I reserve the right to remove this translation without warning.
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This an experiment.
This post is the entirety of chapter 3. If you read the last post (now deleted) already and do not want to re-read the edited portion, start at page 211. There are a series of pages that only have images with captions, and on those pages I have done my best to describe the images in words, and I have put those descriptions in parentheses.
We are almost done with this crazy book, can you believe it?
If you would like to see more, please donate. [PayPal]
Translation Notes:
—
Comedic Mechanism: Parade of the Jane Does
[5]
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Night of Unpleasant Rain – 7
Chapter 2: March of the Saints – 95
Chapter 3: An Unbearable Existence in Suffering – 191
Chapter 4: An Emptiness Devoid of Color Contrast – 257
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[191]
Chapter 3: An Unbearable Existence in Suffering
[193]
―”Thrust the knife, my child, for you are a little saint… and all is inhuman.”
“Do you know of the tale of the hundredth monkey?”
So asked the witch, who went by the name of Kirisame Marisa.
The Otherworld Release Research Facility was about thirty minutes away from West Kyoto Station by train, with a few transfers in between. Honestly, I do not remember the reason why I first ventured to come to this place. I have a feeling it may have been due to some solicitors at the university, or because I saw a poster for it on a bulletin board, but it’s not as if I have any clear memory of either of those things happening. There was probably no real reason for me coming at all — I just… did.
Though I knew this was one of the headquarters of the Fantasy Release Movement, my first impression was that it was more like an underground bar. It was part of an old western-style mansion, and you could tell from a glance that the building had not been used for a long time. I wonder if they chose this location because they were able to get a good deal on the building… if they bought it at all. Maybe they thought no one would chase them out if they chose to squat here. The research facility was in the basement.
All of the windows were boarded up, and there was no other lighting in the main part of the building, so even though it was noontime outside, it was dark as midnight inside — except for the basement. From the basement came a bright glow like light of a full moon. I was certain electricity was cut from the building, but I didn’t know from where they could have brought an alternative power source. The impression I got was not that this light came from some sort of electric or gas lamp, but from something else entirely I did not know.
[194]
The “Fantasy Release Movement” — what I entered into felt less like its headquarters and more like the underground gathering place of some old society. The walls of the room were bare concrete, and all they contained was a collection of round tables and chairs. The only other thing of note was a white curtain hanging from one of the walls. It was for use with a projector, someone said.
That was all.
When I arrived, there were already a few young men and women who looked like students gathered around one of the tables, talking. There were papers and books scattered around the table. I was told that you couldn’t bring portable terminals or any other electronics into the room. Those devices ran contrary to the other side of the boundary, they said.
Even so, I thought, I’m surprised they were able to get their hands on so many paper books.
In this scientific age, paper books are no more than collector’s items. They are an unnecessary medium, prone to immediate degradation.
[195]
Digital records are easily lost.
— someone said.
Digital records containing the boundaries and everything beyond them have already been lost, they said. Therefore, we must rely on print, for only in print does the truth lie — they said.
In the beginning I thought that was nonsense, but…
There was a girl sitting cross-legged on the table, smiling.
She had on a black apron dress, like a character out of an old story, and wore a black witch’s hat over her blonde hair. Everyone seated at the table had turned their chairs toward her — and I was no exception. It felt almost as if we had come to worship her.
I heard the sound of gears quietly clicking and clinking together, and that sound came from the machine set behind the girl on the table, behind Kirisame Marisa.
It was an old analog computer, similar to the kind used by the Japanese military long ago. It looked like a box, with the bottom tapered, so that it was larger at the top. On the side of the box were countless dials and gauges, along with buttons and levers to operate it. Four legs extended from the bottom to hold it up, but otherwise there was nothing else to describe about it. I wondered what powered it. It didn’t look as if it were being supplied by any power source. If it was something that was originally designed for use in wartime, perhaps it was powered by wound-up springs.
[196]
Marisa leaned back against the machine.
“The ‘tale’ is really a thought experiment proposed by Lyall Watson, but it is based on the behavior of the Japanese macaques of Kojima, an island off the coast of Kushima’s Ishinami Beach, in what used to be Miyagi Prefecture. One day, a few of those monkeys on the island began to wash sweet potatoes with seawater before eating them. They must have discovered that it added an interesting flavor to their food, and as time went on, more of the monkeys began to wash their potatoes with seawater.”
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
I could hear the sound of gears turning, click click clack.
Everyone listened intently to the witch’s words.
