The Shut-In,
a psychological story in five parts
by
ARTIST STATEMENT
One element in the following short story was originally conceived several years ago. For a long time, I wanted to write a story that did commentary about the relation of the state to the individual: How a society influences its people, and in-turn how the people characterize the state.
The recent pandemic has effectively tied the fate of the state directly to its citizens. Through a biological disaster, developing issues such as isolation, financial strife, and social conflict have become increasingly prominent. In these issues, one can observe generally-recurring traits in people, and by extension, the operation of society at-large.
Of particular interest to me is the media age’s ability to simultaneously gratify people with means for attention and interconnectedness while at the same time delivering narratives such as self-reliance and individuality. This inevitably causes contradictory thinking. The following story attempts to explore the disparity between these opposing ideas.
Loneliness and arrogance, connection and isolation, image and authenticity: These are themes that will continue to characterize the modern age. Arguably, the only thing that is fundamentally in a state of change—the determining factor in all—is perception.
~~~
Part One
On a humid summer morning in the greater Tokyo metropolis, a young man’s eyes snapped open. He leapt from his bed and frantically sprinted back and forth along his narrow apartment as though trying to evade something.
Muttering panicked apologies under his breath, for what and to whom it was uncertain, he then started pacing tepidly around the room with upraised arms, looking for something, anything that would make sense. The few possessions he had carried little significance, for he would pick them up and drop them just as quickly. Writing utensils on his desk, a stack of bowls, books and papers; for all he knew, they might as well have not existed.
His investigation bearing no fruit, his surroundings remained draped in a persistent blackness, he shuddered uncontrollably, begging to himself for some recourse. Letting out an agonized growl, he lashed out, bumping his leg violently against a low piece of furniture.
His shin blazing and head spinning, he groggily lowered himself to the floor in resignation. Only as he lay on the gritty wood panels did he realize his rapid breath. Inhaling deeply through his nose and exhaling, he nearly passed out. He steadied his breathing into a rhythm slower and more measured.
All while this was happening, he noticed that although the room was still dim, it was no longer encased in darkness. Rubbing dried rheum from his eyes, he could now see that a sliver of orange light painted the far wall opposite his window. Still, uncertainty hovered over the room. All around were faint outlines of things unrecognizable, like phantom images from nothingness.
He gathered his focus on the faint orange line and continued rubbing his eyes. Each time he opened them the line seemed to gain more color. Gradually, the dreaded outlines gained shape and texture, morphing into recognizable furniture: A desk, a table, a bookcase, a bed frame. Recollection fell upon him with a thud, like a heavy book that was dropped from several feet.
As he sat panting, the heavy air pulled his sweat into rivulets down his temples and neck. Hanging his face, he watched the sweat drip on the wood floor and mix with the particulates.
Rubbing his eyes once more, he felt heavy—a little too heavy. He laid down on the hardwood floor and blinked once, twice, and thrice, though he could not remember the third blink, for darkness had already washed over him.
He started awake an hour later. The panic that he had experienced was no more than an unpleasant dream now. However, reality was no more pleasant. He felt a barely-suppressible rage grow within him. He clambered to his feet, walked to the window over his bed, and briskly pulled his black-out curtains aside.
Affronting the morning-yellow glow was a round, dark cedar table with squat legs in the middle of the wood-paneled floor, flanked by cheap plaster walls. It was the table that he had bumped against in a panic. Several stained-white plastic bowls sat placidly atop it, encrusted with the shame of past meals. A storm of illuminated dust flurried in their wake.
He checked the analog clock on the wall perpendicular to the head of his bed. It was a quarter past eight. What was the day, was it Wednesday or Thursday? He shuffled around his room looking for his Intellivisor until he spotted it on the desk facing the same wall. He pressed a button on its frame and a digital readout pulsed gently into view. His heart sank. It was only Tuesday. His first class started almost fifteen minutes ago.
No matter; punctuality was not an issue. Sighing with resignation, he fell into his desk chair like an insolent child. He opened the frames of the Intellivisor which, innocuously enough, resembled a pair of glasses made from a stylish metal and plastic polymer. However, the only glass on its outer face was a small lens. It was a depth sensor that inputted information from its surroundings. The Intellivisor created a model of the environment based on the sensor’s input, so if needed, virtual reality display within the shades could correspond to the subject’s movements.
He slipped the Intellivisor over his eyes, and for a brief moment, he was immersed in darkness. The Intellivisor logo snapped into view then dissipated in a flutter of impressive graphical effects. He was greeted with the perfunctory salutation: “Good Morning, Jiro,” before that too faded away to reveal the home screen of his computer.
