Chapter Four: When the Bird Pecks and Misses
(((Note from Jim-Author: Alright, I've gotten some questions about that last one. Jim is listening to two voices. He's not schizophrenic or anything, it's kind of a shoulder angel/ shoulder devil deal. In the original script, the confused voice, representing Jim's right brain, was in straight type, while the forceful, cold voice, representing Jim's left brain, was in italics. On the screen, it created a really good sense of two voices arguing. However, I have no clue how to make italics on FF.net... I think it has something to do with HTML tags. Which I am too lazy to study. So it looked like a confused jumble that somehow suggested that two people were arguing.
Jim woke up injured in an alley, with the confused voice having lost its memory. Jim has assumed the confused voice. The forceful voice is inside of him, a different state of mind for him, but he is not currently in this state of mind, and has not assumed the forceful voice. The forceful voice has knowledge of what had happened, and prodded the confused voice into trying to remember. The chapter is called "UFO Tofu" because "UFO Tofu" is a palindrome, and kind of shows how Jim experienced a set of events, then had to relive them backwards. The confused voice reaches back and retrieves most of the memories, but gives up in the end and has to be told the last few pieces of memory by the forceful voice. Jim and the confused voice are angered at the fact that the confused voice gave up and had to submit to the forceful one.. And no, I am not going to say what The Pact is. That will come later ^_^.)))
Sunshine again, on the third day. The great ball of sunlight had been broken up a thousand different ways by the time it hit Jim's face, first by the tiny, almost whispy clouds dotting the upper atmosphere, second by the blinds that were proving more and more ineffective at doing what it was supposed to be doing, and that was keeping the sunlight out of Jim's face in the first place.
So... three days. About how fast a wanted man could get out of a medieval province if he were stuck in the middle. The time it took to execute the baker in Joseph's cell, the same to save the wine-servant. The time it took some relationships to rise and crumble. The length of one baseball game that one time a long time ago. So... is three days good, or bad?
Jim knew something had to give, something had to break. Today, if he didn't get a call, there would be no call. He'd just have to find work elsewhere. It was his fault for missing the public teaching exam in the first place. It appeared he would be the baker, and not the bearer of wine.
The fan-blades spun in the air, despite the fact that it was late February. To Jim, everywhere seemed to be too warm, even when he had to wear a jacket. There was just something about warmth that seemed to repulse him. To focus, to get away from the cold, that's what he liked. To focus himself, turn up his own heat, not have it be provided for him. To ignore the ever-present cold, to beat it, to show that he was indeed stronger than the element he liked. Or, maybe he was just fooling himself. He did that a lot, even more nowadays than before.
Finally, after a bit more thinking, he rose, ate some cereal for breakfast (nobody knew HOW hard he worked to get that specific cereal in Japan), and settled for a few rounds of video games. Ah, the old vice. He had been hooked since age five, when his parents gave him an NES. There had once been a day when he sacrificed friends and family and even grades to play a few more games of Donkey Kong Country and Chrono Trigger, but those days were long gone. The games were still a vice (especially on this uber- nifty Playstation), but not nearly as bad as they had been. The alcoholic had been replaced by the classy English gentleman who adored a fine brandy. Would it be that from the top vineyards of Square or the classy old distillery from Konami or the brash new bottling plant at Sony that enticed him first? RPG, racing, or fighting? What year? 1997 seemed to be a good year for everybody. Except him, of course.
Moving to Japan seemed to be a waste, now. He liked the place, it was clean, it was sprawling, it gave him the opportunities to grow that he never would have pining away in Grand Ole Suburbia back home. But... there was that feeling. The place was still too regimentalized. The older teachers fought tooth and nail to keep some damn tradition up that nobody under the age of thirty cared about anymore. Divisions by class and familiarity and reputation, similar to those back in the States, carved up the people into castes, alien to each other, mistrustful, even a little bit afraid. It was getting harder to pay the rent, due to the inflation caused by the recession. He knew nobody, nobody wanted to talk to him, because he was an American. They were all separated and afraid. Only those that had seen through the barriers, the first new hope in his generation over here, those like Azusa and Onizuka, could see through the smoke. Too bad he had only met Azusa and Onizuka. A few more people like them, and a good steady job, and, maybe, maybe he could be able to live here in peace. But not until then.
After Sephiroth killed him twice, Jim turned the games off and walked around town for a while, taking in the sights. It was true, the sections of Tokyo did look very similar to each other, crowded, yet clean, but he continued to soak in information rather than tune it out as white vision. He looked for prices, oh, there was a new laundromat for one hundred yen, that was probably around a dollar. Nice price for Kichijoji. A new record from Namie Amuro, he didn't particularly like her music, but you can't just ignore that big picture of her and "Love is Great, Yeah!" pasted up on the front window of the rekoduya. A resident drunk blowing his last ten thousand yen in an arcade parlor, probably to overload his senses to keep his hangover at bay. Pondering over the questions of commercialism, as well as its pros and cons, he blanked out.
