by Weston Ochse
A shout drew his attention. One of the firemen had paused in his running, only to remove his mask and, with an expression of supreme horror, point back down the street the way Itoro had come.
A throng of two hundred marched up the street, the sound of their shuffling feet like angry whispers in a cave. They held their hands and arms out and above them, their burns too painful to touch, clearly unwilling to allow their arms to come into contact with anything. Like Armageddon zombies, they lurched along, vocal chords sizzled by the blast, unable to make any other sound except moans of pain. Where they went, a trail of skin and blood traveled behind. From pieces no larger than a hand to swathes of several feet, the skin crawled along the ground following the throng.
As Itoro watched, a piece of skin fell away from an elderly woman's arm. The people behind her trampled it, but once it cleared the traffic, the skin lurched forward as if tugged by an invisible string. Unwilling to be left behind, it followed, as if given the chance it would reattach itself and become whole once more.
A memory surfaced. April on the shoulders of Mount Fuji when he and Myomi spent the whole hanami in silence. They didn't need to speak to each other. They felt a kinship through their touching fingers as they witnessed the snow falling along the cherry tree boughs, catching like blossoms and twinkling in cold air. God how he'd loved her then.
Itoro spun and found a yard-long length of skin wrapped around his left leg. He clawed at it, and with the help of his right foot, was able to pry it away. He kicked it and stepped back. When the skin hit the ground, it stilled for a moment, then came for him again.
Backpedaling, true fear spiked through him. Fear of living, fear of pain, fear of fire, every fear paled in comparison to the fear of losing self. He'd never thought he'd need to worry about it, but the unbidden memories terrified him. Where was the dividing line between self and others? In the train station it was that melted connection that separated everyone. But what about memories? How many of someone else's memories could a person have before they were no longer themselves and became that other person? Was it the way a person looked that defined them, or who they were inside?
He'd never been to Mount Fuji. He didn't know a woman named Myomi. Whoever's memory that had been, Itoro had felt the bottomless chasm of love the man had possessed for the woman, and in feeling it, realized that the owner of the memory was dead and would most certainly never feel that way again...unless Itoro allowed the skin to become a part of him.
Once again he ran.
Past the fire brigade.
Past the ruined gardens.
Past the market where he'd bought flowers for Katsumi last week to commemorate their anniversary.
People lay dead and dying everywhere. Occasionally he passed a man or woman staggering in the street, odd pieces of skin clinging desperately to them. Itoro knew what that meant and shuddered at every iteration. Did they even know who they were anymore?
He finally lost his breath only a half-mile from home. He'd have to walk the rest of the way. His legs ached almost as badly as his arms and back. His cheek throbbed. Drawing a hand to it, he realized for the first time that it would leave a scar. How horrible would it look? Would his face scare his son? What of his wife? He'd never been the handsomest man in Hiroshima, but he was delighted that Katsumi seemed to think so. Would she still love him with such a scar as this would leave?
The sound of a song caught him, bringing memories of his youth past the horrible clarity of the present. It was a warabe-uta known as Tōryanse, a children's song he'd sung as a young boy. More than a song, it was also a game. He and a friend would hold their arms together and sing the song while others walked between them. The person who walked through at the song's end was caught.
The words came crystal clear in the ruined air.
Tōryanse, tōryanse
Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja?
Tenjin-sama no hosomichi ja
Chotto tōshite kudashanse
Goyō no nai mono tōshasenu
He followed the sound through the smoke and destruction until he spied a woman standing in the middle of Miyuki Bridge. From a distance she looked like a courtesan pausing to gaze at the carp before continuing across to the other side. She held a red paper umbrella to keep the rain from wetting her coifed hair. Her body hugged her kimono. Cranes dipped and swooped through the pattern of the material.
The water of Miyuki River was black with soot. Bodies bobbed along like flotsam. One turned in the water, the face coming into view. He knew this one. She'd sold him fish on Thursdays. She'd always had a sweet smile, all the more sweeter for her youth. The image should have shocked, but the song soothed him as the woman sung it over and over. She started it again.
His mother had sung it to him as a child. His wife had sung it to his son. He'd sung it as a child, the meaning wrapped in the mortality and the achievements of life. But why was this strange ephemeral woman singing this song? What did it mean? Itoro had read and heard about phantom visitations since he was a child. Could this be one of them? Perhaps it was Amaterasu, the beautiful goddess of the sun, come to the darkness of Hiroshima to bear witness and see the devastation before she'd once again shine her healing rays upon the city. Perhaps she'd appeal to her brothers, Susanowa and Tsuki-yomi, who shared the power of governing the universe and ask them if they'd avenge the murder of Hiroshima.
Itoro quickened his step and hurried towards the bridge. But the closer he got, the more different she looked. What he'd taken for a crane pattern kimono seemed strangely misshapen, her body completely filling out the fabric. Tears dripped from her eyes as she stared at the bodies. Black rain sluiced off her umbrella. Her bare feet were mangled and broken. And then he saw it and realized why her kimono looked so strange as it undulated, an edge folding against her skin, tighter, becoming her.
