Dadaoism (An Anthology)

by Oliver, Reggie

  *

  “And I also knew where I had to go,” Jason said. Kago-chan had listened attentively. Whether she understood him, he couldn’t tell, but she looked like she’d been affected. Perhaps it had been his voice that spoke of his sadness, perhaps she’d pieced the story together from the few words she understood.

  “So,” Jason went on, “that’s how I came to embark on a secret mission, and with the help of the other patients I stole my passport from the safe and broke out of there to travel to Japan, to search for my superheroes.”

  Jason thought about whether he should be pressing on as hard as he was. It probably would freak out Kago-chan if he piled so many expectations on her. He could have told her that any one of Goto Maki, Kamei Eri or Tsuji Nozomi could have saved him, but no, Kago-chan was the right one. Go slower, he warned himself.

  “I had a strange dream on the flight here,” Jason said. “I was descending stairs, into the bowels of night, the darkness of the Earth—the subway systems, the intestines of a city; I travelled through its digestive tracts in search of Annie, the dark princess; fires flickered in deserted stations, shadowy movements in unused tunnels, hundred-year-old unfinished ruins of chthonic dreams. She had to be down there, my Perséphone.

  “I had to free her from the claws of Hades; I left my iron carriage and continued on foot. A sword, I needed a sword! The dream had jumps. I was the hero of the story; I freed Annie from the monster’s grasp and she led me to her cave and there I lay for weeks, even months, naked, sunken into the earth like an unusual ornament stamped into the ground, staring up at the stony ceiling of the grotto. I felt insects gnawing at me. The few moments of joy I experienced consisted of Annie walking barefoot over me; sometimes she would mercifully stop on my face so that I could kiss the soles of her feet and lick them. Once she even stuffed her large toe into my mouth so that I could blissfully suck on that dainty digit, like a baby suckling at its mother’s breast. Between long intervals she’d piss on my heart. She had flayed open my ribs so that the dark-red mass inside was visible. After a while that irrigation came to fruition as a blackened plant germinated—a shrivelled, stony life—or heart-flower—which would open its petals like the wings of an emperor moth and sing a sad song.

  “What makes a life,

  Yearning, pain, suffering

  All of which are taken for granted

  “What makes a life,

  Loneliness, emptiness, ruefulness

  All of which have come before

  “I woke up just in time to watch our landing in Tokyo.”

  He told Kago-chan how he’d hounded people at her agency to find out where he could find her.

  “Then you don’t really want to kill yourself?” she asked.

  “I do. That is, actually I want to be saved.”

  “Like me, back then. I yearned for people to care about me, that they’d ask me how I am…” She went quiet for a moment. “Life is worth living,” she said.

  Jason made a non-committal gesture with his head. He wasn’t that convinced.

  “When I returned to my first performances,” she said, “after two years out of the media spotlight, all the fans who’d supported me before came over and wanted to shake my hand. It became clear to me how many people needed me. I’m prominent; compared with the average person I have a great deal going for me, which I’m thankful for. When I was eighteen or nineteen I didn’t grasp any of that.”

  “I’m also not exactly average,” Jason laughed at his bad joke. Kago-chan laughed along courteously.

  “You can realize your dreams, as you’ve seen,” she said. “You wanted to meet me and here you are.” It seemed to dawn on her where she was: late at night, middle of the forest, in what they called the suicide woods at the foot of Fuji Mountain.

  “But this is just a show,” Jason said. “The camera, you’re in a costume… even the fact that I bumped into you here was arranged…”

  “The frame might be the show, but what we’re experiencing here is real. It’s not any different from life—this is life. The world might have been set up by some God, society, whatever, but we act in it. In the roles we play, we realize ourselves.”

  Sounds like Sartre, thought Jason.

  “Maybe,” he said, “this is just another story of some guy sitting inside or outside of this world, who’s never met us and thinks he’s seen right through us.”

  “Hey, wait a minute!”

