Chapter 12: Big and Little Things

Tuesday, 12:49PM, JRCS Staff Cafeteria

Taichi quickly entered the cafeteria. He searched for Kurosawa. He was almost 50 minutes late for his lunch invitation with his boss. He picked up a tray and quickly filled his plate with some rice and noodles, then he looked around to try to find him. Kurosawa's large size and wheelchair should be easy to spot..

He did. He saw that Kurosawa was sitting in his wheelchair at an outside table. The weather was beautiful and the view was gorgeous, with several billowy cumulostratus clouds gracefully kissing the tops of the mountains on the horizon. It was a scenic vista that would have put Ansel Adams to shame.

Taichi could see that Kurosawa was apparently in the middle of an animated discussion with another bald man that was seated across from him. Taichi carried his tray closer. It was Baso, the Buddhist monk who had helped to officiate at his Shinto-Buddhist-Western marriage ceremony with Inaba. Taichi had only briefly met him a couple times before the ceremony. He knew that Baso was a good friend of Inaba's father. From the easy-going way he was chatting with his boss, they appeared to be good friends as well.

He walked up quietly behind them. They were so engrossed in their conversation that he decided to wait and not try to interrupt his betters.

Kurosawa was speaking. ".. Baso, I respectfully disagree. I believe that we remain separate entities, that we retain our distinct identity as creations apart from Him. We do not become Him. We do not become God. That is actually mankind's first and oldest sin: man wanting to become or replace God. And that sin never goes away. It is the root of much of the evil in the world, to replace God's system with man's own. Systems like National Socialism and Communism. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Those failed attempts to create a man-made utopia, a Volksgemeinschaft or a worker's paradise, have caused more self-inflicted human misery and mass death than anything else in history."

The man in the orange robes smiled as he gently admonished his colleague. "Now, Akira, I did not say that. What I meant was that the bodhisattva merges with what you call the Godhead. It is like a drop of water returning to the ocean, losing its independent existence. It does not become it or replace it. Indeed, a man wanting to become God would be the height of arrogance. And that is one reason I agree with you concerning your diagnosis about human misery: that it is self-inflicted. You are correct. It is because of our failure to achieve detachment, or nekkhamma, from this sad world."

Kurosawa sipped his tea as he nodded, "And on that point I agree with you as well. There is far too much worldliness, what you would call maya. People fail to realize that there are far more important things in life than simply chasing a paycheck or watching the ball game on TV."

Baso sipped his own tea. "Mmm."

"People simply fail to see what is right in front of their eyes. All the evidence is right there in front of them. Creation says something about the nature of its Creator. Something very important, in fact. I mean, look! Look out there!" Kurosawa pointed.

Taichi saw the Kurosawa was pointing out at the glorious scenic outdoor vista, with the emerald forests climbing up the sides of the mountains as the birds flew overhead.

"What is the purpose for this? Why?"

Baso nodded, "Ah, this is your question again, 'Why is God showing off?'"

Kurosawa chuckled, "I admit I'm deliberately being provocative whenever I say that." He leaned forward. "I do it for a reason. And here, old friend, is where we start to diverge in our two religions: The nature of Creation and its purpose."

Baso asked, "Does the universe need to have a purpose?"

Kurosawa nodded as he swallowed his noodles. "It does. Physical creation, I mean. And the reason is obvious in my opinion. Because, I mean, just look at it. Just look at it all. The stars in the heavens, the billions of majestic spiral galaxies each with billions of stars of their own, and we can see it all. We can see it! It is no coincidence that the whole physical universe is carefully designed so that we can see it all as lowly humans.

Baso spoke again, "I too have great respect for just how sublime, grand, deep, and majestic the Great Wheel really is. And you are correct in that we need to realize just how insignificant we are in comparison to it. That we are utterly nothing in comparison."

"It's true, that kind of humility is very important. Wish more people had it."

Baso sighed, "Yes, that lack of humility, that lack of understanding, is what causes so much suffering in the world. But the Great Wheel exists in itself. Why is that not sufficient?"