It never was a kimono. The cranes had the quality of line art created by a master tattoo artist. They indeed swooped and dived, each carrying a spark of life from their creator. But they hadn't been drawn on fabric, but on skin, and what was wrapped around the woman had never belonged to her. Instead, it had probably belonged to a yakuza or some gambler whose largess had always been destined to become the garb for this phantom goddess at the end of the world.
Knowing the nature of the skins, Itoro could only guess that she hadn't been fast enough to outrun it.
And her tears?
Were they falling because of what she gazed upon or was it because she'd lost herself, becoming someone she'd never even known existed before? Even now she was stuck in the loop of the song, singing the verse over and over; more the tragic, her haunting voice filled him with its beauty.
Then he noticed a power line that had somehow survived the devastation across from the river. Birds hung from the line, or rather skin hung like birds. And as he watched, several disengaged themselves, took flight and headed towards him. With the Tōryanse in his ears and his heart in his throat, he somehow found the strength to run the little way he still had to go. Reaching down, he grasped a piece of metal and began to swing it at the skin-birds as they sought to land on him.
He was so close to home, so close to his wife and child— he couldn't lose himself so near the end. Here and there homes still stood, battered and beaten, but still a home where the occupants could count on the protection of the walls and the comfort of a sturdy ceiling.
Skins swooped and grasped at him, but he wouldn't let them attach. His family had once been samurai, so he wielded the metal as if it was the finest sword, and he was the strongest warrior. The skin birds tripped him once, but he managed to get back to his feet with only the memory of a recipe for kuromame to remind of how close he'd come.
When he turned onto his street, it was with a scream of joy. He found himself laughing as he swung and batted away the skin-birds that seemed increasingly desperate to attach to him. He spied his house halfway down the block, still standing and barely damaged. Warm shards of joy skewered his doubts as he realized that
he was almost home.
Everything was going to be okay.
I am Itoro Haruki.
I am Itoro Haruki.
My wife is Katsumi.
My son is Mynami.
Suddenly a skin-bird struck him full in the face. He dropped the metal bar. As it clanged to the street, he used both hands to claw at the skin as foul memories intruded.
...taste of her sweet clean skin.
...smell of jasmine at the hollow of her throat.
...stickiness of the blood seeping from my slash across her stomach.
No! He screamed. He didn't see a face in the memory, but it reminded him too much of Katsumi. His torso lurched and twisted as he grasped the skin with both hands and jerked it free. A window had broken on the house next door and Itoro impaled the dread thing on a spike of broken glass.
Then he dashed for the front door. He tried the latch. It was unlocked. He rushed inside. Slamming the door behind him, he placed his back to the door. There on the mat against the wall were his wife and son. Huddled together, they stared at him. He experienced both delight and panic in the single second that their gazes locked.
The memory of the murder had nothing to do with Katsumi. She and his son were alive. But the look in their eyes. Was it the scar? Was it so bad? He turned to check it in the mirror near the door and saw that it was indeed a horrific wound. A palm-sized piece of skin had been ripped free when he'd disengaged himself from the man he'd been behind at the train station. But perhaps it would heal without much scarring if he took care of it. In the meantime, if it scared her so much he'd keep it covered.
"Katsumi, I was so worried," he said, turning back around. "Mynami, my son, how are you?"
He stepped towards them, causing his wife and child to draw their feet up as they huddled closer together. The abject terror in their eyes didn't match the joy that had come home to his heart.
"What's wrong? Are you worried about this?" he asked, pointing to his cheek. "We can get that fixed." He stepped closer and Katsumi opened her mouth to scream, so he stepped back. "My darling, what's wrong? Why are you so scared?"
"Get out of my house," she stammered.
"But Katsumi—"
"I don't know how you know my name, but stop using it!"
Thoughts swept through his mind. Was there someone else in the house? Was she trying to warn him? What had happened for her to act this way?
"Daddy is on backwards, mommy."
"I know, honey. Don't look."
On backwards? He felt his naked chest and back and couldn't decipher the meaning of his son's cryptic statement.
But the child wouldn't be hushed. "Daddy's tattoo. It's on this man's chest. Did he steal it, mommy? Did he steal daddy's tattoo?"
Itoro's eyes shot wide. He examined the skin from his chest, remembering how he'd had to peel away from the man in front of him. And there in the center of his chest surrounded by blackened skin was the line-drawing of a dragon, wings folded in, claws wrapped around a sword. He'd had that tattoo done on his eighteenth birthday to match his father's. Haruki men had dragon tattoos going back to the reformation when they'd once been a powerful clan. Having the symbol tattooed on their backs was to remind them that they'd once worn the symbol proudly on the backs of their armor. He remembered how much the tattoo had hurt and how he'd bloodied his lip by biting down on it, damned if he'd show pain in front of his father.
Daddy is on backwards, his son had said.
How had the tattoo moved from his back to his front?
That's impossible unless...
He stared imploringly at his wife and son.
"I am Itoro Haruki," he said.
They shook their heads.