  “Nani?… Kowai! Did you hear that voice? Weird!”

  Even the cameraman winced and turned the lens into the night sky, pointing it at the spot where the voice had come from. There, floating above us was… me, my colossal face.

  “Now just one moment,” I said. “Don’t pretend you’re autonomous. I’ve set up this whole story to explain something…”

  After a perplexed pause, Jason was the first to understand what was going on.

  “Man, you’re an asshole!” he said. “You’re making us suffer here…”

  “Didn’t I let you meet Aibon?”

  “Great, but what’s come of it?”

  “Well, do you want to marry her now or not?”

  “Oy! Chotto! Chotto matte!” Kago-chan leapt to her feet.

  “Why don’t you all calm down? Jason, tell me, what have you discovered, now that you’ve finally met Aibon?”

  “Honestly?”

  I nodded.

  “I was disappointed.”

  Kago-chan pulled a face. “What? Why?”

  “Because I knew it wouldn’t go any further than this. I would meet you out here and everything would be exposed as a hallucination—nothing but a soap bubble, shabondama—or at least nothing would happen at the end except that I’d go back to my hotel room alone and leap from a cliff at dawn. Or, maybe even worse, there’d be a bullshit moment where I’d wake up with the realization that it was all just a dream like in so many other stories…”

  “But you know that Aibon has a father complex.”

  “Hey, that’s not true!” Kago-chan drew herself up. Her face tried ‘ironic irritation’.

  “Even if…” Jason began, “I don’t feel like a father. Actually, I don’t even feel older than twenty-five. But that still doesn’t make me interesting or attractive.”

  “Aibon doesn’t have that much to offer, either; I mean, she isn’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse, is she?”

  “That’s true,” she said, as if she wanted to talk Jason out of falling in love with her.

  “But for that she’s got such a great personality and isn’t she just soooooo beautiful,” Jason sighed.

  I gave Jason a moment to sink into his own thoughts. Then I went on:

  “So. What am I going to do with the two of you? I’d say you should start with leaving this forest and finding something to eat. I’ll pull back and give you a chance to decide for yourselves what you want to do.” There was a dramatic pause. “Ganbatte ne! Good luck! Do what you think is best!”

  They carefully picked their way back to the street, followed by the cameraman, who, wanting to grab a taxi back to Tokyo (he’d always dreamt of doing that), said goodbye to them by the parked minibus.

  Jason, who wasn’t used to driving on the left-hand side of the road, but wasn’t fazed by it, sat down behind the steering wheel. Kago-chan took the passenger seat.

  “Anything against ‘Saa! Koibito ni Narou’?1” Jason asked.

  “OK,” she said.

  He put on the CD.

  The car drove off, towards the sunrise. I watched the rear lights until they were lost in the chaos of other cars. Have a good journey!

  Fighting Back

  Rhys Hughes

  There was a tangible air of anticipation and worry in the Star Chamber of the Universal Bank as the Twelve Supreme Presidents took their seats and waited for the proceedings to begin. This special council had been summoned by President #5, Ramon Asquith, whose speciality was financial history. Every time Ramon called a meeting something curious happened. The others wer
e acutely aware of this.

  The Star Chamber was not star shaped, nor was the table at which the Presidents sat, but the ceiling was adorned with silver stars, many of them peeling and tarnished. The ceiling was too high to make regular maintenance of these objects worthwhile. Nobody ever looked up anyway. There were more important things to consider. The Presidents were about to be forcefully reminded of this fact.

  Ramon Asquith wasted little time. He stood and greeted his comrades with a curt nod. Then he said:

  “To outside observers the Universal Bank might appear to be one of the greatest success stories in the history of business. All banks have merged into one gigantic financial house. We are the controllers of that house. And yet we are suffering from a deep malaise. We have expanded as far as possible, covering the entire earth, absorbing all economies. All the money in existence belongs to us.”