Kurosawa's eyes were glittering, "Yes, exactly. It begs the question: Why? Why can we view the wonders of creation in our lowly maya-ridden forms? Why? Why, when we, as you would say, can simply gain nirvana and merge with it instead? Why can we see that creation as separate entities? That is why I believe that God and his creation are distinct. Isn't it obvious? Look around you. Do you see perfection? Is my body perfect? Is yours?"

The two elderly men both chuckled at that remark, with Kurosawa sitting crippled in his wheelchair and Baso's wooden cane leaning against the table.

Kurosawa pressed his point home, "The reason is simple: Creation exists to show us God's glory. Because it allows us to glorify Him in return. Don't you see? He doesn't want to merge, He wants a relationship. Someone to chat with. That, my friend, is why we exist as separate creatures. And it explains everything: why a separate Creation exists, why we have independent existence, why we have free will, why sin exists, why the Lamb had to die, everything."

Before Baso could reply to that, Taichi made a polite cough.

Both men looked up. Baso quickly stood and greeted the new JRCS employee. "Ah, Taichi-san, it is so good to see you again."

Taichi bowed deeply, "And you as well, Baso-sama."

Baso waved him off. "Oh, just call me Baso." Then they heard a chime as the lunch hour ended. Baso then said, "Well, old friend, now that your protégé is here I am afraid that I must return back to the temple to do gongyo with my kouhai." He nodded farewell to his companion. Then he looked back at Taichi. "I wish you and your beautiful wife a long and happy marriage."

"Thank you sir."

Baso then asked, "I trust that everything.. is going well with your wife?"

Kurosawas's sharp senses caught the subtle implication. Hmm. So Baso thinks the boy is having problems with his homelife.

Taichi spoke quickly, "Oh yes sir, everything is fine."

"I see. Well, as I said, I must be going." His eyes twinkled a bit. "I am sure you two have much to talk about." He made a small bow and left.

Taichi then turned and bowed again deeply to his superior, "I am very sorry, Kurosawa-sensei, for being so late."

"Pshaw, it's just lunch. I'm sure you must have had a good reason. Anyway, sit down and eat." He sat.

Taichi began to eat his noodles. After a moment he decided to try to make conversation. "So, uhm, it sounded like you and Baso were talking about the creation of the universe?"

Kurosawa nodded as he spoke through a mouthful of brown rice. "Yes. I really wish that more Christians had that sense of wonder, an appreciation of just how grand, vast, and majestic God's creation really is. The observable universe has over 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars."

"Wow."

"And it's all there for us to actually see. And that is no accident; it's not a coincidence that we can see it all. The Bible says it plainly: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.* And it does. It's all there to see as plain as day.

Taichi grinned, "I take it, sir, that you are an astronomy buff?"

Kurosawa smiled again. "I think you really meant to say 'astronomy geek'. Heh. Well, I am. It's because when I was a child at the orphanage there was a small telescope mounted on the rooftop. I would sometimes sneak up there late at night, all by myself, and look the stars. One night I saw the moons of Jupiter. Those moons were only point sources of light, but I knew that each dot was a world unto itself. I was awed."

Taichi recalled how he spent evenings himself on his back to view the stars. "Yeah, watching the stars like that is really wonderful."

"It truly is. I think that kind of understanding and appreciation of His creation, of what God has actually wrought, is sometimes lacking in certain 'Sunday-go-to-meeting' Christians, as I call them, who like to keep God and His works in a small box. They pull it all out of that box Sunday mornings, sing a few hymns about it, then put it back in that box and go home. God is so much bigger than that." Then he added, "Of course there are many Christians who do understand what the hymn How Great Thou Art really means when they sing it."

Taichi asked, "Aren't there people who believe that the universe was created 6000 years ago in six literal 24-hour days?"

Kurosawa shook his head sadly. "God is so much greater than what we can comprehend. The apostle Peter once wrote, With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.** I think he was saying that the notion of time is basically irrelevant from God's perspective. That is why I think those 6000 year timelines and 24 hour creation clocks are silly. All they do is merely diminish His true majesty and glory, as is so plainly manifested in what He actually created."

"So you believe that the universe is not 6000 years old?"