Jim looked up. Somehow, he had ended up at Lake Inokoshira, which had a large park as well as some apartment complexes. It was where Azusa lived. But, what had brought him here? Sometimes, Jim let his unconscious take over when his conscious was busy. More often than not, it led him to trouble or confusion, or both. Right now, he was confused. He wasn't wearing anything for swimming, it couldn't have been that. Boats? Did he want to boat around the lake? He was pretty sure his subconscious didn't get him all the way over here for something like boating, but he decided to try it anyway.
"For one," he said, and paid the gruff-looking man behind the counter of the shack on the pier. The boat was very small, maybe a larger man than he couldn't fit in it at all. Jim suspected that that particular boat was rented out to children since no adult in his right mind would be out on Lake Inokashira alone. Well, no adult with more than one friend that he could contact, at least.
Jim looked out toward the rim of trees, so thin in some places that the apartments almost stood openly of them. Feng Shui in the middle of the bursting metropolis, he thought. The municipal designers had tried to trick the eye, to make the place look like a mountain paradise. But then the builders came and shattered it all with their buildings and sidewalks. Ah well, nobody seems to mind. Which brought up that old question: When could the people give up their old culture, and how? As soon as it comes apparent that the culture is too outdated for effective living with technology, population size, food, resources, general international political climate, etc... and slowly. Gradually. Very gradually. Never wake the sleepwalker, and don't poke the bear. Too bad no entire people seemed to grasp this concept on a large scale. A few enlightened, no more, and the rest either fell headlong to watch something else sputter away to be fixed when they were old codgers, or tried to pull back, and stare in utter horror as what they put together fell to something that somebody else put together. Just 'cause our great-grandfathers took down a few Nazis in their day doesn't make them the world authority. And neither does the allure that the youth possess, the wealth and power they are achieving now, with the new vanguard of computers, the power on the Web that they're unlocking and exploiting, driving it deep into the earth to plunder everywhere else. Something will fall and break and they'll all wonder where all the customers went and the Almighty Dollar and Sidekick Yen will tremble.
His conscious broke to the surface again, and wondered why he had settled on the opposite shore, next to a little valley that was probably used for a makeout spot. And again, he wondered whether what he called his "subconscious" and "conscious" were just suppressed and superior states of reality, respectively. He picked up the oars and started rowing back, trying to ignore all the couples out there. There always were going to be couples, on the lake, on the streets, in his apartment building, in the games, in his imagination, in his dreams, wherever. There wasn't any use in ignoring them, but he didn't care. At least he could try, try and block out all the memories they brought to and back for him. No point in regressing by his own choice.
He leapt back up onto the dock, amateur seaman that he was, and tied the boat back to the dock. He paid the man extra for the time he had been on there (two hours, a lot longer than he thought), and walked back to the streets.
The sites were the same, but there were new people and places to see, as he was on the other side of the road. A trashy looking adult book store, the kind of place Onizuka would love, a second laundromat, ninety-five yen for a wash. A corner grocery store, the kind of place you never saw back home in Suburbanland. An electronics boutique (not the American corporation, mind you), filled to the brim with disks and cartridges. He checked out some of the newer games, the new FIFA soccer, Grand Theft Auto II, even some of the new N64 carts. He didn't have an N64 (he was starting to realize he had made the right decision), but some of them looked worth the extra thousand yen or so to buy. He left the shop, and made the final half mile back to his home.
Nothing remarkable happened on the way back, he saw nothing remarkable, heard nothing remarkable. Nothing remarkable happened as he entered the door, or when he got his key, or as he walked up the stairs, or when he opened the door, or even when he kicked his shoes off. But, just as he turned on his television, it happened. The phone rang.
This, in and of itself, was not remarkable. But, the voice on the other end was. A woman's voice. An older voice, authoritative but not decrepit. Familiar, but not quite. A world of wisdom was in that voice, hidden by a few miles of plastic, rubber, and metal, but still quite present and real.
"Sipensu-san?" Asked the voice.
"Hai."
"Your presence is requested at Holy Forest Academy by six o'clock this evening. Come to the side entrance, the one by Yokohana Boulevard."
The blood in Jim's face drained, leaving him truly cold for the first time in a long time. Could this really be it? Could the job really be open for him? He looked at the clock... it was already 5:30. He put his shoes back on and headed for his bike, locked up in the apartment bike rack, just outside of the apartment building but within the complex. All the while, the adrenaline in his system rose, partly from exercise, partly from excitement.