She looked far younger than me — in fact, she looked by far to be the youngest in the room — and yet everyone still acted as if she were an object of worship. The way she carried herself, her actions, her tone of voice — it was as if gravity itself had bowed to her, drawing our gazes toward her, as if there was nothing more natural.
[197]
“More and more of the monkeys washed their potatoes, so that ten became twenty, and twenty became forty. Finally, when their number became one hundred, what do you think happened?”
There was whispering. I could still hear the gears turning.
“Not only did all of the monkeys on the island begin to wash their potatoes with seawater, but all of the monkeys in the surrounding area began to as well. Once the hundredth monkey appeared, the learning was telepathically transmitted, in much the same way the crystallization of glycerin occurs.”
The gears were crying.
“Are you talking about the Sheldrake Hypothesis?” someone seated at the table asked.
“Yes, exactly. You might call the hundredth monkey the threshold of synchronicity.”
“Threshold?”
“Or you can call it the boundary threshold if you’d like. It’s the threshold that when reached, causes what you are currently seeing to be synchronized across the boundary. Now this doesn’t just take one or two people, it takes at least ten — no, a hundred people. Once that threshold is reached, other communities will be able to see across the boundary — no, it’s more than that, both sides start to become synchronized. If this synchronization continues, humanity will completely merge with the other side, accept ambiguity, and become the way it was meant to be.”
[198]
That is the true goal of the Fantasy Release Movement, they say.
I wonder just who this girl is, anyway. Everyone at the table just stares at her with empty eyes. Not one of them seems to doubt her.
“When they reach that point, people will be able to find what is truly important to them. ‘What did I like?’ ‘What did I really want to do then?’ ‘Who did I like?’ and ‘Who did I want to be?’ You hesitate before these questions because you have lost ambiguity. You lack the answer to these question because you have lost ambiguity. You have been led astray by the need for black and white, for one and zero.”
“Um, excuse me.”
When I spoke up, all of the people around the table looked my way. Their eyes were empty, with nothing reflected in them. The indistinct glow of light within this dark building — the bright light like that of the full moon that lit this room, began to flicker.
It seemed as if everyone’s head was swelling.
[199]
“What is it?”
“Well, I was wondering… You call yourselves the Fantasy Release Movement, but… What do you plan on doing once the fantasy has been ‘released’ so to speak?”
“This world is a butterfly specimen,” replied the girl, Marisa.
“A… butterfly specimen?”
“Exactly.”
*
Let’s talk about some butterfly specimens and the exhibitions in which they were displayed.
There was a large exhibition of butterfly specimens held once or twice a year by a certain group, with smaller exhibitions held once a month. In the beginning, these exhibitions consisted solely of collectors and connoisseurs displaying their specimens and viewing others’. Both those who manufactured the specimen displays and those who came to view them were satisfied with the exhibition as it was.
But as we are, such things begin to feel mundane after a while.
There was a person who began to pay more attention to the box that the butterfly specimen was housed in. A standard box purchased at the market could not possibly hold in the butterfly’s beauty, he thought, and so he prepared a box made of glass on all four sides, and placed four of the same kind of butterfly in it.
[200]
One of the butterflies was pinned to flower. One was pinned as if in flight. One was pinned laying eggs. One was pinned caught in a spider’s web. This specimen of butterflies, as a whole, showed all of these things.
When the specimen was put on display, all those at the exhibition showered it with praise. There were many who wondered aloud whether, up until now, they had put too much emphasis on the rarity of the butterfly as opposed to other factors concerning its display.
There was a person who made a specimen out of a dissected butterfly. In the box was a butterfly’s wings, the body the wings were ripped from, and its feelers all pinned apart from each other.
There were more than a few at the exhibition who were bothered by this display, but there were other who remarked that more closely represented the original purpose of a biological specimen. One could say that given the controversy it produced, it was a particularly groundbreaking specimen.
There was a person who selected a number of particular kinds of butterfly and pinned them so that they formed a circle in the display box. This specimen was modelled after a well known fairytale. The butterflies were placed in such a way that they followed the outline of the tale, and attention was also paid the color of the pins to further enhance the feeling that a story was being told.
[201]
Was not the true nature of butterflies to be found in their potential for the expression of a story? Because the story the specimen referenced was a story everyone knew, the butterflies on display were alive in the story, alive in the viewer’s mind, and that moment of life was all contained in this specimen as a whole. Was not this phenomenon itself meaningful? So the viewers of this specimen praised it.
There was a person who put in a specimen box the larvae, chrysalis, and eggs of a butterfly preserved in alcohol. But was this even a butterfly specimen? It did not even contain a butterfly — the butterfly itself was absent.
