Welcome to the NHK!

by Tatsuhiko Takimoto

  “M-maybe he did.”

  “Okay then, next question. ‘Mikka Tororo[29] was delicious.’”

  I knew this one. “It’s the marathon runner Kokichi Tsuburaya’s death note.”

  “Ping pong, ping pong![30] That’s right! It’s amazing you knew that.”

  I couldn’t really brag about knowing famous people’s last words, but Misaki praised me anyway. She sounded oddly taken with the contents of that death note, “Mikka Tororo… this is like some kind of joke, isn’t it?”

  “Conversely, that might be why people are struck by it.”

  “I see. That really clears things up for me”, she said, nodding repeatedly. “Tsuburaya, the runner, apparently went home to the countryside right before he died. Then, he ate grated yam with his mother and father, it says.”

  “Hm.”

  “I guess everyone wants to return to their hometowns before they die, after all.”

  “Now that you mention it, Misaki, are you from this city?”

  “No, I’m not. The north star is in that direction… so I’m probably from over there.” Misaki pointed in a north-by-northwest direction.

  She said the name of a town I didn’t know and explained that it was a small town on the Sea of Japan, with a population of five thousand. According to her, it supposedly had a beautiful cape, but that cape had become a somewhat notorious spot for suicides.

  “Ever since some famous person jumped off its cliff during the Meiji era, it’s like it’s become a Mecca for suicides. They say that so many people either jumped deliberately or slipped and fell accidentally that they had to construct safety barriers to prevent further incidents. When I was little, I didn’t know anything about that and was always playing on those bluffs. One day, I saw a strange woman there.”

  Misaki continued, “She was by the cliff’s edge, on the high cape. It was a beautiful early evening, and the sky was a bright red. The woman, too, was beautiful.”

  “And?”

  “I took my eyes off her for just a moment, and she vanished. Even now, I sometimes see her in my dreams. It might have just been a dream to begin with, though. I mean, she had a really cheerful smile on her healthy-looking face. Alone, she stared at the ocean and late-afternoon sun. And then, in that one short instant, as I glanced away, she disappeared. A strange story, isn’t it?”

  It was a strange story.

  “What could have happened? I think she should have at least left a suicide note—maybe about grated yam or something”, I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I want to eat some grated yam.”

  “It makes you itchy.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded.

  “It’s delicious, though, isn’t it?”

  The conversation had begun to stray. I, too, was exhausted, after all. But Misaki was laughing. “Ah, how fun, how happy. You think so, don’t you, Satou?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re coming to the end. The last day of the project is approaching.” Misaki returned the book to her bag. “I’ve given all these helpful lectures, Satou, so you should be just about ready to become a model adult, right?”

  Standing up from the bench, she said, “You understand now, don’t you? Why you’ve become a worthless person? Why you’ve become a hikikomori? You should understand by this point.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “If you think about it properly, you should definitely understand.”

  Still seated on the bench, I looked up at her. The park was so dark that only her silhouette was illuminated. I couldn’t see the expression on her face.

  “I’m nearly out of time. I can’t cause any more trouble for my aunt and uncle, so I’m going to leave town.”

  Her tone was absolutely casual, so I listened to her calmly.

  “Where are you going?”

  “A city… someplace where there are lots of people; someplace where no one knows me; someplace where I don’t know anyone. That’s why, by the time I go, Satou… Satou, you have to become an outstanding person.”

  I couldn’t tell where the discussion was going; then again, she was a girl who said terribly unreasonable things.

  Dazed, I shook my head from side to side.

  “That won’t change anything”, said Misaki.

  “Okay, I understand. I’m fine now.” All I could do, at that point, was try to convince her of her success. “No, because of you, I really have been reborn. You should rest assured of that and start a life of your own in a new city.”

  She still seemed somehow dissatisfied.