Willing himself not to browse the headlines that populated his internet search engine, he used the buttons on the visors’ frame to toggle to the student portal to his university. He splayed his fingers out on his desk and tapped them against the wood top as if typing on a phantom keyboard. The sensor on the face of the glasses calculated the precise movements of each finger tap as an input for the corresponding character where a real keyboard would be. After typing in his credentials, he logged onto the university network and joined a live lecture on political theory.
Twenty minutes into the lecture he was already headed down the street to the local coffee shop. He could not focus on it now, or as far as he knew, ever again.
No matter. The lecture would be automatically recorded so that he could watch it at any time. He did not need to dress for he had slept in his street clothes. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag, which is what he did when he wanted to kick-start his thoughts.
The university-distributed Intellivisors had location-tracking features which could detect if a subject was not sitting still, thus negating their class-participation. “As long as I keep those glasses still, I can earn my stupid attendance grade,” he thought bitterly.
The 21-year-old student’s name was Amano Jiro, his surname written first, as is the custom in Japanese. Amano had a Japanese birthright and was raised in the United States. One semester into his undergraduate degree in an American university, he transferred to Japan. It had been over a year since.
After all of the work he had put into transferring to his current university, his effort had seemed to have all but gone to waste. Over a year ago he was quite certain that Japan was the place where he ought to be, to the point that he did not mind that nearly all of his credits were un-transferrable.
No sooner had he begun the semester, his government-funded grant disappeared, immediately throwing him into debt. He could no longer afford tuition, much-less room and board at the university. The university had a solution for such financially-troubled students, offering online classes at a considerable discount. With a loan that he barely scraped together in time, Amano now took all of his classes just over 50 kilometers away from campus in a cheap apartment complex, one of many erected in response to urban sprawl.
He walked down his neighborhood block, one of the few activities he had taken pleasure in when he first moved in, though now, he saw nothing spectacular in his surroundings. The low-rent apartments in his neighborhood were still quite new—only made in the last five years—and they seemed to shine with a sickeningly cheerful and bombastic look. They were minimalist-inspired buildings that boldly juxtaposed wood facades with colorful paintjobs.
If one were to stand at a window on a very high floor, they would see gigantic skyscrapers in crazy designs jutting from the skyline. Each one was vastly different in shape but remarkably similar in their mass implementation of glass and steel.
Amano felt that this experimental, rapidly-changing style of architecture that was proliferating around the globe was eerily detached from a unique national identity. Instead, these buildings embraced a look that was weirdly both striking yet homogenized. “The apartments here are not too bad. You’re always going to have some oddities built here and there. But these super-skyscrapers are monstrosities that do not compliment the skyline at all. The purpose of their design is only to call attention to themselves, jutting out like glittering thumbs for people to gawk at,” he growled.
“I know of course,” he muttered, as if arguing with someone in front of him, “that Tokyo has always been a city that embraces innovation, but at what point do you trade national identity for shallow glamor, an infantile proclamation shrieking, ‘I am different and special!’”
He took another pull of his cigarette. “This entire city is starting to feel like a different country. Didn’t I come here to experience the place from my childhood? A year in and I still feel completely detached from the country that I thought I had belonged to.”
Musing to himself, he became increasingly embittered. “And with record-setting immigration to Tokyo I just happen to get hit with misfortune, carelessly thrown to the outskirts of the city where no one will know who I am.”
Amano generally enjoyed daydreaming as he walked, as he would come to find that he arrived at his destination in no time. But today the walk felt arduous. Even though he was outside, it felt as though his mind had never left his room and a feeling of entrapment clutched over his spirit. Lacking enthusiasm, his thoughts spiraled downward, their potential energy dissipating.
However, Amano had in-time learned not to be affected by despair for long. As his indignation turned into self-pity he let the emotions fall away from him, like stones sinking in water.
Arriving at the coffee chain, he stopped ten feet away from the door. He took one last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. He stared at the windows of the coffee shop. Inside people were lined up, waiting patiently at the counter.
“What the hell am I doing,” He thought to himself. “I’m not hungry, I don’t want to attend class, and I’m tired. What’s the point of drinking coffee if there’s nothing worth getting strung-out over?” And with that, he turned around and walked back the way he came. He moved briskly, urgent to return home. With every step he became aware of just how sluggish he felt.
He looked up. The sky had become an overcast gray. The paint on the apartments did not look so colorful anymore.