But was not the butterfly proven in its absence? What not it this absence itself which proved the butterfly? That is what this specimen seemed to be trying to say. Those that saw it debated the specimen, with some calling it nothing more than a work made purely for self-satisfaction, and others suggesting that it called into question the very definition of a butterfly specimen.
There was a person who recreated a scene from a film in their specimen, but all that was in the box was wire, cotton, and the preserved skins of fruit — all arranged in the shape of a butterfly. The backdrop was a landscape make of twigs and leaves, and upon this backdrop the artificial butterfly danced. It is as if this butterfly is alive, some praised, but an equal number of others could only remark that they did not understand the creator’s purpose.
There was a person who made an artificial butterfly out of the wings of real butterflies. The box of this specimen was the largest in the exhibition. The wings used were from four types of butterfly, native only to a certain area, and after being removed from their respective bodies the wings were pasted together so that they formed the shape of an entirely different butterfly — a butterfly that did not exist anywhere.
[202]
Is not a butterfly specimen made for the purpose of decoratively displaying a butterfly? Then, must not the butterfly on display be an actual butterfly?
But when the real butterflies used in this specimen became material for the false one, did they not serve a purpose in allowing us rediscover what exactly a butterfly is?
There were several of these various butterfly specimens, and they made waves which spread out both among those who created specimens and those who viewed them.
The next exhibition and the next —
The next and the next and the next —
Over and over and over again butterfly specimens like these were made.
Those that were impressed by the butterfly specimen in the glass box made specimens with larger glass boxes, specimens in glass dodecahedrons, in spherical glass tanks, in picture frames, in cardboard boxes, in boxes of paulownia wood, of wisteria vine, of charcoal, among many other types and materials. The types of butterflies in these boxes were also varied: pieris rapae, papilionae, nymphalidae, minois dryas, danainae, libythea celtis, lycaenidae, and others. There were precious butterflies, rare butterflies, common butterflies, butterflies of no consequence, butterflies that were actually moths.
[203]
Then there were the pins — there were pins made of gold, made of silver, made of copper, onyx, ruby, jade, amber, iron, wood. As for the poisons made to kill the butterflies, some used ethyl acetate, others used soapy water, saltwater, or various medicines no one knows or cares to know — medicines to freeze things for eternity, to make them forget rot, to simply cause them to sleep — several different medicines.
Over and over again and again butterfly specimens like these were made.
No longer could you simply capture a butterfly from your garden and put it in a box — no one would give it the benefit of a glance. The same issue plagued these creators. For whom should butterfly specimens be made? What is it that makes an excellent specimen? So they wondered and talked among themselves.
One day, someone pointed at them and yelled, “But are these really butterfly specimens!?”
There were those who agreed and those who disagreed with this detractor.
Are not these manifestations naught but specimens of butterfly specimens? Are not these creations worthless garbage to which we can only affix the name of butterfly specimen? But do not we make these specimens, because of our love of butterflies? Are you sure you are not mistaking love for the desire to stand out? Are you not only using the medium of butterfly specimen to satisfy your desire to present, to in someway fulfill and audience? Are not these but borrowed things, fake things to which you have only affixed the name of butterfly specimen!?
[204]
Are what you are producing, really butterfly specimens?
All you are producing is an expendable item, not a butterfly specimen but a fake.
Everyone denied these statements.
Everyone agreed with these statements.
Everyone, while having these arguments, kept making butterfly specimens.
However…
*
“They discussed nothing of what was most important,” Marisa said softly.
“What was most… important?”
“No one realized, even though it was such a simple thing.”
The clicking and clacking of the gears from the machine echoed in the room.
“The butterflies were, as they were always — dead.”
[205]
“Butterflies…”
“Every time a specimen is prepared, a butterfly dies. Countless numbers of them die for this purpose. No matter how you might try to dress up the act, the fact remains: they were decorating butterfly corpses — and were oblivious it.”
“Butterfly… corpses…”
“This world is in an exhibition, and we are all nothing but butterfly specimens in our boxes. Yes, we are nameless, and yet are nothing but our names. We are nothing but butterflies.”
Marisa laughed quietly.
“Still, we point our fingers at others’ butterfly corpses and say that they are different from the butterflies we are. But corpses are corpses, nothing more. No one talks about this, for the exhibition is a city, and the city is a morgue. There is no meaning in ‘us’ being ourselves. No matter how we celebrate, no matter how we grieve, we are all long dead in our glass boxes — nothing more.”