Then he was out on the road, rushing to the subway that always seemed too far away. He only had to travel one station, cursed waste of yen, but he couldn't miss this, not now. The speed would help so much. Cars wove around him, but he didn't mind. He had enough experience on the road to be comfortable with biking on it. The street that he had enjoyed walking through was now a blur waiting to pass through him, a burden he would have liked to have lifted RIGHT FREAKING NOW. The sights were no longer pleasant, they were reminders of how far he was. The noises were reminders of his competition, the people in the middle of rush hour, trying to shove past him to get to their homes and their dinners and their nice comfy couches. He was trying to fight for a potential job. The mile flew by, it had only been six minutes since the call, he was going to do fine.
And then he saw the ticket lines. He'd have to bike down THOSE to get anywhere close to the machines. The waiting was painful, again he felt oddly cold, afraid, alone. There were no orderly lines, because it was rush hour. Everybody in the damn world wanted to get out of their businesses and back into their homes, like the people with the cars. The place was steeped in cold and fear and filth, too many people too close together, he was mildly claustrophobic. Just mildly, and only when he was stressed. Well, he was pretty damn stressed right now.... A few more patient minutes of waiting, seeming like several painful years. All of the people around him were just going through their normal routines, not knowing, not caring that this was his job on the line. Of course, if he had really thought about it, at least SOMEBODY had to be as anxious as he was. But, he wasn't thinking. Or, at least, too clearly.
The line shrunk, and he was thankful that he had his bike with him, so that he could ward off a few more people. That thought didn't help much, but it was enough to keep him from sliding further into temporary madness. Now everything was a blur, a constant, ever-changing mishmash of colors and shapes that hurt his eyes and dulled his brain. Far too many people, a black mass of hair separating earth from sky, only short glimpses of ashen concrete below, the walls glowing with a pale, yellow, sickly light.
Finally, there they were, the ticket machines. Jim had blanked out long enough to get to them. So much like the ones in Washington. But still so different, filled with hiragana and katakana, not a single bit of romaji to be seen... his hand stopped. Not romaji... Roman letters. When did you start calling them romaji out of habit? Shut up. He moved his hand again, and pushed the buttons and inserted the coins for his ticket.
He gave a surprised grunt as a black sphere with red stripes hurtled toward him. A human head. Attached to a body, don't worry. But there are still some things you don't want to see flying at you. The head slammed into his chest, right at the top of the sternum, and from the cry the head gave out it seemed to belong to a girl. Once again, with a bad dye-job. And smelling like vanilla. Jim's head snapped back into place, after noticing that his hands were around her waist. He felt her butt pressing into his legs. That familiar scent, that familiar position. The warmth of her body felt cold to him, the second time in a long time. He released her immediately.
Feh, I thought a little nostalgia would have been good for you. You know, to ease the transition.
Shut up.
"What did you say, Yankee?" Jim looked up, the battle between logic and emotion temporarily abated. To his surprise, he was looking at a young woman. And she, the girl who had rammed into him, and a guy, were all staring at him, pissed.
"Are you deaf as well as blind? Apologize and bow, Yankee."
"Eh?"
The angry woman snarled and tensed up until her head rattled and her face flushed. She had hit six feet, taller than Jim, a veritable giant in Japan, and looked like a competent athlete, slim muscles starting so show under her strawberry-patterned shirt.
The guy, another typical tortured teen with a crappy dye job, spoke up. "Hitomi here was in the middle of apologizing to you when you told her to shut up. What do you have to say to that?"
Another cold wave. The realization hit him. His emotions had overtaken him, taken his mouth without him even realizing it. He thought he had just thought the words "shut up", when they were actually manifested in the form of sound. And now it was time to pay for his failure to keep himself in check.
"Gomen. I really haven't been myself lately. There was no excuse for my lashing out at you. Gomen nasai, Hitomi-san."
Hitomi and the guy seemed mollified, but the giant-woman wasn't. In a furious, almost feral, voice, she asked, "I told you to BOW, Yankee."
But then Hitomi spoke. "It's alright, Naka. He doesn't have to bow." Jim thought he was entirely in the clear, but then the girl said, "He probably got dumped recently, you know, hatred to all women kind of thing."
Now Naka was finally pleased. Well, pleased at the prospect of insulting Jim. "Yeah, he probably ran over here to get away from her."
Jim said nothing, but gave Hitomi a sad look. A "You betrayed me" kind of look. Well, he guessed he deserved it, after lashing out like that. He departed, and fought his way up the ticket line like a salmon would upriver. He checked his wrist instinctively when he got into the clear, but then remembered that he didn't have a watch. Hurrying on, more vicious thoughts rammed into his fragile consciousness.
What was that? Memories can hurt you? I never knew!
God DAMN it.
Hehe. I never realized how weak I am when you're in the system.
Why do you think I'm here then?
A shield. Right. Out of sight, out of mind, eh? Well, you're mistaken, nothing ever-
I know. Nothing ever leaves the mind. They proved that seventy years ago.
So why are you repeating such a gross miscarriage of science, seventy years later?
Science isn't everything. A lie can be construed as a truth if it is believed in enough.
