; pulse and respiration at the lowest required level.

She has been in this soporific state for two months; Eri has become the classic myth - a sleeping beauty.

But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00 a faint electrical crackle is perceptible, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen, though the televisions plug has been pulled.

Strange nocturnal happenings, or a trick of the night?.