“Dead…”
“Are you digesting my words as you repeat them back at me? Is that the only reason you have come here, to echo me?” She pointed straight at me.
Everyone who was sitting down was… No, no one was sitting down. There was only a table, Marisa, and the machine — and several hemispheres hanging from the ceiling. From those, several human bodies were growing. Naked men, naked women — they had no hair, and the lower halves of their bodies were buried in the hemispheres. Click clack click, the machine was groaning. The lighting formed a spiral as it illuminated the room. Half-spheres, there were a countless number of them hanging from the ceiling. Half-spheres with people planted into them, and the skin of all of these things was mottled with blackened spots, everywhere, the edges of these spots were swelled up, like a bruise just beginning to heal. They were countless shallow holes. They were all over the bodies. Click clack click, the machine was groaning.
“Tell me, you. Why are you here? No, rather — What is your name?”
“I…”
Who am I?
My name…
What is my name?
“I don’t understand my girlfriend.”
My lips moved all on their own.
[207]
“I see. What is your girlfriend’s name?”
“Maribel Hearn.”
“I see. So then, what is your name?”
“I don’t understand my girlfriend.”
“I see. So tell me, where are you from?”
“Lately, it feels like she’s been cold… keeping her distance from me. I wonder when it started… It was her friend. It was once she started hanging out with her friend Usami Renko, and…”
“I see. So tell me, what are you studying at the university?”
“I think she said something about going to… Torifune, or something like that. Afterwards, she was hospitalized, taken to a sanatorium in Shinshuu. After she got out… every since it feels like she’s been keeping her distance from me. Even when I went to see her, while she was hospitalized, her eyes they were… It felt like she was distant from me.”
“I see — and your girlfriend’s name is?”
“Maribel Hearn.”
“I see — and your name is?”
“I don’t understand my girlfriend.”
“I see — and where are you from?”
[208]
“Lately, it feels like she’s been cold… keeping her distance from me. I wonder when it started… It was her friend. It was once she started hanging out with her friend Usami Renko, and…”
“I see — and what are you studying at the university?”
“I think she said something about going to… Torifune, or something like that. Afterwards, she was hospitalized, taken to a sanatorium in Shinshuu. After she got out… every since it feels like she’s been keeping her distance from me. Even when I went to see her, while she was hospitalized, her eyes they were… It felt like she was distant from me.”
“I see — and your girlfriend’s name is?”
“Maribel Hearn.”
“I see — and your name is?”
“I don’t understand my girlfriend.”
“I see — and where are you from?”
“Lately, it feels like she’s been cold… keeping her distance from me. I wonder when it started… It was her friend. It was once she started hanging out with her friend Usami Renko, and…”
“I see — and what are you studying at the university?”
“I think she said something about going to… Torifune, or something like that. Afterwards, she was hospitalized, taken to a sanatorium in Shinshuu. After she got out… every since it feels like she’s been keeping her distance from me. Even when I went to see her, while she was hospitalized, her eyes they were… It felt like she was distant from me.”
[209]
“Maribel Hearn.”
“I see — and your name is?”
“I don’t understand my girlfriend.”
“I see — and where are you from?”
“Lately, it feels like she’s been cold… keeping her distance from me. I wonder when it started… It was her friend. It was once she started hanging out with her friend Usami Renko, and…”
“I see — and what are you studying at the university?”
“I think she said something about going to… Torifune, or something like that. Afterwards, she was hospitalized, taken to a sanatorium in Shinshuu. After she got out… every since it feels like she’s been keeping her distance from me. Even when I went to see her, while she was hospitalized, her eyes they were… It felt like she was distant from me.”
“I see, I see, I see. So that is all you have, and that is all you are. After all, right now you need nothing more. Now tell me, what did you come here to do?”
“I want to lose ambiguity. It was suggested to me that the reason things aren’t going well with me and my girlfriend, the reason we aren’t having sex, the reason things aren’t going well at work, the reason for all of that is because reality has lost its ambiguity. That’s right. It’s not my fault. It’s just that the world is not fitting into me. I’m sure it’s because something is wrong with it.”
[210]
“Yes, you are right. The world as it is now is wrong. It should embrace the other side of the boundary, become more fuzzy.” Marisa chuckled.
“It is right for us to be the hundredth monkey. This should be the start of it all.”
“The starting point.”
I could hear squirming and grating sounds from the hemispheres hanging from the ceiling above.
“Before our thousand souls are sacrificed to Izanagi’s curse, we must escape from this world. Let us flip the road leading down to the netherworld, so we may decide on who really should be crucified.”
I could hear squirming and grating sounds from the hemispheres hanging from the ceiling above.