Part Two
Anger was the definitive trait that characterized Phillip Takahashi. A bland air of cynicism emanated from his eyes like a fog. At least, it felt to him as though he were constantly walking through a fog. Unfortunately, Takahashi could not really tell what kind of person he was, and so it could not be known for certain that he was truly cynical.
What he did know was that he was feeling increasingly uneasy towards an idea that for a time had only crossed his mind every now and then. These days, it was always lingering in the back of his head, and it tended to come forward when he was alone.
It was the possibility that he was not living up to his true potential as a significant individual. Worse yet was the thought that he was not especially gifted in intelligence, looks, charisma, or shrewdness. Perhaps he possessed some positive attributes here and there but he feared that he was not truly original, just a mediocre copy.
“Or,” he thought, “maybe merely questioning whether I am naturally gifted is the source of my mediocrity. That is, my own self-doubt is the factor that limits me from the recognition that I am capable of.” He paused. “Perhaps desire for recognition in and of itself keeps one in a mediocre state. I might well be suppressing an innate talent because of concern with other people’s validation.”
“Therein lies the crux of this dilemma: In order to gain one thing one must sacrifice the value they put in another.”
He pursued this line of thought. “When I think about it, a desire for recognition is the sign of a person who has been deprived of adoration, the absence of which amplifies in their single-minded pursuit of it,” he thought grimly.
“I imagine those who make use of their natural gifts acting completely opposite. Because there is no need for them to seek recognition; their talent draws an inevitable buzz. Whether they might be this or that way doesn’t even cross their mind. Their accomplishments are self-evident.”
He continued, “In fact, after a while, the naturally-gifted must get so accustomed to recognition that they aren’t even influenced by it. Since they brim with a natural vigor that magnetizes adoration to them, they don’t need to rely on external opinions for a model of success. It must be, then, that the ultimate task of the naturally-gifted is to become the decider of where recognition is directed.” Takahashi was lost in thought.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself… It seems that the key to distinguishing who is naturally-gifted versus who isn’t is to overcome the need for others’ opinions. The less someone gravitates to validation, the more they can come to depend on their personal truth.”
“Yes… It’s that point from which the road to independence is paved. But it’s a long road for sure. Until then, one must take advantage of what they have.”
Suddenly, Takahashi become somewhat melancholy. He shook his head. “…No, that’s just another symptom of the kind of doubt that blocks success.” With that, he was resolute.
~~~
Without fail, Takahashi’s mind always wandered back to these kinds of ideas. He had turned them over in his head so many times that they seemed to be narrated by a lucid inner voice.
On the outset, the twenty-two-year-old undergraduate student did not seem like someone who would be inhabited by strange thoughts. Coming from a well-off family, he had many acquaintances and carried a pleasant demeanor.
But, if over the years one observed closely his characteristic grin that up-turned his eyes into friendly crescents, they would see that the smile was a little too friendly, rigid, and overall unnatural.
This unnaturalness was not a great issue in terms of his social life since he tried not to attract too much attention to himself. A few who crossed paths with Takahashi might have felt that there was something was not quite right with the way that he flashed his teeth. Those who did often chalked it up to misplaced intuition.
However, there was something to be said about the plasticity of his smile. Even with all of the pleasantries of a normal, somewhat-wealthy life, Takahashi had an inner coldness that kept people at arm’s length. He was, by all means, a socially-active person, participating in political and business clubs, sports, and even activism. All the while, he maintained a cool, light-hearted personality.
He felt it was important to be the one who said yes; to not let any opportunity go un-wasted. Still, the stress of keeping up airs often got to him. It seemed to take more energy for him to socialize than the average person, and he continuously questioned why this was so. It was like a riddle that everyone already knew the answer to, and he had to work harder than anyone to figure it out.
Naturally, he became contemptuous of his more sociable peers, even the ones that he conducted pleasantries with on a regular basis. To him, they were foolish and less mindful of their behavior, for he put in the mental work to be socially-conscionable. Even as he went drinking or joined karaoke nights, he spited doing so under his breath.
One day, he was ensnared with the idea that, just as he pretended to enjoy people’s company, they returned this sentiment in-like. To him, people were naturally deceitful, especially if it meant protecting their image.
And yet, there remained in him the desire for social approval, just like any other average person. As long as he was yet to rid himself of this desire, he condemned himself for it.
Part Three
When Amano got home he returned to bed, waking up in the afternoon with markedly more energy. Hungry and out of food, he went to the convenience store for some cheap wares. He spent the rest of the day distracting himself by browsing the internet, free to use his Intellivisor without repercussion of being marked as an absentee.
