Read "1Q84 Book 3: October - December" by Haruki Murakami online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Tengo's father's corpse was dressed in his neatly ironed NHK fee collector's uniform and placed inside the simple coffin. Probably the cheapest coffin available, it was a sullen little casket that looked only slightly more sturdy than the boxes for castella cakes. The deceased was a small person, yet there was barely any room to spare. The casket was made of plywood, and had minimal ornamentation. "Is this casket all right? " the funeral director had asked, making sure. "It's fine," Tengo replied. This was the casket his father had chosen from the catalog, for which he had prepaid. If the deceased had no problem with it, then neither did Tengo.
Dressed in his NHK uniform, lying in the crude coffin, his father didn't look dead. He looked like he was taking a nap on a work break and would soon get up, put on his cap, and go out to collect the rest of the fees. The uniform, with the NHK logo sewed into it, looked like a second skin. He was born in this uniform and would leave this world in the same way as he went up in flames. When Tengo actually saw him in it, he couldn't imagine his father wearing anything else. Just like Wagner's warriors on their funeral pyre could only be dressed in armor.