Trích KAFKA ON THE SHORE - Murakami Haruki

[…]

“ Tell me something,” Hoshino began.
“What?”
“Are you really Colonel Sanders?”
Colonel Sanders cleared his throat. “Not really. I’m just taking on his apperance for a time.”
“That’s what I figured,” Hoshino said. “So what are you really?”
“I don’t have a name.”
“How do you get along without one?”
“No problem. Originally I don’t have a name or a shape.”
“So you’re kind of like a fart.”
“You could say that. Since I don’t have a shape, I can become anything I want.”


[..]

“Dressing up like Colonel Sanders fits your character, too.”
“But I don’t have a character. Or any feelings. Shape I may take, converse I may, but neither God nor Buddha am I, rather an insensate being whose heart thus differs from that of man.”
“What the -?”
“ A line from Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Moonlight and Rain. I doubt you’ve read it.”
“You got me there.”
“I’m appearing here in human form, but I’m neither God nor Buddha. My heart works differently from humans’ hearts because I don’t have any feelings. That’s what I mean.”
“Hmm,” Hoshino said. “I’m not sure I follow, but what you’re saying is you’re not a person and not a God or Buddha either, right?”
“Neither God nor Buddha, just the insensate. As such, of the good and bad of man I neither inquire nor follow.”
“Meaning?”
“Since I’m neither God nor Buddha, I don’t need to judge whether people are good or evil. Likewise I don’t have to act according to standards of good and evil.”
“In other words you exist beyond good and evil.”
“You’re too kind. I’m not beyond good and evil, exactly – they just don’t matter to me. I have no idea what’s good or what’s evil. I’m a very pragmatic being. A neutral object, as it were, and all I care about is consummating the function I’ve been given to perform.” [..] As I explain, I don’t have have any form. I’m a metaphysical, conceptual object. I can take on any form, but I lack substance. And to perform a real act, I need someone with substance to help out.”

[...]