What ruined his enjoyment, however, was a nagging feeling that he should have been catching up on his classwork. However, even if Amano had the willpower to concentrate on his studies, he was starting to think that telecommuting his degree was a waste of time.
He quelled the guilt by immersing himself further in the virtual world afforded to him by the Intellivisor. Amano could spend all-night interacting with the virtual reality. His favorite thing to do was play simulators.
With the un-invasive earpiece attachments and ultra-high resolution, Amano could do anything from fine-tune his surfing technique to learn how to reload a musket on the frontlines of Napoleonic battles. It was the closest he could get to real sensory experiences without electrode implants.
This time, Amano was distracted. He quit the simulations after just an hour. This was no problem, however. There were endless articles, videos, and entertainment available at his fingertips, and he wanted to keep going until he could do nothing but fall into bed.
As the day wore on, he gravitated, as he had many times in the past, towards philosophy. These days he was particularly drawn to the 19th century philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. One quote in particular stuck out to him:
Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule.
In the face of his loneliness and frustration, this was the maxim Amano tried to embody. All he got in return, however, was a constant numbness. Occasionally, in the half-conscious states just before and after sleep, he felt nearly disembodied from himself. It was as though he was on the edge of observing his own thoughts in the shallows of his consciousness. Suffice to say, Amano found these experiences somewhat disturbing. However, the emotional lows that had stung him so deeply were now replaced with a dull sameness.
As he read and re-read Schopenhauer’s quote, he had an impulse. He switched to his social media and inserted the quote. Underneath it he typed:
There is a conspiracy that the events in my life aim to make me miserable. This conspiracy exists only as long as I dogmatically pursue one thing. It is the desire for an end result and not-so-much the result itself that puppets me around in a tortuous game. And so I say, university does not reject me, society does not reject me, and life does not reject me; I reject.
He published the post and continued browsing the internet late into the night, until eventually he crawled into bed. When he closed his eyes, all he could see were the phantom images of his screen.
Part Four
Takahashi was all set to commit to his theory of self-dependence. There was only one problem. For all the diligence he had committed into putting forth an impenetrable image, he had slipped up once.
This Saturday would have been Takahashi and his ex-girlfriend Ayumi’s second anniversary.
In his third semester of university, Takahashi met Ayumi, and together they had a relationship that lasted for nearly two years. The relationship ended that March, when Ayumi cut things off just before the start of the semester.
A meek and unassuming person, Ayumi was drawn to Takahashi’s outgoing nature. She saw on the outset a goodness in him that was naturally helpful, who spoke excellently, and could come up with a flattering word for anyone. But as their relationship settled into a comfortable routine, the problems began to surface.
The friendly demeanor that Takahashi portrayed in public felt oddly artificial in private. Intimately-speaking, Takahashi’s gestures were awkward and void of genuine emotion, always giving the impression that he was hiding his private thoughts. Ayumi felt that there was something off, but inexperienced as she was, she concluded that the behavior must be normal.
Gradually though, she became filled with skittishness as she strained to acclimate to his detached nature. The more she strained, the more the fraudulence of the entire relationship seemed to weigh on her. Eventually, she became afraid; of what exactly she was not sure, which made her all the more afraid.
Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, Takahashi accused Ayumi of being disingenuous; that there was nothing truthful in her behavior. From then on he became markedly more brooding and resentful, commenting on occasion that he found nothing worthwhile in the shallow personalities of most people.
Takahashi seemed to become a completely different person. There were times when he acted flippant towards Ayumi and times when he interrogated her, demanding to know where she had been that day and who she was talking to.
Almost eight months before their relationship ended, Ayumi had had enough. After gathering her courage, she confronted Takahashi, and in a wavering tone told him that she did not know exactly what had happened, but if he did not change, she was going to leave him.
To her surprise, Takahashi showed remorse. With prodding, he admitted in slow, stilted wording that he secretly struggled with his self-image. For a few months after that, Takahashi’s personality resembled its previous form.
But once again, he gradually reverted to acting aloof and dismissive, pretending as if he had revealed nothing to Ayumi.
For a time that stretched into the school break, she held onto the hope that doing whatever she could to support Takahashi would make him a better person.
Without realizing it, Ayumi became miserable. Only when her friends pointed out her sullen demeanor did she see that Takahashi had become worse than ever. Finally, she knew that she could not change him. Ayumi limited her communication with Takahashi until eventually, she ended the relationship. And so, their two-year drama ended with a whimper.
Takahashi felt cheated out of being the one broken up with. Although he should have predicted that Ayumi was going to leave him, he had overestimated her loyalty.