I know. But that still doesn't exclude the fact that it IS truth. Falter once, and the truth comes back to kick your ass.
Get out.
You need me to get to the school. Your drive can't get you there alone.
You see the possibilities. You want this as much as I do.
Once again, I underestimate me... you... whoever you are.
We're BOTH me.
Riiiiiight... how could I forget.
You never did.
I know.
Somehow, in the midst of his mental battles*, Jim stumbled onto the train. The clock showed him to have ten minutes left. He almost cursed out loud, but caught himself on "FUH". Somebody shoved him in the back while he stared at the clock and calculated, breaking his thought process. Once again, he had to stop himself short from doing something foolish, his head not five inches from ramming an old man in the small of the back. After straightening himself back out, he started calculating again. Ten minutes left... two minutes to the next station, probably another three or four to get out. Four minutes to go a half mile. Not good odds, considering he had a seven minute mile at best. And he was a lot heavier than he was in those happy times. The train lurched, and he almost stumbled into a young man before grabbing onto the loop suspended from the ceiling.
Now it was speeding along, the sluggish beat of the rails beneath them growing steadily quicker and louder, yet quieter as the engine slowly roared to life. Jim felt a jolt of silence course through his body as the beat of the rails matched that of his body, the metal jump accentuating the organic thump. The beat of rails sped on unheedingly, leaving Jim to ponder despite his racing core.
And then it was over. The brakes didn't screech, but you could tell it was slowing down from the wind, the dull howl slowly getting stronger, raging as its life was about to end. And yet, the noise on the train, as opposed to outside of it, never faltered. A few quiet businessmen still stood quietly, that cute little couple of teenage girls talked just as loudly, a few hundred unsung notes spilled from earphones on greasy heads. And thus, is life...
Strangely, this thought calmed him. The idea that life never changed. Sure, lives changed, but, that idea in itself helped prove that life never changed because all lives change. It is a prerequisite of life that whatever lives are lived must change. The nerd rose from the bottom of the trash can and strove to master the world. The jock overestimated himself, and now serves the nerd. That arrogant sonofabitch who refused to see reality as it was and lived only to serve himself couldn't cope with working with others, and was ostracized. Thus is life.
The pain washed away from him. The stress and claustrophobia blew away with the whoosh of the doors. Life gave him an opportunity once, and he spurned it. Now, it gave him a second one. Rare, but not impossible, especially to those astute or humble. Jim considered himself both.
He was barely aware of what happened next. This was his calling. He was going to be a teacher. Despite what his mind screamed into his system, Jim let go of his senses. He was kami-kaze, divine wind. He fit inside the cracks the people left between them. Somehow, his hand stuffed the card in the slot at the exit gate and the gate swung open. Now out into the low sun the wind flew, feeding off the heat and the energy, just flowing. He couldn't feel his legs moving or getting tired, he didn't see anything but the shining beacon before him. He was the wind, he had no legs or eyes, just the need for more warmth. Warmth to live.
Finally, the weight of his legs dragged him back into the mundane world. The pain in his chest overcame his lightness of mind. The spike in his gut told him he was there. He was at the school, panting and choking in the twilight. He climbed over the fence, and jumped down to the sound of a raging semi-trailer. It skidded to a halt just outside the school, and a man jumped out. Even in the dimming light, Jim could see that he was gruff, muscular, and in need of a shave. And he had blond hair.
"Onizuka...."
Onizuka looked at Jim, the surprise on his face matched by him. They were both interviewing for a position. Whatever travails Onizuka pulled off, Jim probably didn't want to know right then and there. But, as they entered the building to the sounds of the sirens hunting Onizuka himself, Jim's halves spoke to each other one more time.
You did good, kid.
Only what you told me I couldn't do.
I underestimated you.
No shit, Sherlock.
Maybe you are worth keeping around.
Feh. I was always worth keeping around. Without me, you're just a computer. And you know what?
What?
This proves another thing. We cling. Life on the margins is brought out to its fullest potential. Unless we walk out to the edge, we aren't running efficiently. It's why the mightiest kings fell, the most powerful empires crushed themselves under their own weight. Unless we hang from the cliff, none of our muscles will be very strong. He just proved ourselves that. We could've given up and gone out for the other schools. But you know what? They wouldn't have taken me. I would have been lost in the shuffle again.
So what?
So. It's not just me that would be hurt. You're vulnerable, too. Vulnerable to logic. Unless I decide to believe in the lies, you'd be too petrified by pure logic to get anywhere.
Like I said, you're good, kid.
And who said I wasn't? I just needed to apply myself.
For a moment, both minds fell silent. The woman from the student store came before them, her comfortable sweater and smock replaced by a severe business suit. She introduced herself as Mrs. Sakurai, Chairwoman of the Board at Holy Forest. When she turned and beckoned for the two to follow her, Jim whispered to himself, "Thus, is life."