  In an optimistic tone, I said, “Thank you! I owe you my life! Oh, that’s true! Want to take my stereo with you? It’s a necessity for living alone. If you want it, I’ll give it to you as a present….”

  “That isn’t what I mean.”

  “It isn’t what you mean?”

  I waited patiently for her to continue, but Misaki turned her back on me without saying anything else.

  I stood up, too. “Well then, goodbye.”

  I started walking toward my apartment; as I did, Misaki called out. “No! Wait a second!”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go on a date. It’ll be your graduation exam to test whether you really have become an outstanding, socially adept person, Satou. Meet me at the station, Sunday at noon. And we’re definitely going, even if it rains!”

  With this defiant declaration, Misaki quickly strode away.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Yamazaki really was making a bomb. He had gotten hold of a bomb recipe from the Internet and was really, truly manufacturing a bomb.

  First, he needed to make black gunpowder. The history of black gunpowder went way back into the distant past. For example, it was used during the Genkou period of Mongolian invasions[31]; and the weapon called the tetsuhou[32], which surprised the samurai, also used black gunpowder. Despite being an extremely primitive compound of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and coal, its force is tremendous. They say that when used in an enclosed space, black gunpowder generates enough power to break all the windows on an average car and instantly kill the people inside.

  “What are you going to use a bomb for?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m going to blow up something!”

  Well, yeah, that was true. It was, indeed, obvious. There was no other use for a bomb.

  “I meant, what are you going to blow up? That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

  “My enemies.”

  “Who are your enemies?”

  “Villains. I’m going to get those villains with my revolutionary bomb.”

  “I see. Well, who are the villains?”

  “Like politicians or something.”

  “Do you even know the name of the current prime minister?”

  Yamazaki grew silent and went back to his work. Before long, he’d completed the black gunpowder and the airtight iron pipe. His detonator, which used an analog clock, also was finished. The only thing left was to attach the detonator to the pipe, and then he could set it off at any time.

  “Yay, I’m done! I’m a fighter! I’m a revolutionary!” Yamazaki was in high spirits. “They’ll all be blown up! I’ll kill all the villains!”

  He was in high spirits, but he was also entirely self-aware.

  “Ah, that was fun”, he concluded.

  In the end, though, the bomb didn’t blow up any villains.

  To start with, we didn’t know where to find any villains. Because there was nothing we could do about that, we tried to blow up the neighborhood park on Saturday night. So no one would see us, we crawled deep into the brush to set the detonator. The bomb actually did explode, but it was more a whimper than a bang.

  It was a sad story.

  Amid these distractions, Sunday arrived. As I had promised, I met Misaki in front of the station. We had our date, and I returned to my apartment.

  I slept all night. When I awoke, it was morning. I had nothing to do and was bored. I decided to try ingesting my entire stash
of stockpiled drugs. I started having a good time. Everything became pleasurable. I laughed.

  Part Two

  In general, drugs can be classified into one of three large categories: uppers, downers, and psychedelics. Uppers are drugs that make you energetic. Cocaine and stimulants are famous uppers. Downers are drugs like heroin, which make you sluggish. I’d never tried them, so I didn’t know firsthand, but it seemed that taking them would feel really, really good. And psychedelics are hallucinogens. LSD and magic mushrooms represent that category.

  For the most part, I really preferred legal hallucinogens. They had few side effects—unlike uppers and downers—and more than that, they were easy to get because they were legal.

  On the day after my date, I took drugs again. I decided to take a rather aggressive approach.

  First, I set the groundwork with thirty milligrams of AMT. AMT is an antidepressant that was studied by Russian scientists. After they discovered that a large dose could cause hallucinogenic effects, it was prohibited for medical use. Still, it was originally just an antidepressant. After taking it, for the first two hours, a person would be plagued with terrible nausea; once that was over, however, it became entirely pleasurable. It also happened to be the best thing ever for combating bad trips.

