That mystery grew less perplexing after John visited Dan Olson. Dan and his family had since moved to mild San Francisco. His work as a lawyer kept him busy, and his time on the island seemed a distant memory. Linda attended a local middle school and visited nearby Cleveland Clinic once per year to check for relapse. That year would be her last exam. By this point, Linda’s erstwhile battle with cancer had faded from her young mind, and she no longer even remembered her past suffering. As a patient who had experienced full recovery from late-stage neuroblastoma, Linda’s was an exceptional case. Unfortunately, no other patients were to benefit from the Olson miracle. When John asked if there was perhaps at least a small sample remaining of the Hope Shore sea squirt, Dan’s answer was a flat no.
“I sold my soul to the devil in exchange for my daughter’s life. But it was you people,” he said, a hateful gleam in his eyes, “the doctors and the researchers, who let that devil lie.” Having spoken his piece, he smiled.
As John prepared to leave, Dan shared his own theory on Tom Anderson’s death. Tom had spent his life eating the Hope Shore sea squirt. Perhaps that explained why onset was delayed in his case.
“He was a regular customer at that restaurant, and whenever a new catch would come in, he was always the first to order it. He told me once that part of the reason he became a doctor on such a small island so early in his career was because he loved seafood. And the Hope Shore sea squirt was his favorite. If they were suppressing his cancer, then that might explain his cravings.”
“I owe much to Tom Anderson,” said Dan, “and I’m the one who killed him.”
John later published an essay in The Lancet recounting the strange tale of the Hope Shore sea squirt. Afterwards he revisited the island several times in search of the creatures. They were, however, no longer to be found. According to John, their anti-carcinogenic properties were likely many hundredfold that of the Caribbean Sea specimen. Dan Olson, whose “selfish and unethical” behavior came under criticism from certain segments of the scientific community, also passed away this past year from stomach cancer. Desperate to save her husband, Mrs. Olson had begged Mariko to search once more for the Hope Shore sea squirt. After a week of diving without success in freezing winter seas, Mariko was forced to concede defeat. It seemed the elusive Hope Shore sea squirt had become a true enigma, forever lost to this world.
The week after Dan died, a short obituary ran in a corner of Newsweek about “The Man Who Saved his Daughter and No One Else.” Biting in tone, the obituary explained how, against all odds, one man had obliterated an entire species in exchange for his daughter’s life. “In short,” the piece ended, “it’s another case where the extinction of a seemingly inconsequential species has proved of tremendous misfortune to the human race.”
AFTERWORD
It was in 2005, when I came to be employed by the University of Texas, that I brought into the offices of Vertical, Inc. a puerile translation I had attempted of a story of mine. Since then, both Vertical and I have seen much, so I am all the more moved that my work is being published in English today, some ten years later. I am deeply grateful to Mr. Mentzas, who remained passionate even after changes in the company’s ownership, and Mr. Sakai, the former president. While my fiction has previously appeared in Russia and China, being published in English, the standard language of medical papers, has a special significance for someone like myself who works in the field. Though I wrote the stories in Japanese, they inhabit a space that could not be further removed from Japanese literature, which is obsessed with style; they are denizens of the anglophone sphere, likely the most amenable to describing science.
On a very personal note, that day when I brought in the manuscript, I lost something immense. Somewhere on my cab ride from New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal to Vertical, my Olympus camera and Canon video which had captured my daughter Miyu walking for the first time went missing. Although I immediately posted this on the city’s message board, I never heard anything, and by now I’m reconciled with the probability that they’ve been burned as trash. Still, I resolved to post it in an afterword (as on an expansive message board) if and when my stories saw the light of day. Perhaps this is because loss and rebirth are eternal themes that I’ve pursued. The report on the winged mouse is certainly a tale of loss and rebirth. Loss, rebirth, loss … the final rebirth, however, never came to pass in the story.
The Center, which had been tasked with this as the base of winged mouse research, shut down on February 14, 2001 due to financial difficulties, and all that remains now is a marker on its former premises. Moreover, most of the staff from back then have left the city of Fukagawa. Yet, just as a lost memory always has a slim chance of popping back and showing its face, a winged mouse surviving somewhere might still be found and announced as the discovery of the century—or at least, I hold on to such a hope, akin to a conviction. In fact, since the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, I’ve received emails about winged mice lurking under eerily glowing midwinter weed in an area with restricted access, etc. I welcome reports of sightings of winged mice, as I do any word on my camera.
Tatsuaki Ishiguro
June 2, 2015
Biogenesis Page 19