(((Note from Jim-Author: Alright, I've gotten some questions about that last one. Jim is listening to two voices. He's not schizophrenic or anything, it's kind of a shoulder angel/ shoulder devil deal. In the original script, the confused voice, representing Jim's right brain, was in straight type, while the forceful, cold voice, representing Jim's left brain, was in italics. On the screen, it created a really good sense of two voices arguing. However, I have no clue how to make italics on FF.net... I think it has something to do with HTML tags. Which I am too lazy to study. So it looked like a confused jumble that somehow suggested that two people were arguing.
Jim woke up injured in an alley, with the confused voice having lost its memory. Jim has assumed the confused voice. The forceful voice is inside of him, a different state of mind for him, but he is not currently in this state of mind, and has not assumed the forceful voice. The forceful voice has knowledge of what had happened, and prodded the confused voice into trying to remember. The chapter is called "UFO Tofu" because "UFO Tofu" is a palindrome, and kind of shows how Jim experienced a set of events, then had to relive them backwards. The confused voice reaches back and retrieves most of the memories, but gives up in the end and has to be told the last few pieces of memory by the forceful voice. Jim and the confused voice are angered at the fact that the confused voice gave up and had to submit to the forceful one.. And no, I am not going to say what The Pact is. That will come later ^_^.)))
Sunshine again, on the third day. The great ball of sunlight had been broken up a thousand different ways by the time it hit Jim's face, first by the tiny, almost whispy clouds dotting the upper atmosphere, second by the blinds that were proving more and more ineffective at doing what it was supposed to be doing, and that was keeping the sunlight out of Jim's face in the first place.
So... three days. About how fast a wanted man could get out of a medieval province if he were stuck in the middle. The time it took to execute the baker in Joseph's cell, the same to save the wine-servant. The time it took some relationships to rise and crumble. The length of one baseball game that one time a long time ago. So... is three days good, or bad?
Jim knew something had to give, something had to break. Today, if he didn't get a call, there would be no call. He'd just have to find work elsewhere. It was his fault for missing the public teaching exam in the first place. It appeared he would be the baker, and not the bearer of wine.
The fan-blades spun in the air, despite the fact that it was late February. To Jim, everywhere seemed to be too warm, even when he had to wear a jacket. There was just something about warmth that seemed to repulse him. To focus, to get away from the cold, that's what he liked. To focus himself, turn up his own heat, not have it be provided for him. To ignore the ever-present cold, to beat it, to show that he was indeed stronger than the element he liked. Or, maybe he was just fooling himself. He did that a lot, even more nowadays than before.
Finally, after a bit more thinking, he rose, ate some cereal for breakfast (nobody knew HOW hard he worked to get that specific cereal in Japan), and settled for a few rounds of video games. Ah, the old vice. He had been hooked since age five, when his parents gave him an NES. There had once been a day when he sacrificed friends and family and even grades to play a few more games of Donkey Kong Country and Chrono Trigger, but those days were long gone. The games were still a vice (especially on this uber- nifty Playstation), but not nearly as bad as they had been. The alcoholic had been replaced by the classy English gentleman who adored a fine brandy. Would it be that from the top vineyards of Square or the classy old distillery from Konami or the brash new bottling plant at Sony that enticed him first? RPG, racing, or fighting? What year? 1997 seemed to be a good year for everybody. Except him, of course.
Moving to Japan seemed to be a waste, now. He liked the place, it was clean, it was sprawling, it gave him the opportunities to grow that he never would have pining away in Grand Ole Suburbia back home. But... there was that feeling. The place was still too regimentalized. The older teachers fought tooth and nail to keep some damn tradition up that nobody under the age of thirty cared about anymore. Divisions by class and familiarity and reputation, similar to those back in the States, carved up the people into castes, alien to each other, mistrustful, even a little bit afraid. It was getting harder to pay the rent, due to the inflation caused by the recession. He knew nobody, nobody wanted to talk to him, because he was an American. They were all separated and afraid. Only those that had seen through the barriers, the first new hope in his generation over here, those like Azusa and Onizuka, could see through the smoke. Too bad he had only met Azusa and Onizuka. A few more people like them, and a good steady job, and, maybe, maybe he could be able to live here in peace. But not until then.
After Sephiroth killed him twice, Jim turned the games off and walked around town for a while, taking in the sights. It was true, the sections of Tokyo did look very similar to each other, crowded, yet clean, but he continued to soak in information rather than tune it out as white vision. He looked for prices, oh, there was a new laundromat for one hundred yen, that was probably around a dollar. Nice price for Kichijoji. A new record from Namie Amuro, he didn't particularly like her music, but you can't just ignore that big picture of her and "Love is Great, Yeah!" pasted up on the front window of the rekoduya. A resident drunk blowing his last ten thousand yen in an arcade parlor, probably to overload his senses to keep his hangover at bay. Pondering over the questions of commercialism, as well as its pros and cons, he blanked out.
