“Birthday Girl,” by Haruki Murakami

“There was something cold and hard about her: if you set her afloat on the nighttime sea, she would probably sink any boat that happened to ram her.”

“The heavy aroma of cooked chicken quickly filled the little elevator. It mingled with the smell of the rain. Water droplets dotted the floor, suggesting that someone with a wet umbrella had recently been aboard.”

The exercise:
Write a paragraph about something someone inadvertently left behind.
Or describe an essential part of someone’s character in a single sentence.