"No. It's mainly a canard tossed out by atheists to try to denigrate believers. That is why you see it brought up in the media all the time. But if you take a poll of actual evangelicals, you will find that very few believe that. In fact, more atheists believe in the existence of UFOs than there are young-Earth creationists. And the reason is simple: It is not Biblical. That 6000 year timeline was actually cooked up in 1642 by a guy named James Ussher. You see, at that time the Renaissance Enlightenment was really taking off. Great thinkers like Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton were showing that the motions of the heavens operated only with a few basic rules, and they were predictable and universal. Meanwhile Christian thinkers like Erasmus argued that faith and reason were compatible. Not only compatible, but essentially so. God is a rational being. Ussher was simply trying to apply the new logical thinking of the day to better understand and appreciate God's creation and plan. He did the best he could with the knowledge he had at the time.

"The idea of the Enlightenment and the Reformation was that God's plan for us could be understood by anyone - that the Bible was not supposed to be written in some secret dead language that was read only by priests who understood Latin. God is a rational being who loves us, and He wants us to get to know Him. Therefore the Enlightenment believed that all the laws and principles that controlled Creation could be understood, that God is a logical being whose creation operated on logical rules. Isaac Newton was a firm believer in a clockwork God, that all of the motions of the heavens were based on only a few basic rules, ones that he could accurately use to predict the position of every single heavenly body. Well, it turned out he was both right and wrong. Newton was right in that his Principles of Motion were indeed a rather good approximation for the kinematic behavior of simple systems within a gravity gradient at non-relativistic speeds, but he was wrong in that any kind of non-trivial system, like the three-body problem, actually has no analytic solution, and those seemlingly simple rules would quickly explode into incredible choatic complexity that is impossible for anyone to predict over long periods of time, even with a supercomputer.

"But Ussher did a basic misreading of Peter. What he did was simple. God created the world in 6 days, a day to God is a 1000 years, so 6 times 1000 years = 6000 years, QED. But don't you see? That's not what Peter wrote! He wrote a thousand years is like a day to Him, not that it literally was. And I'm not making excuses here. I'm not handwaving it away by claiming he was merely using a metaphor. I'm not. Why? Because Peter wasn't using a metaphor - it's a simile ('like a'). Peter wrote 'like a' very deliberately, I think, to prevent exactly the kind of bogus literal misinterpretation that Ussher did. To underscore that fact Peter intentionally used two similes and reversed them: that from God's perspective it can go either way. In other words, I think the point Peter is making is actually quite clear: that the passage of time is basically irrelevant from God's perspective."

"So you're saying Ussher was trying to downsize God, to put Him in a box."

"Oh, I don't think that was his deliberate intention. He was just a man of his time. The point is, we lowly humans need to be very, very careful when we presume to know what God is thinking. Who can understand His unfathomable mind?*** All we know for certain is that He loves us and He wants a relationship with us."

"Because God is love." That much Taichi already knew instinctively.

"Yes, He is."

Taichi then started to protest. "But.. then.. why is there so much evil in the world? If He loves us, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?"

Kurosawa's eyes twinkled a bit. "Ah. Yes. My, you jump right into the thick of it, don't you? Well that, my boy, is indeed a very excellent question."

Then he looked at his watch. "Uh oh, I'm already late for my next meeting."

Taichi felt vaguely disappointed.

Taichi had tried to stand up as Kurosawa cleaned up the remains of his serving tray, but Kurosawa quickly waved him back down. "Sit down, lad, and eat your lunch."

"Yes, sir.."

Kurosawa slapped his back. It made Taichi choke on his noodles. "It's okay, lad! You're just asking the same questions that mankind has been asking for thousands of years. You won't be the first and you won't be the last."

"Of course, sir."

Then Kurosawa leaned in and and whispered almost conspiratorially, "Look, I hate to just leave you twisting in the wind like this, so I tell you what. I'll give you a quick hint about my personal thoughts on that. It's just three words, what I call 'The Three Cs'."

"The three Cs?"

"Corrective, constructive, and controlling."

"Oh, I see." He didn't.

"Well, don't worry about it for now. You asked a great question, so just think about it. Then let's see if we can have another lunch together. It will depend on my schedule, of course." Kurosawa wiped his face. "Oh, don't forget the 3 o'clock staff meeting. I need to introduce you to the team." Then he frowned a bit. "Yaegashi, being late for a friendly lunch is one thing, but I do expect my subordinates to be on time for our work meetings. Understood?"