Most direly, his reputation was at stake. The thought that Ayumi was holding onto the knowledge of his secret self-doubt unnerved him. He decided to resolve this potential problem by confronting her directly.
~~~
On Saturday morning, the day of their anniversary, Takahashi messaged Ayumi. “I know you don’t want to see me, but I have to talk to you about something important,” the message read. He asked her to meet in the small park near the female dormitory that evening.
Ayumi was adamant. In her mind, she and Takahashi were separated for good. But could she be so cold as to ignore him completely? She resolved to hear out what he had to say while firmly reminding herself of the stress that she had gone through.
Ayumi arrived at the park at 7:45 in the evening, a few minutes ahead of their meeting. The long summer days meant that the sun would not set for another thirty minutes. Although Tokyo was deep in the humid months, an unseasonably cool breeze rustled through the trees dotting the park.
It was then that she realized why he had chosen an oddly specific time to meet. Knowing his meticulous nature, she knew he had chosen a time when the sun was lowest so that they could avoid as much of the heat as possible.
The cicadas living in the park made their long, reedy whines.
Walking through the park, she stopped. Takahashi sat waiting on a bench several meters away. Watching him sit there, unaware that anyone was watching him, Ayumi was struck with a curiosity that she had not felt before. She had the impulse not to approach him, but to stand there, observing him in his natural state.
Although decidedly less—for lack of a better word—friendly-looking, his body movements did not seem as rigid and purposeful. He sat hunched with his hands clasped together, elbows on his knees. His head was tilted slightly down and his eyelids drooped, looking mildly at nothing in particular. Ayumi felt an unexpected twinge of doubt. Had she acted too hasty in ending things?
Out of the corner of his eye, Takahashi sensed someone was in his presence. His head motioned in Ayumi’s direction and he saw her watching him. He stood up briskly. Ayumi approached him.
“Yumi, I didn’t expect you to get here so late,” he joked, for Ayumi arrived on-time as she always did. He flashed his grin, although with noticeable more exertion. Ayumi, however, said nothing and kept a neutral face. Yet her eyes had an open and curious quality to them, observing Takahashi carefully. He started a bit and dropped his smile. He shifted his eyes to the side as if thinking of the next thing to say.
“I have something for you,” he said, and went to the other side of the bench to open a cooler, which Ayumi had not noticed. From it he carefully lifted out a cardboard box and handed it to her. “Happy anniversary.”
Inside the box were small, assorted pastries such as fruit tarts, sponge cake, and Ayumi’s favorite, chestnut Mont Blanc.
Ayumi looked torn. “Phil, we’re not dating anymore…” Takahashi waved his hand impatiently. “I know, I just thought it would be a nice thing to do.” He attempted smiling again, this time with more genuine feeling. They stood awkwardly for a moment, Ayumi holding the box as if not sure if she should have taken it. “Let’s sit down,” said Takahashi and motioned her to the bench.
Ayumi sat down on the bench and placed the box next to her. Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket and she quickly took it out and put it on silent. She took a deep breath. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
Takahashi had rehearsed what he was going to say many times beforehand. He added a deliberate pause before he started. “I have to be honest, I was a bit hurt by what you did,” he replied, looking at the ground.
Ayumi felt a sudden jolt of pain in her heart. “I told myself I wouldn’t be affected by what he says. Why does this always happen?” she thought.
“…What do you mean?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
Takahashi paused again. “Do you remember that talk we had a long time ago, when you told me that I had to change? I don’t know if you know this, but I took to heart what you said. I was trying Yumi, I was really trying.”
She said nothing, signaling him to continue.
“Before things ended, you hadn’t been talking to me as much. I thought maybe you needed your space so when you decided to end the relationship, it took me by surprise.” He paused again. “I thought that maybe I had done something wrong, so I wanted to talk today to clear things up.”
It was the last thing that he said that finally stoked a coal of anger in Ayumi. “You thought you had done something wrong,” she emphasized. “I believed you when you were trying to change for the better. But then you went back to your old ways and pretended that we didn’t even have that conversation. And now, all of a sudden you remember it,” she said, trying to hold onto her neutral expression.
“You’re right,” Takahashi replied. “I was wrong to lie about that. I couldn’t handle dealing with that part of myself so I wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen. But all of a sudden you decided that we should just end things. I was really trying my best, and you left without warning.” He said this with such genuine bitterness that Ayumi felt almost sorry for him, and she was struck with doubt again.