  Next, I boiled down the seeds of a harmal plant and drank the yellow layer of liquid that floated to the top. Harmal, a plant I think is in the goathead family, originated in Tibet and contains the Indole-type psychedelic components harmine and harmaline. Using it by itself doesn’t produce any real effect; in combination with other hallucinogens like magic mushrooms or DMT, though, the effects are amplified dozens of times over. That’s the Ayahuasca method. As harmal is an MAO inhibitor, it could be life-threatening if ingested with cheese or other dairy products; but as long as those foods are avoided, it shouldn't cause any problems.

  Well, my real opportunity had arrived. My consciousness already was dimming, and the edges of my vision wavered wildly—but here, my true trip would begin. I would keep going and going!

  Grinding five grams of dried magic mushroom with a mortar and pestle, I washed the powder down with a single gulp of orange juice. On top of that, I screwed up my courage and ingested a ten-milligram crystal of 5-MeO-DMT. DMT is a drug containing only the effective components of hallucinogenic plants like chacropanga, which natives of the Amazon use in their Ayahuasca ceremonies. Though legal, this drug is reputedly one of the strongest anyone can find. According to one theory, the hallucinogenic effects are more than one hundred times more powerful than those of LSD. It's truly the ultimate psychedelic.

  In just one second, I had become paralyzed! The drugs had taken effect!

  The Satou Special—my wonderful, ultimate method, devised through research and trial-and-error—was complete.

  By effectively combining four types of drugs into a single cocktail, I was promised the ultimate trip, one that even illegal drugs couldn’t touch. With a hard thrust, as if riding a rocket ship, I was shot into the far reaches of outer space. Time stopped entirely. Space began to warp thoroughly. My physical body disappeared.

  ***

  “This is no good, Satou. I found out something terrible! I’ve had an epiphany!” Yamazaki declared. ”This is really, really bad!”

  I tried to say something, but my mouth wouldn’t work.

  Yamazaki was getting agitated. “Are you listening? Listen closely: This is a really bad thing!”

  As there was nothing else I could do, I listened closely.

  Pulling himself to his full height and wearing the largest grin imaginable, Yamazaki said, “I was able to logically prove that I am the monotheistic God who created the cosmos!”

  I died.

  Then, I came back to life.

  “Please watch, and I’ll clean up your room now, using my superpowers.” Yamazaki pointed his finger at the rubbish scattered about the floor and screamed, “Move!”

  Naturally, the rubbish did not so much as twitch.

  “Hey! I’m ordering you! Why are you resisting me?” Yamazaki fumed.

  Observing this situation, I felt something rise up inside of me. It was a strange sensation, bubbling up from the very depths of my body. Folding my arms, I thought carefully about this feeling. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I realized what it was. I know, this is…

  It was nausea! I was attacked by violent nausea. I tried to dash to the bathroom, but the path there was challenging. My legs wouldn’t move forward. The hall seemed to have stretched into a fifteen hundred foot tunnel. The bathroom was so far away. Would I make it? Could I get to the bathroom before spraying vomit everywhere?

  I’ll be fine. Calm down.

  Yamazaki had just said it. He had said, “I am God.”

  But I knew. I knew that his words were completely mistaken. How did I know? Because I was God! I had confirmed that truth just a moment earlier, using a thoroughly logical thought process.

  I would definitely make it in time. I am God. I will make it to the bathroom in time.

  I made it.

  Prostrating myself before the toilet, I threw up. Afterward, I felt much better. Then, I became energetic. I was enjoying myself. Skipping slowly back into the room, I found Yamazaki squatting there, still grinning.

  “It’s no good. Elementary students are no good.” Muttering under his breath, he looked like he was thinking of something criminal.

  For some reason, his situation triggered an extreme sense of déjà vu. This sort of thing has happened before, hasn’t it…? While I thought about it, ten consecutive aggressive feelings of déjà vu suddenly hit me. Everything I was looking at had happened before.

