Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
An off-kilter, darkly ironic novella from a Japanese literary star - part of Pushkin's second Japanese Novella seriesSeventeen-year-old Haruo spends all his waking hours online, fixated on the endangered Japanese crested ibis, Nipponia Nippon. Alone in his Tokyo apartment, living off his parents' indulgence, he descends into a fantasy world where he alone shares a bond with the last of these noble birds, their lives caged in the national conservation centre.Haruo's destiny becomes clear. He will free the birds-alive or dead-from an undeserving civilization. As Haruo's emotional state grows increasingly erratic, he searches the internet for weapons and prepares for the night of reckoning.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 163
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
HARUO TOYA narrowed his options down to three: breed them, free them, or kill them.
Realistically speaking, breeding was off the table. Getting these precious, endangered birds from Sado to Tokyo would be impossible enough, but keeping them in a six-mat room? No way, not birds that size. His parents’ home—in the countryside the next prefecture over, not too far away—was a possibility, but just getting the place ready would require a massive effort. How was a frail seventeen-year-old boy who had no money and didn’t really know where to begin going to do that? The government was struggling to keep the birds alive, and all he was was a kid with a fantasy about taking care of the birds and taming them. Then, he worried, suppose the birds’ whereabouts leaked out, things could turn totally crazy.
So, the options were really down to freeing them or killing them. Which meant whatever he decided would be a final solution, no turning back. He put off deciding, but thought about it round the clock. His imagination played the two scenarios over and over; in his indecision it was his only break from complete inertia.
The first thing, in either scenario, was he’d have to break into the cage. Then the next step—liberate or kill. Either course of action, he realized, he felt just fine about. No unease. In a way, the sense of his achievement would be the same.
By letting the birds go, he could feel proud of himself—a hero, a liberator of weak, captive innocents. On the other hand, by killing them, he would be an agent of chaos, crushing the world’s good intentions, and he could revel in the ecstasy of a cold-blooded executioner. These were daydreams, of course, but they felt more real to him than reality. He dwelled constantly on these feelings, and his desire to achieve his goal grew stronger by the day.
Justice and injustice coexisted within him. Neither seemed false, yet neither had the upper hand. It was all in his head, anyway. Was there more justice in killing them or letting them go? He could point himself in either direction at will. He wanted to do both. He saw no contradiction in this.
Maybe I really have a split personality, he wondered. It was a thought that came to him often, now as a matter of habit.
Until one of those personalities asserted itself, he entertained both fantasies. But like a slug inching toward its goal, he was driven, surely but slowly, toward the forest where the crested ibises were kept.
•
Haruo had no idea what the security at the Sado Island Crested Ibis Conservation Center was like. The center itself said little on the matter.
An article in the Mainichi newspaper’s Interactive Crested Ibis Internet Museum page claimed that “the crested ibises seem more carefully supervised than the pandas at Ueno Zoo,” but gave no details. Visitors could peer into the cages of the ibises from a designated observation zone that had three mounted sets of binoculars. The cages and adjacent administration building were bordered by a fence, beyond which visitors were not allowed. The distance between the fence and the cages seemed to be about fifty meters. For what he wanted to do, he wasn’t sure whether that was a long distance or not.
In any case, an online map wasn’t going to tell him all he needed to know. Since the security for the pandas at Ueno Zoo was, as stated, light in comparison, he went to the zoo to get at least a point of reference. But obviously the situation at Sado was a different story. He needed to go there and do some reconnaissance on his own. But because he was phobic of airplanes and boats, he had no desire to make the trip there more than once.
Photos and maps of the center on various websites showed the aviaries as freestanding structures, unattached to the administrative offices. Immediately he pictured himself, under cover of night, scaling the fence and stealing into the inner compound, sidestepping any defenses. Then he’d break into the aviaries and do his deed, whichever it was to be.
He’d be like Lupin the Third, moving with speed and grace. And when he opened the doors to the aviary and came face-to-face with the birds, he could imagine how that alone could change the world. If that moment alone became known, it would give the country a jolt, sparking both praise and outrage. He’d be a hero! He’d be a villain! He’d have done something bold and unprecedented! His fantasies rolled on.