“Let me tell you — I mean ‘you’, just exactly what the fantasy meltdown really was.”
***
[211]
Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there were two families, of sheep and of goats, and they both lived together in harmony, united in their faith in God. However, one day snow fell upon the world — not just any snow, in fact it wasn’t snow at all, but fragments of the Devil’s mirror, a frightening object which distorts everything it reflects in the most ugly form imaginable.
Some of those fragments made their way into the eyes of the goat family, and from that day forward, they changed. It was as if their hearts had frozen, and the biggest change of all was that they no longer believed in the miracles of God.
The family of sheep thought to themselves, “If only our brothers and sisters were to witness one of God’s miracles, surely they would find their faith again,” and so they met the goats. “Let us not eat for a week,” they proposed. “It will be alright. God saves those who believe in His miracles. If God performs His miracles and we are saved, please believe in Him once more.”
[212]
“What will you do if God does not perform a miracle?” the goats asked.
“In that case we will leave, and this home will be yours,” the sheep replied.
The goats decided to go along with this bet, but in the end, God’s miracles came only for those who believed in Him.
The goats accused the sheep of cheating, of hiding food. They claimed the wellness of the sheep only proved they themselves lacked faith in God, and not that God had performed miracles.
The sheep and goats argued, and in the end it was decided that the trial would be redone with stricter rules.
“Board this empty ship,” the goats proposed. “Let us send you out to sea. If after a month you return, kept alive by the power of God’s miracles, we will believe anything you have to say.”
[213]
And so, the sheep set out to sea, but God performed no miracle for them.
And why should He?
While God may have kept the sheep in his thoughts, he was never thinking of them on their behalf.
Whether you believe in God or not, the probability a miracle will occur is within the bounds of statistical error.
So the family of sheep began to die off, one after another until just one of the daughters remained. It was then that she realized she had been tricked by the goats.
Oh, by the way, a fragment of the devil’s mirror had found its way into her heart as well.
[214]
When did that happen, you ask? It must have happened the moment she became one and alone.
As she was rocked back and forth by the waves, she cursed the goats at the home they lived in.
On the boat she drew a picture, a picture of all of her family who had died on this ship with her.
Ah, this ship was God’s true miracle.
One night, as the full moon lay reflected on the waters, the daughter thought to herself as she gazed upon it.
“This must be God’s miracle. In this moon, is a world where everything finds salvation.”
She had been alone so long you see, she had started to lose her mind. She jumped off the ship and into the full moon reflected in the sea. As she sunk to the bottom, her body shattered into countless pieces. The Devil’s mirror fragment had entered into her heart, and had made her like ice.
[215]
The fragments of her heart were ingested by fish in the sea, and one of these fish were caught by one of the goats, who served it for dinner. Now that the home of sheep and goats had become home only to goats, it was only those goats who ate the fish.
All of them, all of them, were covered in what was once the sheep daughter’s heart, and died.
After all, it was what was once a sheep’s heart.
But, it was what was once a sheep’s heart.
It was what was once a sheep’s heart, frozen by the Devil’s mirror.
What was once a home of sheep and goats, was now something else, something frozen.
Now this is a fairytale.
Obviously, not all of it is true — it’s a fairytale.
A couple plot holes here and there shouldn’t matter, don’t you think?
[216]
***
The GPS coordinates sent from Usami Renko’s handheld terminal put her location at a place about thirty minutes away from West Kyoto Station by train, with a few transfers in between. When Maribel Hearn got off the train at the local station she had a feeling that something was off about the place. The station platform was made of clear glass cubes, and inside those cubes were countless butterflies. It was as if the whole station was some sort of specimen display. The thin glass clicked and cracked loudly with every step as she walked across its surface.
But Merry focused her attention on the location — Renko’s location — displayed on her terminal screen, and kept walking. She knew this place was once known as a high-end residential district, and she knew that it was dead. Because it was dead, all of the buildings had become jars — large jars stuffed of jam. Inside were spiders and snakes pressed together and preserved in sugar.
Merry kept her focus on the path to Renko displayed on her terminal screen.
The boundaries were going to break. She wasn’t wrong when she thought that before. She still thought that, even now — but at the same time Merry no longer had a firm grasp on how the world was really supposed to be.
[217]
Everything that Merry could see, everything — everything was a mix of this side and the other. Not one thing was only of one side. She didn’t know why it was this way, and she didn’t know what started it happening. The only thing Merry was certain of was that Renko was caught up in it.
She had to hurry. It was that single thought that kept Merry going.