“Then why,” she asked, with a softened expression and a tinge of emotion in her voice, “why didn’t you just ask me what was wrong when I started ignoring you?”
“Come on Yumi,” said Takahashi in a hushed voice. “How can you expect me to go looking for an answer from you when you were already giving me the cold shoulder? Think it through.”
Ayumi could feel herself getting pulled towards something against her will.
“I don’t want to point fingers today,” Takahashi continued. “I did some thinking over the past couple months and I realized that I still have a lot of growing to do. And the truth is, I can’t do it without you. I was stupid not to realize that until now.”
Ayumi said nothing for what seemed forever. The call of the cicadas seemed like a roar in her ears, as if their reedy whines were drowning out any thought that was not their own. The sun’s descending rays cast an orange glow over everything, and the shadows of the trees grew long.
“You acted horribly to me when I was trying to help you the most,” she eventually said, in almost a whisper.
Takahashi turned to her with a look that was both skeptical and amused. “You’re misremembering things. I’ll admit, I have an acid tongue sometimes, but you know more than anyone that when I get comfortable with someone, I just have a blunt way of talking.” And he gave her one of his confident smiles, and not a congenial one that showed his teeth, but a smile that had a knowing look to it.
In that smile, Ayumi saw reflected back at her all of the times that she had felt duped, put down, or controlled by him. It was the very same smile that he had used in so many of those moments, an expression that seemed to telepathically communicate: “You are stupid.”
The flash of anger came back full-force and filled her body with warm indignation. Her eyes, filled with hatred, glared back at him as if looking deep into his soul. His smile twitched, and for a split-second, his eyes had a look of alarm. They had a look of knowing that one had been found out.
She stood up sharply. Everything that needed to be said was communicated in that glare. She started walking away, her back turned to the sun.
Takahashi was dumbfounded. This was the last thing that he expected to happen. He had expected the possibility that she would argue, or cry, or act indecisive. Never would he have guessed that she would simply walk away upon what he considered to be the most innocuous thing said all evening.
“At least take your gift!” He called out. “This bakery had one of the best Monburan I could find, your favorite!”
Amano Ayumi turned around. “If you had remembered correctly, you would know that I stopped liking Monburan a long time ago,” she lied.
She turned around again and continued walking away, her shadow stretched-out, one step ahead of her.
After a few more feet, she tried to resist the impulse but couldn’t. She took a quick look over her shoulder and squinted at his expression. All she could make out against the glare was a figure silhouetted by the setting sun, standing stock-still.
Part Five
On Wednesday, the day after he published his Schopenhauer quote, Amano gravitated to his social media to see if his post had gotten any attention. There was nothing notable.
Upon reflection, he considered that what he wrote was rather esoteric and imbued with negativity. And so he did not really expect such a post to garner attention; not that he wanted it to. Habit and boredom were the twin forces that pulled him towards the reaction of others.
For the next three days, Amano started neglecting everything except eat, sleep, and the occasional shower when saving on air conditioning made him unbearably sweaty. His mood oscillated between a sickening plunge in the pit of his gut and total indifference. It was the longest he had gone in a school week without doing any responsibilities, immersing himself in virtual reality.
Amano secretly held onto the hope that there was a way out of his situation, telling himself that at any time he could take action. He could always request a leave-of-absence from the university.
He toyed with the idea of committing for just one more week, and another week after that, and then a month, until he could survive to a school break, and eventually, he would reach the end of the semester. When he finished plotting this theoretical progression of events in his head, a sense of hopelessness overtook him.
On Friday, Amano neared a breaking point. Fraught with indecisiveness, he came to terms with the fact that he would do nothing until something happened to him. The weekend was an opportunity to catch up on the last three days of procrastination—the last thing that he wanted to do.
His indecisiveness morphed into loneliness, which morphed again into anxiety. By evening, Amano had gotten into bed. He proceeded to lie there, willing himself to be rid of anxiety.
Amano stared up at a stream of dust that floated gently through the sun’s rays, glittering like gold. The low thrum of the air conditioning clicked on.
With nothing to be done, his eyes followed the descent of the dust stream. Once a patch went into the corner of his vision, his gaze returned to the left to follow the next cluster. He did this repeatedly. The river of dust streamed continuously, never faltering.
Amano tried willing his consciousness into the dust particles. Every time the negative feelings threatened to rise within him, he willed himself with just as much intensity into the ether above.
Eventually, he gazed straight ahead, imagining his psyche inhabiting the space through which the particles flowed. He imagined them not as dust, but as ethereal beings grazing his mind, cleansing it.