Jim looked up. Somehow, he had ended up at Lake Inokoshira, which had a large park as well as some apartment complexes. It was where Azusa lived. But, what had brought him here? Sometimes, Jim let his unconscious take over when his conscious was busy. More often than not, it led him to trouble or confusion, or both. Right now, he was confused. He wasn't wearing anything for swimming, it couldn't have been that. Boats? Did he want to boat around the lake? He was pretty sure his subconscious didn't get him all the way over here for something like boating, but he decided to try it anyway.
"For one," he said, and paid the gruff-looking man behind the counter of the shack on the pier. The boat was very small, maybe a larger man than he couldn't fit in it at all. Jim suspected that that particular boat was rented out to children since no adult in his right mind would be out on Lake Inokashira alone. Well, no adult with more than one friend that he could contact, at least.
Jim looked out toward the rim of trees, so thin in some places that the apartments almost stood openly of them. Feng Shui in the middle of the bursting metropolis, he thought. The municipal designers had tried to trick the eye, to make the place look like a mountain paradise. But then the builders came and shattered it all with their buildings and sidewalks. Ah well, nobody seems to mind. Which brought up that old question: When could the people give up their old culture, and how? As soon as it comes apparent that the culture is too outdated for effective living with technology, population size, food, resources, general international political climate, etc... and slowly. Gradually. Very gradually. Never wake the sleepwalker, and don't poke the bear. Too bad no entire people seemed to grasp this concept on a large scale. A few enlightened, no more, and the rest either fell headlong to watch something else sputter away to be fixed when they were old codgers, or tried to pull back, and stare in utter horror as what they put together fell to something that somebody else put together. Just 'cause our great-grandfathers took down a few Nazis in their day doesn't make them the world authority. And neither does the allure that the youth possess, the wealth and power they are achieving now, with the new vanguard of computers, the power on the Web that they're unlocking and exploiting, driving it deep into the earth to plunder everywhere else. Something will fall and break and they'll all wonder where all the customers went and the Almighty Dollar and Sidekick Yen will tremble.
His conscious broke to the surface again, and wondered why he had settled on the opposite shore, next to a little valley that was probably used for a makeout spot. And again, he wondered whether what he called his "subconscious" and "conscious" were just suppressed and superior states of reality, respectively. He picked up the oars and started rowing back, trying to ignore all the couples out there. There always were going to be couples, on the lake, on the streets, in his apartment building, in the games, in his imagination, in his dreams, wherever. There wasn't any use in ignoring them, but he didn't care. At least he could try, try and block out all the memories they brought to and back for him. No point in regressing by his own choice.
He leapt back up onto the dock, amateur seaman that he was, and tied the boat back to the dock. He paid the man extra for the time he had been on there (two hours, a lot longer than he thought), and walked back to the streets.
The sites were the same, but there were new people and places to see, as he was on the other side of the road. A trashy looking adult book store, the kind of place Onizuka would love, a second laundromat, ninety-five yen for a wash. A corner grocery store, the kind of place you never saw back home in Suburbanland. An electronics boutique (not the American corporation, mind you), filled to the brim with disks and cartridges. He checked out some of the newer games, the new FIFA soccer, Grand Theft Auto II, even some of the new N64 carts. He didn't have an N64 (he was starting to realize he had made the right decision), but some of them looked worth the extra thousand yen or so to buy. He left the shop, and made the final half mile back to his home.
Nothing remarkable happened on the way back, he saw nothing remarkable, heard nothing remarkable. Nothing remarkable happened as he entered the door, or when he got his key, or as he walked up the stairs, or when he opened the door, or even when he kicked his shoes off. But, just as he turned on his television, it happened. The phone rang.
This, in and of itself, was not remarkable. But, the voice on the other end was. A woman's voice. An older voice, authoritative but not decrepit. Familiar, but not quite. A world of wisdom was in that voice, hidden by a few miles of plastic, rubber, and metal, but still quite present and real.
"Sipensu-san?" Asked the voice.
"Hai."
"Your presence is requested at Holy Forest Academy by six o'clock this evening. Come to the side entrance, the one by Yokohana Boulevard."
The blood in Jim's face drained, leaving him truly cold for the first time in a long time. Could this really be it? Could the job really be open for him? He looked at the clock... it was already 5:30. He put his shoes back on and headed for his bike, locked up in the apartment bike rack, just outside of the apartment building but within the complex. All the while, the adrenaline in his system rose, partly from exercise, partly from excitement.
