Book 2 Chapter 11: Hunger as Pain ● Kumiko's Long Letter ● Bird as Prophet (Pgs. 263-279) Summary

Toru remembers going to baseball games with his father as a child. Eight minutes pass and he finally takes off his watch not wanting to be distracted by keeping track of the time. Startled at the prospect of going insane at the bottom of the well, he convinces himself that May is just playing a joke on him by leaving him all alone here. Later, he receives a letter for him addressed in Kumiko's hand. She writes to tell Toru her reasons for leaving him and that she will not be coming back to him - ever. Then she informs her husband that she never found their sexual relations pleasurable. Kumiko says that having the affair with the married...