But what if there were guards at night? What if he bumped into a staff member? Crested ibises were “Special Natural Monuments” in Japan and on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, so of course there’d be staff on night duty, of course there’d be security guards patrolling the place.
Professionals always plan for the worst-case scenario. Haruo had read that somewhere. He was only an amateur, but he had to approach this thing like a pro. Failure was not an option. If he got caught, there would be no second chance. He’d be subjected to disdain and mockery all over again. Those pig-shit scumbags, all dressed up, pissing themselves laughing and sticking it to him, the pathetic son of the soba-maker, a bush-league crackpot.
In other words, the world would keep looking at him the way it always had.
So he needed weapons. But if a guard or staff member saw him, a confrontation was unavoidable. He needed protection. He wasn’t a scrapper, not in a fist-to-fist kind of way, which wouldn’t be practical in any case under the circumstances. He needed weapons that could neutralize any opponent instantly, keep them out of action for a long time. That was how to plan for a worst-case scenario.
He typed “stun gun” in the search field on his computer: 4,195 results came up. He tried another search, adding the keywords “online shopping,” and got 1,543 results. Still too many. He refined the search again, adding “handcuffs” and got 32 results. OK. Of those, Haruo selected an Osaka seller boasting “the world’s best selection!” and “unbeatable bargains.”
He didn’t know if the seller really had “the world’s best selection,” but there sure was a lot. Haruo had bought stuff online before, but never self-defense goods, so it took time for him to find his way around the site. The store had more than ten different types of stun gun alone, but there were also crossbows and slingshots, an array of knives, nunchaku, and extendable batons, even night-vision scopes. He was amazed that all of this was legal.
He wanted to arm himself to the teeth, but he also had to scrape together the funds from his allowance, so he had to be selective. After studying the descriptions of possible items, he chose four weapons based on ease of use, effectiveness, and how well they complemented each other.
For the purpose of disarming an opponent, he chose a stun baton, which had the highest power and the least risk of being snatched away by said opponent. With a length of 46.7 centimeters and a weight of 500 grams, it was a large model, and at 500,000 volts, it was the most powerful in its advertised class. It could immobilize an opponent for more than forty minutes after just five seconds of contact. It was normally 58,000 yen, but thanks to a “limited-time sale,” it was now only 12,000 yen. This was the first item he put in his shopping cart.
Next, pepper spray. There were many types, but Haruo had his budget to consider and so he settled on the cheapest (2,200 yen). The spray was composed of capsicum (3%) and sulfur mustard (3%), in a medium of Freon 134a (94%). It caused violent coughing, nonstop sneezing, and intense pain to the eyes, nose, and throat. It had an effective range of two meters, and its neutralizing power would be even greater when combined with the stun baton.
Then, handcuffs. Haruo wasn’t sure how many pairs he’d need, but he guessed that two would be enough. According to the Ministry of the Environment’s web-site, the Sado Island Crested Ibis Conservation Center was staffed by “four people: a veterinarian, a breeder, and two assistants.” That meant, probably, that at night there’d be one watchman, two at most, and no more than one staff member on site—for a total of three. Even if there were others, a 500,000-volt stun baton would knock them out instantly. Haruo added two sets of double-lock nickel handcuffs (2,800 yen each) to the cart.
Finally, a knife—or, as stated, a “survival knife”; it’d be a backup weapon if the stun baton failed. A knife was easier to use than something like a crossbow; it was light, yet lethal in close-quarter combat. A stun baton wouldn’t kill, but a blade could neutralize an opponent for good. It would also be useful if he decided his “final solution” was to kill the birds. The selection of knives was quite large. From the offerings Haruo chose a 30-centimeter knife with a 17.5-centimeter blade for the price of 7,000 yen. It came in a leather sheath and with several accessories: matches, a compass, a grindstone, fishing lines, hooks, and weights. He’d have no use for it after his mission, so a cheap one would do. He added it to his cart.