Then he realized that Itoro Haruki had died in that train station. Perhaps by heart attack or by the explosion sucking the oxygen from his lungs or by the sheer weight of the men who'd melted together, the man who'd once been Itoro Haruki was dead. He'd died, but his spirit had lived on, needing desperately to return to his family. Like the skin from the little schoolgirl or the skin-birds hanging from the line, his mortal remains had lived on after his death, striving to find a home for his memories.
His body was that of the man behind him.
His soul was his own.
So who was he?
He became as frightened as the woman he'd thought was his wife as he realized that he did not have the answer, might never have the answer, and was as lost as the woman on the bridge who could only sing that song as the bodies bobbed past and Hiroshima fell all around them.
***
Story Notes: I was invited to an anthology called A Dark and Deadly Valley. The idea was to write horror stories based on different events of WW II. I wasn’t given a choice. The editor assigned the bombing of Hiroshima to me and I was daunted. Not only was it a terrible thing for the Japanese, but it was also a terrible thing to have done. It was a lose-lose, and I was supposed to write about it somehow without doing a pastiche or inadvertently being disrespectful. Consequently, I spent a lot of time researching the event. What happened in the train station actually happened, hundreds of men melted together as they waited to go to work. So I began there and focused my story on the nature of identity.
NOW SHOWING ON SCREEN 12
The Crossing of Aldo Ray
Starring Aldo Ray as a father who only wants to
return to America in order to save his child
“Puts the whole mess of illegal border crossing and desperation in a whole new light.”
–Homeland Security Weekly
Soundtrack by Blue Oyster Cult
“Deep in each man is theknowledge that something
knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot
be fled nor hid from.”
—Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
In the long cold evening with the darkness dripping from the sky, I stood among them all. I, Aldo Ray, was ready to cross. I was ready to die. I was ready to do anything so long as I could get home. I had to get to my son. He had been taken and here I was, caught on the wrong side of the border.
A breeze smelling of sage and tumbleweeds swept across us. I swayed with those around me, allowing the wind to push me as if I were a stalk of wheat or a wildflower along the side of the road. To do anything else would be human, and they were far removed from human.
So was I.
We moved forward into the fence. We pressed as one. I could feel it give. I could feel it groan. In answer, we all groaned, adding our miserable symphony to the wind that raced along the thin barrier of metal all the way to the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other.
We had walked for two days, dragging, tripping, stumbling through torpid heat and bone-chilling cold. El muertos did not feel anything anymore, but for us animados it was all too real. We wanted to wipe the sweat from our faces and clutch our arms to our bodies, but we could not. El caminar muertos never would. The walking dead felt nothing. Nothing except the need to feed, to find that which they had lost, to move towards something they could no longer understand. And because they would not, neither could we—to survive meant mimicking as best we could this dance of the dead across the roiling sands of the Sonoran Desert.
Los Vaqueros began following us on the second day. They rode far out in the shadows of our crossing, careful not to let the muertos see their movement. Some said they were Mexican Army. Others that they were enchantadors and the reason for the muertos. Whatever they were, they could not really stop us. They just hovered on the edge of my vision, lean mirages twisting with an equine grace that left me longing to be alive once more.
But that was not to be. I was dead, or at least the muertos thought so. And that was the secret. They could not smell, nor did they seem to have any supernatural ability to realize that I was alive. But they could tell by movement the difference between animado and muerto. They could hear us and know from our speech that we were alive. The trick, as I had discovered on my two previous crossings, wa
s to move like them, regardless of what might happen.
In front and behind me, I knew of four other animados like myself. Two of us were trying to get back to our families. Another worked for the Zetas out of Nuevo Laredo. He was a sicario and muled drugs across the border. The last was an Americano who had gotten drunk, been robbed, and sought to return to his home. It was an irony that he had to pretend to be a dead one of us in order to get back to where he belonged so he could live.
He had approached me a week before, after having sought me out in Puerto Peñasco, on the Sea of Cortez, where I was trying to earn enough money to pay the Coyotes for safe passage across the fence. A shrimp-boat captain I knew pointed me out as one who knew how to cross.
“I need to get back,” he had said.
“No way. Usted está en América. Usted no puede pretender estar muerto muy bien.”
“But I can pretend to be dead,” he argued. “I’ll do what it takes. All I want is to go home.”
I still turned him down. How can someone from a land that is so alive be any good at pretending to be dead? And I would have never have shown him had I not gotten the call from mi esposa telling me that my son had disappeared from the playground. Some predator had stolen him and I needed to return. So I taught the Americano, also knowing that I might need him to help me if it came to that.
“Are you sure they can’t tell I’m alive?”
I remember how remarkable it was that he never once disbelieved in the muertos. He took it for granted that they were real—so American to believe so easily.
Then we had lain on the ground pretending to be dead, our bodies covered in pig’s blood and entrails until the herd had appeared. They came from the Black Sand, heading inexorably towards a lonely spot in the desert where it looked like the dunes met sky. When they came grunting and groaning over the top of us, the hardest thing was to keep still. We let them stagger above us, taking us for fellow muertos. The herd was halfway over me when in a state of electric terror I slowly lurched to my feet and joined them in their northbound shuffle.