Japan - chapter 5 - the light that never goes out.

When they opened, he on his side on an institutional bed – not comfy in the least – facing a wall. LED panels on the ceiling provided the sterile white light which made him squint as he turned to explore his new reality.

‘They call this the waiting room, but don’t let that get your hopes up,’ spoke a large shape on a bed on the other side of the room, a pillow throw away.

‘How long have I been out for?’ asked Harry, his head feeling like it was full of ice.

‘How should I know that?’ replied the shape, rapidly forming into a bearded man in his late fifties strapped to his bed.

The first question set to leap off Harry’s tongue was why he was secured in this way. Yet this might lead to a rather long and partial speech, and he did not wish to be absorbed into a stranger’s story. But the way the man was now staring at him, Harry knew that he would be introduced sooner or later to whatever lay behind those wild and unrepentant eyes.

‘Well, how did you get here, little fellow?’

‘I was taken here in an armchair,’ replied Harry, swinging his legs slowly from the bed.

‘Oh yeah? And who wanted you here?’

‘No-one I can think of.’

‘There’s always someone behind – a hidden hand.’ The man turned his head to gaze at the ceiling, as if to read invisible code. ‘Still, you’re quite young to have gained such a conspiracy against you already, huh?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ replied Harry. ‘I haven’t really thought about it like that. Would you like me to get you anything?’

‘You mean, do I want a cup of water?’ said the man, looking at Harry with unnerving expectancy, as if already having predicted his next words.

‘Yes, that’s what I meant,’ said Harry.

‘Well, a cup of water isn’t anything I want, is it? In fact, in this limited space, it’s the only thing on offer.’

‘Ok, when you put it like that - it’s not anything,’ said Harry, quite annoyed at being tied up in word games already, when quite obviously he still had the mechanical advantage. ‘But at least it’s something, and seeing as you can’t get it yourself, I thought I’d at least offer.’

‘That’s true enough,’ said the man. ‘You’re a good boy, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, serving me.’

‘I’m not serving anyone,’ said Harry, walking over to the door to gaze through the barred window.

Outside he saw man’s back – presumably a guard – as he patrolled the corridor. How long the corridor was, Harry couldn’t tell from where he stood, but he could make out other doors with distorted faces pressed up against their own confines.

Without thinking, he slipped his hand through the gap and felt a cold breeze that surprised him. Almost immediately, he heard a high-pitched, authoritative scream and pulled it back inside, fearing a baton strike.

‘Now I’d some water, please,’ said the man, causing Harry to jump, for he’d quite forgotten that he was hardly alone. ‘Yes, I’ll prepare some for you,’ he said, walking over to the shelf holding the beaker and paper cups.

The man’s laboured breathing filled the room with his tragic aura, somehow more understandable than his actual words, which he set like traps for his own amusement.

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed at seeing the water poured. ‘You may hydrate me!’

Harry tipped it down his throat in three steady measures, the noise strangely like water draining from a bath.

‘Good,’ said the man, ‘and now onto the other thing. They didn’t give me my extra fillet of mackerel this morning. I wonder if you could go to the window inquire about this?’

‘You want me to inquire about an extra fillet of mackerel?’

‘Yes, please,’ said the man with an innocent smile. ‘It may not seem much to you, but an extra fillet means the world to a man in my predicament. Just press the buzzer by the door and explain it to whatever goon appears. I’ll help you by yelling.’

Harry went back over to the door and pressed the buzzer. ‘No, not like that,’ instructed the man. ‘Keep your finger on it. That annoys them more.’

After about minute of pressing, a guard arrived, demanding to know what all the commotion was about.

‘This gentleman would like his second mackerel fillet,’ said Harry.

‘He did not get a second fillet because he was very disrespectful to us today,’ explained the guard.

‘I can sympathise with that,’ replied Harry, turning his head to give a reassuring nod to the man, still yelling where is my futakire?! ‘Though as you can clearly see, he does seem rather set on his second fillet,’ he continued. ‘Wouldn’t it better for all parties concerned if he got it?’

‘I cannot do anything about that,’ replied the guard. ‘Anyway, we stopped serving breakfast five hours ago.’

‘Well, what about me?’ asked Harry, almost forgetting that he too was being detained.

‘You will be processed as soon as possible,’ replied the guard. ‘Consider this a brief quarantine and do not worry – you will be out before long.’

‘Thank you,’ said Harry, with a bow. ‘It is great pleasure to be in this country, even under these restrictive circumstances, and I hope my good intentions are being considered as we speak.’