Taichi sat up straight. "Yes sir!"

His mentor smiled again, "Well, enjoy the rest of your lunch. And don't forget to adjust your timecard." The wheelchair hummed as it rolled away.

Taichi continued to eat his noodles thoughtfully.

Tuesday, 3:10PM, JRCS staff meeting room

Taichi was introduced to the other members of the Disaster Rapid Response Team. They seemed to come from all walks of life. Some of them appeared to be ex-military, like Bakou, who was an unpaid volunteer. The large and muscular man's expressionless face unnerved Taichi. It was because his face reminded him of Heartseed.

And then Taichi was more than a little startled when Kurosawa introduced him to another disaster-relief worker, a man named Keiso. He immediately recognized him.

Keiso was the guard that was standing in front of Iori's suite.

"Uh, hello, sir..." For whatever reason, Keiso went along with the introduction and didn't rat Taichi out.

At one point during the meeting Taichi felt his cellphone vibrate. He checked later it when he returned back to his cubicle. It was a text message from Inaba.

I gave Aoki my apartment key. I need some time alone. It's not you, it's me. Don't worry, I'll be home by Friday. I told Father we'd have dinner with him that night so I can apologize. Really need you there. Give Iori my love.

Taichi sighed quietly. Apparently Inaba was still wrestling with her demons.

He decided that he would talk to Iori about it the next time he had the opportunity. He had already made the appointment to meet with Fujishima tomorrow at her office during his lunch break.

With a powerhouse like Fujishima in their corner, he felt that there was a good chance that Iori could be out on bail as early as Thursday's afternoon court hearing. He felt bad about the mix-up with Aoki, but it couldn't be helped at this point.

And Iori had promised to help them both. Yes, she could help. After all, Iori knew Inaba as well as he did.

And in some ways even better.

Tuesday, 1:31 PM, Suragawa Health Clinic

Inaba stared blankly in shock. Finally she said quietly, "That's impossible.."

Her doctor replied, "I assure you the test is quite positive. And frankly you should have at least suspected it by now: The nausea, your physical weakness, the vomiting. And it's been over a month since.."

"That was just stress! I've skipped it before!"

"I see.."

She mumbled quietly to herself, "No, this is impossible.. we always used protection.."

The doctor overheard her. He asked, "You or him?"

"Well, him, of course." It was because oral contraceptives were banned in Japan for family-planning use.*4

The doctor was sympathetic, but there was still a small hint of irritation as he lectured her. "Young lady, you would not believe the number of high school and college age girls that I have had sitting in this examination room, sitting on that very same table where you are sitting now, all saying those same exact words: 'But we used protection!'."

"But.."

"That kind of contraception is far from infallable, as are most other kinds. The bottom line is that if you are not ready to have a child, then you are not ready to have sex."

She looked down. "I know that.."

He tried to reassure her. "Well, fortunately in this case the situation is not so dire. You told me you just got married, so obviously you are in a secure love relationship, yes?"

Inaba hesitated. She said finally, "Of course I am."

The doctor caught the hesitation. "Hmm. I assume he is the father, correct?"

Inaba's anger flared up. "What are you implying? Of course he is the father!"

"Yes, of course he is. My sincere apologies."

But Inaba ignored him because she was looking off into space again.

She said quietly, "No.. I can't.."

The doctor then said, "Madam, please permit me to apologize again as I don't mean to pry into your personal affairs, but I do not understand why you appear to be so upset. If you were an underage girl in high school living at home, then yes, I can very well understand your reaction. But you are a married woman with a loving husband. I am sure that your husband will be a loving father to his child, and your own parents will no doubt be just as thrilled with news that their first grandchild is on the way. Yes?"

"No.. I can't have a child.. I mean, me? A mother? Are you kidding?"

The doctor continued to look sympathetically upon his distraught patient. It was hardly the first time that he had seen this kind of reaction from a surprised new mother-to-be.

She keep talking to herself, "No.. it's too soon.."

The doctor responded, "Too soon?"