With consumption tax and a 1,000-yen fee for cash on delivery, his total came out to 29,140 yen (shipping was free on orders over 20,000 yen). Haruo’s budget was 30,000 yen, so he was pleased with his purchase.
He reviewed his strategy: the gear he’d acquired would be enough to neutralize any men he encountered. After all, the guards wouldn’t be carrying more than a nightstick, and it was unlikely that the center was on alert for a terrorist attack. Nonetheless, if the police were called, these weapons wouldn’t be enough: policemen carry guns. A stun baton or a survival knife was no match for that. Slingshots and crossbows were projectile weapons, but couldn’t be fired rapidly or continuously, and couldn’t be mastered in the short time that he had. For a mission like this, he really needed parity with his opponent. If he wanted to be certain of success, he needed a gun. This was going to cost him, but like a pro, he was preparing for the worst-case scenario.
Where to get a gun? In the movies, in novels, people got them from the yakuza, but Haruo wanted to steer clear of such sinister types. He turned again to the internet.
Following links from a list of Dark Web websites, he landed on The Inside Dope, which turned out to be a valuable resource for all kinds of illicit activity. He posted an anonymous message on the forum: “I’m looking for a real gun.” He provided a free email address and said he could pay up to 150,000 yen. That was one month of his allowance, meant to cover rent and living expenses.
According to a survey carried out in autumn 1998 by the National Federation of University Co-operative Associations (NFUCA), university students living in apartments in Tokyo received an average monthly allowance of 111,830 yen. Haruo wasn’t going to school, nor did he have a part-time job, let alone full-time employment. Nonetheless, every month he received from his parents an allowance considerably higher than the average, and was able to do with it as he pleased.
And so he was free to spend his days surfing the internet and contemplating the plight of the crested ibises. Holed up in his apartment, undisturbed by anyone, he had been at it for three months, since October 2000. Somewhere in that time he had had a job, but it didn’t last two weeks. He wasn’t a complete recluse, a real hikikomori, nor was he obsessed with the ibises 24/7, but as one month led to the next and then the next, the ibises became the main focus of his attention.
At the end of January 2001, Haruo had settled on “the final solution” to “the Nipponia nippon problem.” It became clear to him when he learned that the plumage of the birds Yu Yu and Mei Mei had changed, signaling the onset of the breeding season.
Two days after Haruo placed his weapons order, it arrived.
He handed over 29,140 yen to the courier, stamped his seal on the delivery receipt, and took possession of the goods. It all seemed so easy. The seller’s website had read, “We are not permitted to sell self-defense products to minors,” but Haruo was never asked his age, nor to provide identification. Just like that, he was halfway there.
The gun was another matter. Soon after he posted his message on the forum, he received three email messages that treated him like a child: “150,000 yen? Are you out of your mind? If you’re that poor, just stick to air guns,” “Don’t you know the Juvenile Law is even harsher on weapon possession than before? Stop pretending to be an adult, punk!” and “If you want a gun, join the Self-Defense Forces.”
He got no other responses. Chided, Haruo went on the forum again, raising his offer to 300,000 yen. Within six hours, he received an email with the subject line “I’m selling a Tokarev (8 rounds included).” The sender claimed that the gun was “authentic” and had been test-fired. Haruo was pleased but hesitant, since the deal was dependent on the seller receiving the entire 300,000 yen before the weapon would be sent.
The internet was rife with scams, and demanding payment up front without delivering the goods was a common one. How could Haruo trust this guy? He had no way of knowing if the seller was on the level, and he had no confidence in his ability to negotiate a better deal. Seeing how this was all illegal anyway, he certainly couldn’t run to the authorities if he got ripped off. Stuck, he decided to do nothing—and see if the seller contacted him again. That was the only way to determine the seller’s true intentions.
•
Haruo was in his first year of middle school when he discovered, flipping through a dictionary, that to, the first kanji of his surname, could also be read as toki, the meaning of which was “crested ibis.”