Then he was out on the road, rushing to the subway that always seemed too far away. He only had to travel one station, cursed waste of yen, but he couldn't miss this, not now. The speed would help so much. Cars wove around him, but he didn't mind. He had enough experience on the road to be comfortable with biking on it. The street that he had enjoyed walking through was now a blur waiting to pass through him, a burden he would have liked to have lifted RIGHT FREAKING NOW. The sights were no longer pleasant, they were reminders of how far he was. The noises were reminders of his competition, the people in the middle of rush hour, trying to shove past him to get to their homes and their dinners and their nice comfy couches. He was trying to fight for a potential job. The mile flew by, it had only been six minutes since the call, he was going to do fine.
And then he saw the ticket lines. He'd have to bike down THOSE to get anywhere close to the machines. The waiting was painful, again he felt oddly cold, afraid, alone. There were no orderly lines, because it was rush hour. Everybody in the damn world wanted to get out of their businesses and back into their homes, like the people with the cars. The place was steeped in cold and fear and filth, too many people too close together, he was mildly claustrophobic. Just mildly, and only when he was stressed. Well, he was pretty damn stressed right now.... A few more patient minutes of waiting, seeming like several painful years. All of the people around him were just going through their normal routines, not knowing, not caring that this was his job on the line. Of course, if he had really thought about it, at least SOMEBODY had to be as anxious as he was. But, he wasn't thinking. Or, at least, too clearly.
The line shrunk, and he was thankful that he had his bike with him, so that he could ward off a few more people. That thought didn't help much, but it was enough to keep him from sliding further into temporary madness. Now everything was a blur, a constant, ever-changing mishmash of colors and shapes that hurt his eyes and dulled his brain. Far too many people, a black mass of hair separating earth from sky, only short glimpses of ashen concrete below, the walls glowing with a pale, yellow, sickly light.
Finally, there they were, the ticket machines. Jim had blanked out long enough to get to them. So much like the ones in Washington. But still so different, filled with hiragana and katakana, not a single bit of romaji to be seen... his hand stopped. Not romaji... Roman letters. When did you start calling them romaji out of habit? Shut up. He moved his hand again, and pushed the buttons and inserted the coins for his ticket.
He gave a surprised grunt as a black sphere with red stripes hurtled toward him. A human head. Attached to a body, don't worry. But there are still some things you don't want to see flying at you. The head slammed into his chest, right at the top of the sternum, and from the cry the head gave out it seemed to belong to a girl. Once again, with a bad dye-job. And smelling like vanilla. Jim's head snapped back into place, after noticing that his hands were around her waist. He felt her butt pressing into his legs. That familiar scent, that familiar position. The warmth of her body felt cold to him, the second time in a long time. He released her immediately.
Feh, I thought a little nostalgia would have been good for you. You know, to ease the transition.
Shut up.
"What did you say, Yankee?" Jim looked up, the battle between logic and emotion temporarily abated. To his surprise, he was looking at a young woman. And she, the girl who had rammed into him, and a guy, were all staring at him, pissed.
"Are you deaf as well as blind? Apologize and bow, Yankee."
"Eh?"
The angry woman snarled and tensed up until her head rattled and her face flushed. She had hit six feet, taller than Jim, a veritable giant in Japan, and looked like a competent athlete, slim muscles starting so show under her strawberry-patterned shirt.
The guy, another typical tortured teen with a crappy dye job, spoke up. "Hitomi here was in the middle of apologizing to you when you told her to shut up. What do you have to say to that?"
Another cold wave. The realization hit him. His emotions had overtaken him, taken his mouth without him even realizing it. He thought he had just thought the words "shut up", when they were actually manifested in the form of sound. And now it was time to pay for his failure to keep himself in check.
"Gomen. I really haven't been myself lately. There was no excuse for my lashing out at you. Gomen nasai, Hitomi-san."
Hitomi and the guy seemed mollified, but the giant-woman wasn't. In a furious, almost feral, voice, she asked, "I told you to BOW, Yankee."
But then Hitomi spoke. "It's alright, Naka. He doesn't have to bow." Jim thought he was entirely in the clear, but then the girl said, "He probably got dumped recently, you know, hatred to all women kind of thing."
Now Naka was finally pleased. Well, pleased at the prospect of insulting Jim. "Yeah, he probably ran over here to get away from her."
Jim said nothing, but gave Hitomi a sad look. A "You betrayed me" kind of look. Well, he guessed he deserved it, after lashing out like that. He departed, and fought his way up the ticket line like a salmon would upriver. He checked his wrist instinctively when he got into the clear, but then remembered that he didn't have a watch. Hurrying on, more vicious thoughts rammed into his fragile consciousness.
What was that? Memories can hurt you? I never knew!
God DAMN it.
Hehe. I never realized how weak I am when you're in the system.
Why do you think I'm here then?
A shield. Right. Out of sight, out of mind, eh? Well, you're mistaken, nothing ever-
I know. Nothing ever leaves the mind. They proved that seventy years ago.
So why are you repeating such a gross miscarriage of science, seventy years later?
Science isn't everything. A lie can be construed as a truth if it is believed in enough.