  I decided to engage Yamazaki in a discussion about this sensation. After a moment, I became unsure what was really going on. “Huh, have we had this discussion before?”

  “What are you saying, Satou? I have no idea what—”

  “Wait just a second. Let me think carefully about it.”

  Lying face down on the floor, I thought as hard as I could. When I did, I was able to remember. … I was a soldier from an ancient civilization several thousands of years ago, who had transmigrated through time and space to come to this world. Naturally, I decided to keep this revelation from Yamazaki. It was a gravely important secret, after all.

  After a little while passed, Yamazaki broke in on my thoughts. “You should breathe. You’re dying.”

  I breathed. I came back to life. Sincerely thanking Yamazaki, I pondered the way that the world was wrapped in love. I bowed my head to say, “Thank you, thank you.”

  However, as if to balance out my return to life, Yamazaki abruptly acted like he was in extreme physical distress. Clutching his throat, he rolled about on the floor, writhing in agony. When I asked, “What’s wrong?” he just uttered an inhuman cry and, without speaking, continued convulsing.

  Finally, he picked up a notebook and ballpoint pen in order to communicate the problem to me. Hands shaking, he wrote something down in the notebook.

  Taking my time, I carefully deciphered his letters: “I forgot how to use my voice.”

  Yamazaki gripped his throat, looking miserable. I whacked his back as hard as I could.

  “Ouch!” he said, and then he gave me a thumbs-up. His broad smile returned.

  I decided it was time for us to head out. It was already the middle of the night, so I wasn’t afraid that we’d be seen by the police or any neighbors.

  We headed toward the neighborhood park. Yamazaki was walking like a robot. Maybe he really was a robot. In the end, could I have such thoughts and also be human? I found the idea a little mysterious.

  At that point, I tried banging my head against the streetlamp in the park. This was bad: It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. I am actually a robot….

  Thus, I discovered a new truth.

  Be that as it may, the park at night was wonderful. Though the streetlamps were the only light source, the park shone and glowed like a photograph taken using a l
ong exposure. The park was full of life. Everything there pulsed with life: the gentle creaking of the old bench, the steady breathing of massive trees lining the road, the dynamic twists of the branches and leaves. All this, every last thing was alive.

  While I was transfixed by the scene, Yamazaki said, “I can hear music.”

  I heard it, too. From somewhere in the park, inexplicably beautiful music was playing.

  We were looking for the music’s source—pushing our way through the grass, shoving our heads under the bench, combing the park for quite a while—when, at last, we found a speaker. It was buried in the roots of the largest tree by the road.

  However, it was strange. We didn’t really understand the speaker’s mechanism. Yamazaki and I considered it together. We concluded that the speaker was a “white hole”, which pushed out matter rather than sucking it in.

  We walked into the white hole and emerged near a beautiful lake. Yamazaki slowly shed his clothing and dove headfirst into the lake. However… “Argh! It’s a sandbox!”

  It seemed that the lake was, in reality, just a plain old sandbox. It really had looked like a lake to me. I decided that I couldn’t trust what Yamazaki told me.

  In any event, it felt as if time had been playing tricks on us. First, we were going back in time, and then we were headed forward into the future. I thought about this. When could “now” possibly be?

  “Hey, Yamazaki. What day of the week is today?”

  There was no answer. It seemed as though he had gone back home already.

  Having grown sad, I climbed into the brush, picking the spot where we had detonated Saturday night’s bomb.

  In the brush were Yamazaki and myself—from three days ago!

  “Okay, it will explode after three minutes. Please, back far away from it.”

  Me, myself, and Yamazaki retreated.

  “I wanted to be a revolutionary, but that dream didn’t come true. I wanted to be a soldier, but that dream didn’t come true. My father is dying, and then I’ll have no choice but to go home. I wonder whose fault that is. I think there’s some evildoer out there somewhere. I wanted to blow him up, like in a Hollywood movie, with this bomb. You know…”