  The other Presidents began to applaud, but Ramon silenced them with a scowl. “This is not a good thing,” he snapped. “It means there are no more profits to be made anywhere.”

  He slammed his fist down on the table. “There is no space left for us to grow. Gentlemen, we are stuck.”

  There was an uneasy muttering at these words.

  After a suitable pause, Ramon continued with a smile, “My latest research into financial history leads me to conclude there was only one person who might have had a solution to this problem — Jakob Fugger, the greatest banker of all time.”

  Livia Turandot, President #2, rubbed her long chin angrily. “That’s all very well, but it’s not much use to us. Fugger died in 1526. We can hardly dig him up for a consultation.”

  Ramon did not alter his expression. “Time travel.”

  “It hasn’t been developed yet,” objected Vikram Brown, President #9, glancing at his watch for confirmation.

  “Exactly!” cried Ramon. “But within a few centuries it will be. Our successors can travel back to the 16th Century and ask Fugger for his advice. Then they can return to their own time and start implementing his suggestions. All we are required to do here is hold tight until time travel is invented.”

  “Can we last that long? There are already groups of rebels in every city attempting to sabotage the Universal Bank’s transactions and intimidate or confuse our staff.”

  “They are becoming bolder,” agreed President #7, Anzolo Galen.

  “Technological progress is inevitable,” said Ramon calmly. “It may even happen that time travel is invented much sooner than we anticipate, perhaps in the next few decades.”

  Boris Ageyev, President #11, shook his head. “Nothing is inevitable, I’m afraid. Some of those rebel groups are even trying to build nuclear weapons in private laboratories.”

  “The irresponsible little fools!” snorted Livia.

  Vikram licked his lips. “A major nuclear war could set civilisation back five thousand years.”

  Ramon frowned thoughtfully. “Five thousand years? That’s too far.” His frown remained but his eyes sparkled until they resembled two stars that had fallen from the ceiling and settled onto his face. “A major nuclear war, you said?”

  *

  Alice the maid wiped sweat from her brow with a cloth as she waited for the kettle to boil on the fire. Not all her sweat was produced by the heat of the burning logs. Some of it was due to anxiety. The future had suddenly become more uncertain.

  She was distracted by a sudden noise from the courtyard. She tried to peer through the kitchen window but it was too grimy with grease and soot to afford any clear view. Somebody was stamping about on the frosty cobbles outside. Then the door was thrown open and a man staggered into the kitchen. Alice stifled a gasp.

  He was a leper or the carrier of some other awful disease. His body was almost shapeless and his clothes hung in rags. How had he managed to get into the courtyard past the guards? She recoiled but he clutched her arms and started babbling at her.

  “Don’t be afraid, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m from the future. I don’t expect you to believe that but I don’t have the energy to invent a plausible lie. I’m here on urgent business.”

  Alice frowned. He spoke very bad German in a very strange accent. She pulled away from him but he followed her towards the stove, trapping her in a corner. Then he added:

  “I’m here to see Jakob Fugger. I don’t have an appointment but when he hears what I have to say I think he’ll forgive the intrusion. You are one of his servants? My name is Ramon Asquith and I have travelled from the year 2110. I know what you’re thinking, nobody can move backwards in time, and in fact we weren’t able to until very recently, recently in my time that is. I had a great idea, you see. It was inspired by something a colleague said, an offhand remark.”

  Alice fought to keep calm. “What did he say?”

  “It won’t mean much to you, but he said that ‘a major nuclear war could set civilisation back five thousand years’. I realised that I only had to travel back five hundred and eighty-four years, so it occurred to me that perhaps a minor nuclear war would do the trick. My organisation arranged a small nuclear conflict with Luxembourg. It set civilisation back exactly five hundred and fifty years. Then I used ordinary explosives, a great deal of dynamite in fact, to travel back another thirty years. But I still had four years to cross. I managed that with a machine gun.”

  “I think you are a madman,” said Alice defiantly.