This was a major moment, and it made him feel an affinity for the bird. It began modestly, with the crested ibis becoming his favorite species. He didn’t bother to read up on them, but when crested ibises were ever in the news, he found himself paying attention.
What fascinated him more than the birds themselves was their predicament. They were extremely rare—endangered, in fact—and they were bred under a national conservation and breeding program. All this made Haruo feel that he, too, was special. That his surname, Toya (“crested ibis valley”), shared the same kanji with the toki not only confirmed this, it was a sign of nobility, he believed. It was alienating that nobody could understand why he was so proud of his name, but this only strengthened his sense of grandeur.
Haruo didn’t know when to shut up. He was constantly trying to get his classmates to acknowledge his superior intellect and unique ideas. Unsurprisingly, they avoided him, kept him at a distance. His logorrhea spilled over into his writing as well: every day, at home, he filled the pages of his diary with outpourings of emotion, while at school he would talk his classmates’ ears off. His long-windedness and attention-seeking were an irritation. He could tell that he rubbed people the wrong way, but he lacked the self-control to do anything about it.
His grades were good, not great, and he had an average build, but he could be ferocious in a fight, so he didn’t get beaten up very often. Instead, there was a period when his stuff got hidden or ripped up. He knew who his tormentors were, so he responded in kind. This deterred them a bit, and after a particularly nasty period things did calm down. The bullying ended when he entered his third year and was moved to another homeroom. The bullies had by then turned their attention to another outcast.
In his three years of middle school, Haruo didn’t make a single close friend; it felt to him that he had spent the entire time delivering monologues. Yet it never occurred to him to alter his image simply by talking less, and he refused to play the game of self-deprecation that lubricated social interactions. Like many his age, he was impatient with the world without understanding it. He believed that when he became an adult, he would find an environment where he felt he belonged. His ideal was a world without enmity or malice, a tender world of kindness and respect, a paradise where crested ibises flew freely in the sky.
His awareness of the birds’ predicament, and his sympathy toward them, grew over time.
The January before Haruo entered high school, China gifted Japan with two crested ibises, Yang Yang and Yo Yo, who were in residence at the Sado Island Crested Ibis Conservation Center. In May, the birth of a crested ibis chick through artificial breeding—the first such case in Japan—became big news. Haruo felt as if this all had been his personal good fortune, but he said nothing because he hated the idea of joining the herd that was fixated on the news. The day the chick was born, he wrote in his diary: “I can’t express my feelings, because then I’d be like everyone else.” Although the media treated the conservation and breeding program as a project of national interest, Haruo saw it as a passing fad. When he learned that the name of the chick would be selected from a pool of suggestions submitted by elementary school students, he was disgusted: here was a sublime creature, on the verge of extinction, being treated like a carnival sideshow. It made him furious. Whatever pleasure he felt dissipated each time news about the chick came on TV.
Something was fundamentally wrong about this whole thing. A vague sense of the wrong grew more clear to him each day, and as he committed the sense of this wrong to his diary, he nailed it: people thought that the birth of the chick, named Yu Yu, had saved Nipponia nippon, the Japanese crested ibis, from extinction, when the fact of the matter was Yu Yu may have been born on Japanese soil but was the offspring of crested ibises from China. The extinction of the indigenous bird was a foregone conclusion!
Once he realized this, all of the festivities over “the second-generation crested ibis” seemed like a sham. People just wanted an excuse to cheer about something, anything. The gloom of “the endless recession” no doubt had something to do with it. As usual, people wanted to turn away from reality and forget their troubles. They were making merry, nothing more. It may be a cliché to say this, but feeling scorn for “the masses” from a position of no responsibility is easy.
Haruo studied the press coverage, trying to get to the heart of the matter. He came to the following conclusion: this national fixation on the birds’ breeding amounted to no more than a vulgar interest in the sex life of the ibises. That was the kind of society he lived in. It was true that Japanese think about nothing but sex. And not just human sex: there were probably people masturbating to the mating of birds.