The payment of the bills and the buying of the groceries are the only things that claim definitive endings for him that day. After meditating on what the day has brought him (adamantly denying that he had brought these things upon himself), his annoyance eventually drives him out of the house to perform chores his wife had imparted unto him. Confused and disgusted, he hangs up on her himself. Soon after, the first woman then calls back, and begins to describe her 'alluring' body to him in graphic detail. He was barely into his accusative speech when his wife also interrupts him, before leaving him speaking to dial tone for the second time that day. He instantly questions why his wife knew about the abandoned home in the first place, and his nonchalance for the animal practicals rains down from his words. Later that day his wife calls him, and upon reminding him to look for their cat in an abandoned she suspected it's staying in, he spirals off on an angry tangent. Being a man who spent years shuffling around an office for those who he had once aspired to become, the protagonist is well aware of the importance of little things, but seems to think they only need to work in his favor- he had wanted to hang up on the woman, but she steals that pleasure away from him, and he stews over it for the entire day. When an anonymous person on the phone asks for ten minutes of his time, he becomes visibly irritated, and responds to them swiftly and harshly, before (much to his surprise), the mystery caller hangs up on him. His actions show that while he has grown to hold many responsibilities over the years, he portrays his childish side without restraint, from the description of how he quit his stable, well-paying job with nothing to show for it, and how he communicates with those around him.

The phone rings a room away, and immediately he is tossed down a hole in which he remains for the rest of the day. The story begins with the unnamed protagonist cooking spaghetti to Rossini's La Gazza Ladra. The short story shows that while people will always transform as they grow older, the core beliefs and traits that defined them in their youth remain standing by them eternally. It begins with one day of an unemployed middle-aged man's life, but as the story drives on it slyly slips to a global scale, all while only maintaining one man's point of view. Though it has no definitive plot, it grabs hold of the conflicting emotions associated with aging, relationships, and life's meandering roll through time. While Murakami is known for stories that seem to exist on a separate human plane marked by a powerful inaccessibility, 'The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday's Women' is more local than it first seems.

The wind up bird and tuesday's women