He did this for a very long time. He was not sure exactly how long, but it worked. Eventually, he fell asleep without recalling when.
~~~
Takahashi recalled those hate-filled eyes looking unflinchingly into him. He had never seen that look from Ayumi before. Deep down, he knew for certain that he could never win her back. And with that came the knowledge that, at any time, she could indiscriminately tell others about his two admissions of weakness: The one ten months ago and again today.
She could also spread a lie about being mistreated in the months leading up to their break-up. He thought about what she had said in the park.
Her interpretation of ‘support’ was laughable. He easily saw it for what it was: A cloddish over-compensation for her own passivity; her behavior pregnant with unspoken expectancy. There was a sense of urgency and milling pointlessness to her intentions that annoyed him greatly.
Towards the end, Ayumi interpreted Takahashi’s moment of weakness as a triumphant admission of vulnerability. From thereon she held this admission over him like a dangling sword, doing chores that he did not ask for and making empty gestures.
Takahashi knew full-well that Ayumi had behaved with intent. She wanted the image of a happy relationship, even if it was, at its core, a fraud. “An example of a woman,” he thought, “whose digs for authenticity are delayed so long as the façade of peace remains undisturbed.”
Today he had played himself by stooping to her level. He had tried to even the playing field by giving her some more of that vulnerability to suckle on. “You acted horribly to me,’ really?” He scoffed. “How sensitive can she be? Oh poor Ayumi! Innocent Ayumi! Of course she wouldn’t remember the needling, those annoying little reminders of when I had admitted to her my one Achilles heel, of which she did nothing but harp on!” He raged, slamming his desk with his fist.
Takahashi tried to be reasonable. Ayumi, even when angry, was not the type of person who would gossip maliciously. But then again, it was probable that sometime in the months leading up to the break-up that she had told her friends about her problems. This meant that there were already some people who had made up their minds on his character.
He now knew with certainty that she had lost respect for him, and thus, there was no telling how much her lips had loosened. If the opportunity came up, he did not put it past Ayumi to casually bad-mouth him.
Takahashi contemplated on what to do all evening. Eventually he decided that the only thing left to do was to beat her to the chase.
The next day he went to his social media to write a confession post.
For the first time, Takahashi publically admitted that his greatest fear was being mediocre. He came to terms with the fact that he felt trapped by a desire for approval. He came close to admitting his cynical notion that people were at heart disingenuous, before erasing that part. After spending an hour writing and revising, he published his confession.
Every few hours for the next week, Takahashi looked obsessively through the comments and reactions as they built up. However, he did not care for anyone’s opinion; that is, except for one. Although he could hardly admit it, Ayumi’s angry gaze ignited something in him for the first time.
That Saturday, Takahashi saw a side of her that he had never seen before. Over the hours and days, the image of her passivity was gradually replaced by that one look. Who would have thought that quiet little Yumi had it in her to stand up to him, asserting her own brand of unassuming confidence?
She had thrown out a clever quip, no-less, an off-the-cuff remark that he had misremembered her favorite dessert, finishing it off with her coup de grace: A sly look over her shoulder as she walked away. Eventually, Takahashi realized that he had fallen hopelessly into lust with this new vision of Ayumi.
Although he may not have been fully-aware of it at-first, Ayumi’s reaction had formed a crack in his perception. At one point or another, he came to believe that all his life he had been infected by the masses who abhorred meaning; sheep-like people who cowered at the loss of social approval. In his mind, there was no choice but to use their own cowardice to his advantage.
That Saturday, he had seen in Ayumi’s eyes an irrefutable truth. And with the realization of that truth, his delusions of grandeur dissipated, and the luster of his theories dimmed. “You win,” he thought, digging his nails into his palm. “Which means I have lost.”
A week later, Takahashi deleted his confession.
~~~
After finally falling asleep that Friday evening, Amano had a bizarre dream. He dreamed that he had never turned off his Intellivisor and continued to browse social media. He looked at his public post once more, which was now exploding with attention.
Within the day, Amano became famous for his bold proclamation. Philosophy analysts, psychologists, and professors the world-over extolled praises for his courage to exist as a living example of philosophical pessimism.
However, to his own surprise, he could not care less that he was now world-famous for his internet ramblings. He was struck, like an electric shock, with the insight that his dream-world was an embodiment of his own repressed feeling. Then, as if his entire field of vision was filled with the Intellivisor screen, the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ appeared.
In giant block letters, the bright blue screen read, “GAME OVER.” He got up from his desk and fell into his bed.
Amano started awake with chills all over.