Under Merry’s feet, the tiles of the pavement were squirming, squirming in spirals of black and red, as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She did not see any crows, and she did not see any other human being.
Alone, Merry ran.
Eventually, her route took her to a red, Western-style mansion. Merry had a feeling she had seen it before… in her dreams — somewhere, sometime in her dreams.
[218]
What did I do there then? Merry wondered.
She opened the iron gates covered in rust and vines, and they creaked loudly. It felt as if they could collapse at any moment. After crossing the front garden, she opened the front doors.
The inside of the mansion was completely empty. There were no rooms or windows. It was just a box — and in the very center of this box was a spiral staircase leading below. It was a long staircase, with no supporting pillar, a St. John’s Staircase. The location shown on Merry’s terminal was now marked by a bizarre geometrical pattern, a fractal, Sierpinski’s gasket, drawn in red and black. Eternity was within it. The icon of Renko’s location was was in the center of this eternally expanding gasket. Merry was sure Renko was down below and continued on her way to find her.
***
“You see there’s this thing called binaural beats, or Hemi-Sync.”
Kirisame Marisa smiled as she put a pair of headphones on over my head.
[219]
“When sound waves at two different frequencies are played in each ear, a third wave at the frequency of their difference is generated in the brain. It’s a beat wave that follows the interference pattern, so to speak. By adjusting these wavelengths, it becomes possible to induce a certain phenomenon.”
“Phenomenon…”
“It’s a way to get to the other side of the boundary. By releasing yourself from your current self, you become able to let go of ambiguity. By using these binaural beats, we can artificially force biolocation. Yes, we can destroy the boundary between your physical and emotional self.”
I heard a sound, a whirring sound.
“Then, you should be able to see it.”
It was the sound of the world breaking.
***
[220]
(A picture of a numbered #32 apartment building for factory workers)
A Box Named “Was”.
[221]
(A portion of a framed picture of the roots and seeds and leaves on the ground with a photographer silhouette pointed up, with forward and backward stop arrows printed on top of the silhouette. ↹ (U+21B9) or ⇤(U+21E4)+⇥(U+21E5))
Control 1
[222]
(A photograph of a cafe table laden with drinks and two people, various artifacts and books strewn about, with an eye symbol in the upper left and lower right corner.)
Tu m
[223]
(A glyph with 3 complete triangle-dress ‘woman’ symbols and two partials, so that the sum is 4 complete. The heads are removed from all of the symbols except one that has a box with a check mark in its place. It is the first complete from the left, second counting the first incomplete.)
Selection, Switching Heads
[224]
(A photograph of an egg in the dirt of a flowerbed.)
Dependence on a device which leads us outside is not what we call ‘love’.
[225]
(A roof and treeline silhouette, with the upper right corner blacked out with white ink blotches confusing which of the colors, black or white is negative and which is positive space.)
The stage is always leveled.
[226]
(A wide-angle photograph of an intersection, partially clouded but shining with a glaring sun.”
This intersection is not an controlled operation.
[227]
(A QR code which leads to the title’s theme song: Self Talking)
An Incident
[228]
(A symbol silhouette of a child holding a balloon. The head is replaced with a thumbs-up glyph.)
This balloon is not valued. What is valued is everything below the girls’ heads.
[229]
(Alphabet crackers spilled in a disorderly fashion across a tabletop.)
It is always everyone else who dies.
[230]
(Droplets falling in milk — but the droplets do not form the so-called ‘milk crown’.)
Your girl will not talk about the milk crown?
[231]
(Clip art of construction and demolition with houses, cranes, and sky rises.)
Intentional Labyrinth
[232]
(An extremely dim picture of someone (possibly Renko) sitting on the stairs, with a variety of checked boxes printed over it.)
Digestion of an Incident
[233]
(Glyphs of a headless person sitting on a couch with a remote pointed at a flat screen TV. In place of the head is written [B3 777 JPY+Tax] in a box. Hovering businessmen in suits hover over the TV.)
Control 2
[234]
(A photograph of a train’s suspension.)
The Sad Young Man in the Steam Train
[235]
(A dim photograph of a hallway tunnel, most likely underground. Part of the left is cordoned off with cones.)
(1) falling water,
(2) gas used for lighting,
Make it be that these were provided.
[236]
(A mute icon)
the Inevitability that it is ⇆ the Probability it is not
[237]
***
Merry descended the staircase — the St. John’s staircase.
It was a spiral of black and red. There were countless eyes embedded in the walls. The eyes of humans turned pictograms turning — turning, yes everything was turning.