Inaba explained her situation, that she was entering the world of high finance. She would be fighting in a vicious world that took no prisoners, where defeat and utter ruin was often only one business-deal away. It was a world with no sympathy for a new mother. It was a nasty realm that required utter ruthlessness. Her father had lectured her many times about it.

Her father. Her deeply traditional Japanese father.

Oh no.

For you see, for all of Japan's wonderful technology, for all of its scientific achievements, for all of its industrial prowess as a premiere first-world country, it was still a very conservative culture. In Japanese society a young woman was supposed to enter the workforce for only a few years, say as a sales lady or a door greeter. Then she was supposed to retire to become a homemaker and mother. It was simply expected. The western notion of comprehensive child daycare was almost unheard of in Japan. Such facilities were practically nonexistent.

The traditional role of the stay-at-home mother was especially strong in the large segment of Japanese society that comprised the older generation. It was a generation that dominated the politics of that country, as the birth rate had fallen down to only 1.3 births per woman, far below the natural replacement rate of 2.1.

It was a demographic implosion the likes of which the world has never seen before. In some ways it was far worse than even in the worst wars and epidemics in human history. For example, the Black Death (1346-53) killed over 80 million people, almost half of the population of Europe. But that pandemic, as horrible as it was, had culled mainly the weak, the infirm, and the elderly. The strong survived. But the demographic implosion that was happening today in Japan was culling out the young and the strong, leaving behind only the old and weak.

And so, as Japan's slow, sad, slide into demographic oblivion continued inexorably, it left the elder traditionalists even more entrenched in power: politically, economically, and culturally, more and more.

People like Inaba's father. And she knew it. Her father would insist that she stay at home.

And it would devastate him.

And it was all her fault.

It was because her father was carefully grooming her as his replacement to eventually take over his empire. But now that couldn't happen, as women were not supposed to enter the workforce with children still living at home. And her father was already getting on in years. Meanwhile it could be a decade or more before she could re-enter the workforce again.

She mentally kicked herself. Taichi had previously asked her a few times about having children, all in his charmingly bashful way. But she was always careful to remain non-committal in response to his inquiries. Secretly she didn't want kids. Partly it was because she believed that she would be an awful mother. And so she had always tried to avoid bringing up the topic with Taichi. Her responses to the few times that he had built up the courage to ask her about it were always vague and non-specific. Perhaps, well, yes in principle, sure, some day we can try to have kids, but not now. It's too soon. The unspoken implication was it would be years away.

And if it was discovered that she had become infertile because they had waited too long? Well, c'est le vie.

Still, Inaba felt that Taichi would have made for a wonderful father. She was right, of course, but what she did not know was just how much of an understatement that actually was - that that man, whose very existence was practically defined by love itself, would have loved his children with a passion and a depth and an intensity that would have amazed her, in way that at this point in her still-young life that she still could not even begin to understand.

She remained seated on the exam table lost in her own thoughts.

The doctor waited.

More silence.

The doctor finally asked the question that he was obligated to ask. "I take it, then, that you are considering terminating your pregnancy?"

Inaba nodded absently.

Now, Inaba knew that abortion was illegal in Japan. So was the Pill. (There were rare medical exceptions of course.) It was part and parcel with Japan's conservative culture. And much of the political resistance to relaxing those laws was for another reason: That it would simply exacerbate the country's plummeting population decline even more.

Only condoms were considered acceptable for contraception in Japan. But, as her doctor had patiently explained to her, they were far from infallible. Inaba knew that sometimes her enthusaism with Taichi had caused problems with them - it happened more than once in fact. In hindsight it was a minor miracle that she hadn't gotten pregnant earlier.

Although she knew that abortion was officially illegal in Japan, she also knew that there were ways around the rules. One exception was for socioeconomic reasons. Another was for health reasons. She felt it would be a relatively simple matter for her to find a compliant doctor if she needed to.

Or should she keep her baby?

For Taichi?

No, the problem was her father. In Japanese culture it was expected, nay required, for a woman to quit her job to raise her children. That would be particularly true in old-fashioned families like hers. He would expect her to stay at home to raise her child. But wait, her family was wealthy enough to afford a live-in nanny. That was how she grew up herself, after all..