There was something unnervingly realistic about the dream. It felt as though it had lasted a week. Particularly disturbing was the message at the end, which had been accompanied by an incessant buzzing noise that seemed to echo in the room.
At the end of the dream, when he fell into his bed, it felt as though his dream-self had fallen into his physical body, for he woke up with a shock the instant he fell over. Just thinking about what it all meant gave him goosebumps.
Still shaken, Amano went to the bathroom and drank water straight from the tap. He checked the time: It was only seven in the evening. As the adrenaline filtered through his body, he realized that he was still tired. He had only slept for an hour.
He went back to bed and watched the dust particles fly through the rays once more. This time, the meditative gazing did not work. He turned to his side and saw the sunlight hitting the top of the dark cedar table. He watched the dust float over the table, and his eyes slowly closed.
Amano dreamed of his simulations, and in every single one, he failed miserably. As a Napoleonic soldier, he was hit with bullets and bled to death. When he practiced surfing, he was swept by the waves and drowned. In every game he had ever played, a grisly death sequence occurred. Once again, he was visited by the screen telling him, “GAME OVER.”
He gasped awake, feeling as though he was being haunted by a malicious entity.
It was now late evening, for the sun’s rays no longer shone on the cedar table. The room was bathed in a pale yellow with light-grey shadows.
Amano turned to his side and, once again, looked at the table. His aunt, who lived in Shizuoka, gave it to him as a welcoming gift when he moved in a year ago.
He thought about how long it had been since he talked to his Aunt, that he never got back in touch with his cousin Ayumi as he promised he would…
This time, Amano dreamed about his childhood vacations to Shizuoka, his family’s origin. In the dream, his parents, brother, sister, and extended-family all managed to sit around that very same table. They were laughing, filled with merriment. Amano was eight again.
He told a joke that he could not remember, and everyone laughed again. “Jiro-chan is so funny. I bet he’ll be a famous comedian someday,” said his aunt.
His cousin Ayumi, born the same year as him, sat to his right. He glanced sideways. She had always been a shy girl, filled with a pensiveness that was uncharacteristic for her age. But when he looked at her now, she was giving him a gapped-tooth grin with missing baby teeth.
Suddenly, the dream changed locations. He was running along fields of red and white tulips, laughing and chasing his cousins. Then he was in his aunt and uncle’s living room watching his cousins play video games, a mosquito coil burning sweet-smelling incense nearby.
Once again, the dream changed locations. He was licking an ice pop at the beach while pastel waves lapped the shore, watching his father and uncle teach his brother how to fly a kite.
In the dream’s last moments, Amano saw rolling hills made of neatly-trimmed, jade-green hedges. Mount Fuji stood majestically against an azure sky.
Amano woke up early the next morning. It was still dark, before sunrise, and the streetlamps had not switched off yet. It was Saturday. For some reason, he felt oddly contented, and then he remembered the dream. He grabbed a pen and paper and took the time to write it down.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Amano decided to take an early-morning walk. Passing through rays of yellowish-orange light, he puffed on a cigarette, parsing through his memories.
At the coffee shop, he ordered a latte and a bagel. He was hungry again for the first time in a while. As he did not want to go back to his room, Amano sat at the outdoor café, watching the city come alive. As he watched the sun’s rays hit the walls of the apartments, he appreciated for the first time how the light struck the panels of the wood facades.
The day was hot and humid, and mountainous cloud formations drifted lazily in a bright blue sky.
~~~
Amano returned home, his arms full of groceries. He set them down on the cedar table and stood as if trying to remember what he was going to do.
He took out his cell phone and replied to messages from his worried mother. He thought about his promise to his aunt to get in touch with cousin Ayumi.
He started typing a message. He was a little nervous over what to say. Why was he nervous? Sure, they had not talked in years, since they were practically children, but she was family, was she not? He hurriedly typed something out and tapped ‘send.’
Hi Ayumi, how are you? Long time no see, isn’t it? I heard you’re going to school in Tokyo. I’ve been living here for the past year myself, did your mother tell you? Anyway, I was just thinking about how nice it would be to visit Shizuoka again one day. I hope we can see each other soon.
Amano walked over to his bed and looked at it. Struck with a sudden inclination, he rearranged the bed frame so that it was no longer parallel to the window, and then placed his desk chair in its stead.
He sat down on the chair and leaned back, watching the dying sunlight color the mountainous clouds in pink and orange hues. The first few measures of the “Polka” section of Dvořák’s “Czech Suite” ran through his mind repeatedly, timed perfectly to the graceful flight of the clouds.