Merry felt as if her brain was shifting, swaying back and forth.
“What is this?” she kept muttering to herself.
What has begun? What is going on? I don’t know, but I also feel like something is about to end.
How much further do I need to go down?
At this point, no longer could you discern up from down.
[238]
The display on Merry’s terminal was constant, except for the expanding fractal gasket. The more it expanded the more its surface area increased, but the volume was converging.
Was that how this thing was supposed to work?
Merry tried to remember her friend’s words, but in the midst of all these revolving eyes she could not remember the details.
She began to feel as if she would soon forget where she was, and even what she was.
But now she could hear a sound.
Ah, this is…
What opened before her was a parade.
There was ballet music.
[239]
There were sirens, typewriters, radio noise, pistols, a revolving lottery box, the sound of empty jars being hit, the sound of pipes being hit, a cacophonous mixture of everyday noises — noises that were not instruments. What the dancers were and the background was was unclear, ambiguous, a collage. In there was — in the midst of all of that was, a stage mechanism showing it all. Am I descending the stairs or are the stairs rising past me?
[240]
Merry continued to descend the stairs, in an automated fashion, when suddenly a door appeared in front of her. The door was set with gold chains, a silver lock and bronze doorknob.
On the door was written “23/17th Floor”.
Merry grabbed the doorknob and turned it. The lock came undone, and the surface of the chains was covered in an instant with a bluish black rust, before rotting away into ashes.
Merry opened the door. It was one that opened inward.
In front of her, past the door, were humans — humans who had lost their boundaries, humans with scabs, holes — humans with holes sprinkled over them like freckles, indentations.
[241]
Spheres — their heads were swollen, and all the details were wiped away. Growing — the hole-freckled humans were growing, half buried in the walls, lying on the floor, creating strange symbols. Humans — humans who had lost their boundaries, humans with their eyes and mouths interchanged, skin without features, shrivelled arms and legs unusually elongated.
[242]
Humans — humans who had lost their boundaries, they were overlapping, faces upon faces, their bodies like columbine petaals, their feet — their feet were like caterpillars all in a row.
Humans — humans who had lost their boundaries, what was it they wanted to become? Truly they wished to change the present, but in the end it is only a symbolic matter, and at this stage it is safe to say their worries were unnecessary. They did not matter. Their personalities have been deemed unnecessary. By whom? By the mechanism in the center of this room.
[243]
The mechanism was a cube that narrowed near the bottom, things like twisted telescopes stuck into it, a planetarium device. That is the way it looked.
However, it was supported with countless human torsos. On top of a table were girls’ bodies tied together with black and red threads, and on top of that the cube was set.
Beside it was a single hat — a black witch’s hat.
[244]
“Would you not say this to me now? Say to me that I, using obvious and blatant exaggerations have blasphemed not only you and your god but myself as well? Say to me that for this reason my duties have already been fulfilled?”
I could hear someone’s voice. It was the voice of the mechanism in front of me.
My brain is burning.
Inside the room a white centipede was crawling, a white centipede made out of countless combined human arms.
There was also a butterfly — a white butterfly made only of human eyes, and a spider — a spider made only of human legs.
These things distorted my depth perception as they marched in the gaps between humans.
[245]
The backs stood out the most, while limbs were thin and seemed far away. Heads and tales were so far away they were tinted blue from the air in between, while a part of the torsos seemed as if they were right before my eyes. The perspective of everything was off.
“Quiet! A funeral procession will now pass before you. Put your two knees to the ground and a song of mourning shall begin,” so the mechanism spoke.
“What are you?”
“Me? I am a witch, Ms. Ghost. Aren’t you tired of all these introductions by now? Really, there’s no need for me to repeat myself again! But there is meaning in such repetition. I am a witch, or a magic lantern projector. I am what was once Kirisame Marisa, and but calling myself Kirisame Marisa now, I am a mechanism for proving her absence.”
Convulsing, my brain was burning away.
“Well then, an incident has begun. We realized, the witch’s mechanism discovered, that we cannot let this incident end.”
[246]
“What… are you talking about?”
Convulsing, my brain was burning away.
“Where is… Renko…?”
“Oh, she’s here. Well somewhere around here. But Ms. Ghost, you are the ghost of this story, you know? Even if the person you seek was right here beside you now, nothing could change — not for all eternity.”
“What are you…?”
“What am I what? What am I talking about, you ask? I’m just explaining the current situation to you — nothing more, nothing less.”
Convulsing, my brain was burning away.
Something was rubbing against my feet.
“Anyway, soon the other side of the boundary should make a compound connection with this one. That’s part of the process.”