But wait.. a nanny? She remembered what happened to her, how growing up in isolation like that had permanently damaged her psyche. Her own child would be reliving her own miserable life, wouldn't it? Inaba felt she could never force a child to endure the same empty and sterile childhood that she had suffered herself, alone and unloved.

It all started because her mother had divorced her father. She remembered how furious her father was for her leaving him, and how skillfully he maneuvered his legal team and played the court system like a marionette. Her mother was left bankrupt with unpayable legal bills. He eventually repaid her debts himself, with the quid pro quo of receiving custody of her children.

And so as a child Inaba barely saw anyone in her family. Her new socialite step-mother had basically ignored her, and she hardly ever saw her older brother either. He was a lazy drunken wastrel who spent his money on fast cars and loose women. And after a series of scandals - including a particularly bad one involving a photo of him at a South Korean brothel - her father had disowned him. As far as she knew he was still living in that country.

No, she would not repeat those mistakes in her own life.

She finally spoke up, "But how? I thought it was still illegal."

"It is. But as a practical matter the socioeconomic exception under the Maternal Health Protection Law of 2006 allows virtually anyone to have one. Granted, in your case an economic hardship would be difficult to justify, but social reasons are always valid." Indeed, since the law was changed it became essentially a rubber stamp that was almost always approved.

She continued to think. "But do I have to tell my husband?"

The doctor considered her question for a moment. "Hmm. The law requires that your spouse must be notified. But this is a borderline case. Because the conception had actually happened before your marriage, I suppose it is not strictly required that you tell him. But I would counsel you strongly to do so."

She looked down. "I understand. You don't have to explain to me why."

He did so anyway. "Mrs. Yaegashi, I need to strongly advise you to inform your husband. If he found out after the fact that you had aborted his child without telling him, it could easily destroy your marriage."

Yes, it easily could. But wait, she thought to herself, this is Taichi we are talking about. Would Taichi leave her because of it? Something even as devastating to him as this?

No. He was Taichi. He would stay.

But it would hurt him. It would be the greatest hurt ever experienced in his life, far worse than anything Heartseed had ever done. What Inaba did not know was that he would become like the walking wounded, with a wound that could never be healed. It would be a rift that would forever separate him emotionally from his spouse.

He would stay with her, of course. He wouldn't leave her. And he would still tell her he loved her; he would even believe it himself, for the strength of his love was like a diamond, but a diamond can shatter if it was carefully struck by a blow in precisely the right spot. For his heart would indeed shatter, and thereafter his love for her would only be out of his sense of duty, a cost paid by the man who was a walking sacrifice.

And so she realized it with absolute certainty: That if she did decide to end her pregnancy then Taichi must never know.

Never.

And none of her friends must ever know either.

Ever.

Tuesday, 2:45PM, 12D Express Bus

Inaba was riding the transfer bus back to her new shared apartment with Taichi. She knew that Aoki would be waiting there for her to let him inside. He would need a key.

She continued to brood as she pressed the back of her head against the window. So much was happening so fast: Her pregnancy, dealing with Iori living with them, her roller-coaster relationship with Taichi, Heartseed's surprise return, Rina's bargain.

She thought about that last one. Well, at least there was one item on that list that she was looking forward to: She would finally be rid of that bastard Heartseed once and for all. And good riddance.

Then she began to think about Rina's words to her again.

You will utterly destroy him, or at least you will hurt him quite severely. At minimum I can guarantee that he will never be able to perform any further 'tests' on you or your friends.

All I will do is take a small payment from you, only a little thing, and then our business is finished.

A little thing.

The world seemed to telescope away as the realization hit her. She stared straight ahead as she absently dropped her small attaché case on the floor of the bus. As she did so she was beginning to draw the attention of some of the other bus riders.

Only one small payment.

Only a little thing.

Even at five weeks, with the creation of the brain, spinal cord and heart all well underway, her fetus was still less than an inch long.

She clutched her stomach.

One little thing.

She fainted.

A/N:

* Ps 19:1

** 2 Peter 3:8, based on Ps 90:4. (The latter also uses 'like a' in a simile.)

*** 1 Cor 2:11,16

*4 Until 2011