  “To set civilisation back smaller and smaller lengths of time, such as months, weeks and days, I had to employ smaller and smaller weapons, for instance pistols, knives and knuckledusters. After making these adjustments I finally arrived at the right moment, the day of Jakob Fugger’s death. I need to ask him a question before he expires. Please take me to him as quickly as possible. I don’t have much time left myself. The radiation poisoning is starting to kill me.”

  Alice glared at him triumphantly. “You are too late. My master died exactly one hour ago. I am making tea for the physician who attended him during his last moments.”

  Ramon sighed deeply. “In that case I still need to make one final adjustment. My open palm should be enough to set civilisation back one more hour. I’m sorry about this Alice, but I’m going to have to slap you to complete my journey properly.”

  While he was speaking, Alice reached for the kettle on the stove and swung it at his head with all her strength. The hot metal cracked against his skull. He collapsed to his knees, boiling water streaming down his bruised, shredded face.

  “Not so hard as that,” he gasped as he keeled over. Alice had set him back forever. She wasn’t dismayed in the slightest. Madmen had no right entering the houses of their superiors.

  *

  There was a tangible air of depression and weariness in the Star Chamber of the Universal Bank as the other Supreme Presidents squatted on the dirt floor and fanned away the flies. The ceiling was open to the sky and the walls were made of papyrus reeds but it was more pleasant here than outside in the baking sun.

  “How were we to know that a minor nuclear war with Luxembourg would escalate into a major nuclear war with all the other countries?” asked Livia Turandot somewhat rhetorically.

  “Now civilisation really has been set back five thousand years!” muttered Vikram Brown ruefully.

  “Four thousand seven hundred and twenty years to be precise,” corrected Boris Ageyev.

  “We have to start our business again from the beginning!” grumbled Livia. “It hardly seems fair.”

  “At least it gives us a sense of purpose,” pointed out Vikram.

  “Well, I have a really good idea,” said Boris. “Instead of buying goods with other goods, such as exchanging a cow for a sack of corn, why don’t we have a system whereby the goods can be represented by a small token? We could call this system ‘money’ and use pieces of metal called ‘coins’ as the medium of exchange.”

  “It’s certainly worth thinking about,” the others agreed.

  A man entered the Star Chamber. It was Ollie Natty, President #1, S
upreme President of the Supreme Presidents. He was very old and very withered and he squinted in the relative gloom of the building.

  “I’ve been sent to fetch you back to work,” he announced gloomily. “Break time is over.”

  They followed him out into the bright day. Ahead loomed the rising profile of the pyramid they were building.

  (2005)

  Nowhere Room

  Kristine Ong Muslim

  after Mike Worrall’s “The Never Ever Room” (1998)

  Oil on panel, 122 × 155cm.

  Theophilus is wedged on the wooden floor of his temperature-regulated chamber called Childhood. Drawing the moths during summertime, a 50-watt switch bulb dangles from the ceiling.

  His mother said: “You only fill one small room when you die so there’s no sense in occupying more rooms while you are still alive.”

  He nods, never talks back.

  “A good parent can either teach you to forage or to be safe. I choose to keep you safe.” Then she slams the door, only to reappear at the end of the day to bring him food.

  Each day, Theophilus grows bigger, older. His limbs approximate those of a man. His senses of smell and hearing become more acute.

  Outside, the schoolchildren taunt him, throw stones on the window glass, leer at him—that pale-skinned boy anchored to the floor of his room since birth. Theophilus will not admit it, but he covets the schoolchildren’s teeth ruined by too much candy and soda. He admires their unruly hair, which smells of summertime. He loves to hear them call him “ugly” because it makes him feel unique and important.

  Each day, the windows and doors shrink a little. In time, not even his finger will fit.

  Koda Kumi

  (A Justin Isis remix of ‘Italiannetto’ by Quentin S. Crisp)

  What do you think of the salmon?