It was a spindle shaped clump of flesh. In its center was a circular rip, probably a mouth. Out from it came a long thing tongue-like thing. It licked Merry’s feet. The very instant this happened the surface of that clump of flesh begame covered in a reddish purple celluloid, and as if it were rotting it bubbled up, releasing a cloud of gas as it melted away.
[247]
“Lick the skin of a criminal, and you melt away and die.”
The mechanism turned, clicking and clacking.
Convulsing, my brain was burning away.
Burning, my brain was burning, my brain was…
***
When Maribel Hearn opened her eyes, she found that she was lying on a bed, dead.
Nothing could have been done.
Her brain was broken and no longer useful.
Nothing could have been done.
She was dead, and so she could not move.
She could only stare lazily up at the ceiling.
The ceiling — it was a familiar ceiling.
[248]
“Today with Merry, I “In other words, Izanami loved “Orpheus’s mirror shattered “The completion of Izanagi’s curse “St. Anthony’s fire “Today with Merry, I “A scarlet mansion and bamboo forest “Today with Merry, I “She did not understand the weight behind that playful kiss “Love “Do not love me “Today with Merry, I “It’s nothing “Even though I knew the truth “Temple Ruins “There is a 74 percent chance of rain “If we’re going to kill a thousand, then let us save a thousand five hundred “However, there is no chance we will say you can excuse yourself from the thousand “Kill meaninglessly, meaninglessly let live “Love “Don’t look at me with those eyes “Today with Merry, I
“Turn the grave “The meaning of turning the grave “Turn the grave “The meaning of you turning it
[249]
“Today with Merry, I “In other words, Izanami loved “Orpheus’s mirror shattered “The completion of Izanagi’s curse “St. Anthony’s fire “Today with Merry, I “A scarlet mansion and bamboo forest “Today with Merry, I “She did not understand the weight behind that playful kiss “Love “Do not love me “Today with Merry, I “It’s nothing “Even though I knew the truth “Temple Ruins “There is a 74 percent chance of rain “If we’re going to kill a thousand, then let us save a thousand five hundred “However, there is no chance we will say you can excuse yourself from the thousand “Kill meaninglessly, meaninglessly let live “Love “Don’t look at me with those eyes “Today with Merry, I
[250]
The ceiling was covered in paper clippings.
“Merry…”
I heard a voice.
Ah… It’s Renko.
My friend was on top of the bed with me.
She only had half of her face. The other half seemed to have broken away, and there were countless gears packed in its place.
[251]
With all of them packed together like that, there is no way they would be able to turn properly.
As I thought, with every movement, gears fell out of her face.
But at the same time, I thought that it was very fitting for Renko to be that way. I felt that it was cute.
“Merry…”
I heard her voice.
Renko peeled off each article of my clothing, one by one. There was nothing I could do. As my clothes with attached with paste, peeling them off required a cat. The cat was omnipotent — omnipotent, as you could put it in a mixer, blend it up and drink it.”
“Merry…”
I had become completely naked.
Renko too, was naked.
While massaging my breasts, she licked my armpits, nipples and then my bellybutton in sequence. She ran her tongue all over my body. She was so meticulous that I had to wonder if there was any part of my body she had not made wet.
She then proceeded to mount my wet thigh and rub her crotch against me.
[252]
Some fluid was dripping out, probably warm. Unfortunately, as I am dead, I could not sense the temperature of anything. After a while she twitched a bit, her back muscles tense, and after that she opened my legs.
There was my vagina.
I couldn’t see it, but all signs seemed to suggest that there were countless arms extending out of it. They ripped Renko’s broken face from her. I thought that was unfortunate. They ripped and discarded each bit, until there was almost nothing but a flat featureless outline of a face.
All that remained was countless small pieces of glass embedded in her face’s flesh, piercing it.
Despite the way everything seemed, I felt that, tangled up in these sticky body fluids on top of my own flesh she was forcing herself to stop.
She was shivering.
With no other choice, I ripped my own face from my body and put it on to her.
***
“This is what the world calls double suicide
“Come, let us search for fantasy together
“I have no choice but to eat your flesh
“Ah, please forgive me for I am about to die
[254]
“Come, let us explore the boundaries together
“I love you
“Please, do not let go my hand!
“It’s your fault, because you threw me away
“Due to an error, the system will restart
“Tktntktntktntktntktn
“Come, let us go on an adventure together
“Turn back time! We’re going back!”
“Come “Together “Depart “Together “Come
“Let us begin
[256]
END OF CHAPTER 3
