The Life We Didn't Live

An interpretation of Haruki Murakami's Drive My Car

Written By Devyani Rawat

[Math honours 3rd year]

Every road holds a life we could have lived.

What if Kafuku and Misaki had taken a different one?

In another universe, Kafuku married Misaki.

Sometimes, he wondered what that life would have looked like.

She was already his driver. His wife was still alive, and Kafuku was still pretending that his marriage was fine. Misaki, quiet and observant, slowly became someone he could talk to without feeling the need to explain himself.

He began taking longer routes home just to stay in the car a little longer.

But in this universe, he wondered what would happen if those conversations had led somewhere else.

He imagined Misaki sitting beside him at home, not behind the wheel. He imagined ordinary evenings, shared meals, small arguments, and silences that did not always need to be filled.

Maybe they would fall in love.

Maybe they wouldn't.

Kafuku imagined that being understood by Misaki would make everything easier. But even in this other life, he would still be Kafuku. He would still struggle to say what he felt. He would still carry the things he had never learned to express.

One evening, he imagined Misaki asking him a simple question.

“Are you happy?”

He wanted to say yes.

But he couldn't.

And perhaps that was when he realised that the problem was never simply about whom he loved. Maybe he had spent too much time believing that a different person or a different life would have changed everything.

He imagined that they might stay together. Maybe they would build a life that was quiet and imperfect. Maybe they would eventually grow apart.

He would never know.

When Kafuku returned to reality, Misaki was still his driver. The road was still in front of them, and the life he imagined existed only somewhere in his mind.

Maybe they could have been more than what they became.

Or maybe some people enter our lives not to stay, but to change the direction we're going in.

And perhaps that is what Misaki did for Kafuku.

She did not give him another life.

She simply helped him see the life he already had differently.

Edited by: [Akshita Chandel]

[English honours, 1st year]