I know. But that still doesn't exclude the fact that it IS truth. Falter once, and the truth comes back to kick your ass.
Get out.
You need me to get to the school. Your drive can't get you there alone.
You see the possibilities. You want this as much as I do.
Once again, I underestimate me... you... whoever you are.
We're BOTH me.
Riiiiiight... how could I forget.
You never did.
I know.
Somehow, in the midst of his mental battles*, Jim stumbled onto the train. The clock showed him to have ten minutes left. He almost cursed out loud, but caught himself on "FUH". Somebody shoved him in the back while he stared at the clock and calculated, breaking his thought process. Once again, he had to stop himself short from doing something foolish, his head not five inches from ramming an old man in the small of the back. After straightening himself back out, he started calculating again. Ten minutes left... two minutes to the next station, probably another three or four to get out. Four minutes to go a half mile. Not good odds, considering he had a seven minute mile at best. And he was a lot heavier than he was in those happy times. The train lurched, and he almost stumbled into a young man before grabbing onto the loop suspended from the ceiling.
Now it was speeding along, the sluggish beat of the rails beneath them growing steadily quicker and louder, yet quieter as the engine slowly roared to life. Jim felt a jolt of silence course through his body as the beat of the rails matched that of his body, the metal jump accentuating the organic thump. The beat of rails sped on unheedingly, leaving Jim to ponder despite his racing core.
And then it was over. The brakes didn't screech, but you could tell it was slowing down from the wind, the dull howl slowly getting stronger, raging as its life was about to end. And yet, the noise on the train, as opposed to outside of it, never faltered. A few quiet businessmen still stood quietly, that cute little couple of teenage girls talked just as loudly, a few hundred unsung notes spilled from earphones on greasy heads. And thus, is life...
Strangely, this thought calmed him. The idea that life never changed. Sure, lives changed, but, that idea in itself helped prove that life never changed because all lives change. It is a prerequisite of life that whatever lives are lived must change. The nerd rose from the bottom of the trash can and strove to master the world. The jock overestimated himself, and now serves the nerd. That arrogant sonofabitch who refused to see reality as it was and lived only to serve himself couldn't cope with working with others, and was ostracized. Thus is life.
The pain washed away from him. The stress and claustrophobia blew away with the whoosh of the doors. Life gave him an opportunity once, and he spurned it. Now, it gave him a second one. Rare, but not impossible, especially to those astute or humble. Jim considered himself both.
He was barely aware of what happened next. This was his calling. He was going to be a teacher. Despite what his mind screamed into his system, Jim let go of his senses. He was kami-kaze, divine wind. He fit inside the cracks the people left between them. Somehow, his hand stuffed the card in the slot at the exit gate and the gate swung open. Now out into the low sun the wind flew, feeding off the heat and the energy, just flowing. He couldn't feel his legs moving or getting tired, he didn't see anything but the shining beacon before him. He was the wind, he had no legs or eyes, just the need for more warmth. Warmth to live.
Finally, the weight of his legs dragged him back into the mundane world. The pain in his chest overcame his lightness of mind. The spike in his gut told him he was there. He was at the school, panting and choking in the twilight. He climbed over the fence, and jumped down to the sound of a raging semi-trailer. It skidded to a halt just outside the school, and a man jumped out. Even in the dimming light, Jim could see that he was gruff, muscular, and in need of a shave. And he had blond hair.
"Onizuka...."
Onizuka looked at Jim, the surprise on his face matched by him. They were both interviewing for a position. Whatever travails Onizuka pulled off, Jim probably didn't want to know right then and there. But, as they entered the building to the sounds of the sirens hunting Onizuka himself, Jim's halves spoke to each other one more time.
You did good, kid.
Only what you told me I couldn't do.
I underestimated you.
No shit, Sherlock.
Maybe you are worth keeping around.
Feh. I was always worth keeping around. Without me, you're just a computer. And you know what?
What?
This proves another thing. We cling. Life on the margins is brought out to its fullest potential. Unless we walk out to the edge, we aren't running efficiently. It's why the mightiest kings fell, the most powerful empires crushed themselves under their own weight. Unless we hang from the cliff, none of our muscles will be very strong. He just proved ourselves that. We could've given up and gone out for the other schools. But you know what? They wouldn't have taken me. I would have been lost in the shuffle again.
So what?
So. It's not just me that would be hurt. You're vulnerable, too. Vulnerable to logic. Unless I decide to believe in the lies, you'd be too petrified by pure logic to get anywhere.
Like I said, you're good, kid.
And who said I wasn't? I just needed to apply myself.
For a moment, both minds fell silent. The woman from the student store came before them, her comfortable sweater and smock replaced by a severe business suit. She introduced herself as Mrs. Sakurai, Chairwoman of the Board at Holy Forest. When she turned and beckoned for the two to follow her, Jim whispered to himself, "Thus, is life."