‘Everything will be fine, I’m sure,’ said the guard, his voice caramelising under Harry’s soothing tone. His calming influence had even spread to his cellmate, who had finally stopped yelling for his extra mackerel fillet. After a few seconds of blissful silence, he suddenly boomed out: ‘Hey, kanshu! You sound like a homo… You a homo, eh?!’

Harry’s eyes widened as the goodwill came crashing down around him. The guard rubbed his chin: ‘Statistically, I am gay,’ he answered in a croaky voice and turned on his heels.

‘Well… er, thank you again for your candour,’ Harry called after him. ‘And please forgive my—er— acquaintance. As you can see, he is under immense stress and hardly knows what he is saying.’

‘He knows everything in the wrong order,’ the guard called back, disappearing from view.

‘Well,’ said Harry, drawing a large breath. ‘He said you can’t have your extra fillet because they’re no longer serving breakfast.’

‘Forget the fillet,’ the man muttered. ‘Did you hear what he just said?!’

‘They’re just being nice, that’s all,’ said Harry, stretching out on his bed and pulling the blanket up to his chin. ‘I’m going to try and get some sleep.’

Yet even with his eyes shut, the light seeped like oil through the cracks in his eyelashes, flooding his mind with its merciless attention.

Perhaps I just need to squeeze my eyes tighter, he thought.

It was no use – the light only grew brighter, making him more alert. Finally, he pulled the blanket over his head, praying it would not find him again. Again, it did, piercing every fibre and cell, sterilising his soul.

‘You won’t get to dreamland here,’ drawled an already familiar voice. ‘That damn light will melt your eyes long before that.’

‘You mean you haven’t slept at all since you’ve been here?’ Harry asked, still underneath the blanket.

‘Not in this room,’ said the man.

‘But I don’t understand,’ said Harry. ‘I mean, wasn’t I asleep when I arrived here?’

‘It’s not designed to wake you up, just to make sure you never go to sleep,’ replied the man.

‘But that can make you mad,’ said Harry. ‘I heard that they did some study where they woke people up before they started dreaming and that sent them mad after a week. But they were sleeping at least. What happens if you can’t sleep?’

‘You die said the man. Without dreams you die – much sooner than you might think. Then they wheel you out on a trolley wrapped up in a plastic sheet and record it as death by natural causes.’

‘No!’ cried Harry, ‘I’m not coming out of here on a trolley!’

‘Now, that’s the spirit!’ The man nodded vigorously, causing the bed to rattle. ‘No bodies on trolleys! Please, go and speak to them again. Any more of staying awake with you like this and I’ll be done!’

Shakily, Harry got up and went to the door.

‘They respond better to complaints in song format,’ said the man, before breaking out into a wailing chorus:

‘There is a light and it never goes out… there is a light and it never goes out!’

Soon another guard appeared at the window, whom the man seemed to recognise from his footsteps alone. ‘That’s Mark-5—he’s super sweet!’

‘What is wrong now?’ he asked.

‘Well, as my cellmate is singing, there is a light and it very much appears to never go out,’ explained Harry.

‘I understand,’ said Mark-5.

‘No, I really don’t think you do,’ said Harry. ‘It’s not just a light that never goes out— it’s a very dangerous light that’s impossible to sleep under.’

‘We are sorry for this temporary inconvenience,’ said Mark-5, ‘but this man has been very disorderly recently. Only yesterday he broke my glasses.’

‘How did he do that?’ Harry asked.

‘Well, said Mark-5, blinking as if to recall the event. ‘He requested if he could have a look at them and instead of giving them back, he just stamped on them.’

‘Is this true?’ said Harry, turning to the man.

‘Yes,’ said the man.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said the man.

Harry shrugged, turning back to Mark-5: ‘I still don’t understand why you would give him your glasses in the first place.’

‘I didn’t give them directly to him: another detainee did when I was showing him my glasses,’ said Mark-5.

‘Well, how’s your eyesight without them?’ asked Harry.

‘Pretty bad,’ replied the guard. ‘I can barely recognise who I am speaking, so now I manage it by voice recognition, which is quite suitable seeing as it is my duty to escort the detainees to the telephone room.’

When Mark-5 left, Harry explained to the man – as if he were a child – that he was not helping his cause by trampling on people’s glasses, or indeed singing out of tune.

‘They kidnapped me,’ said the man bluntly.

‘Perhaps if you spoke to them normally instead of stamping on their personal items, they might be more favourable to you,’ spoke Harry, sitting at the foot of his bed, and trying not to notice the giant toes, poking out from the blanket like a scabby mountain range.

‘It makes no difference,’ explained the man. ‘The Japanese way is to pretend they understand nothing. That way they protect themselves if they don’t want to talk, you know?’

‘But didn’t you have the translator chip inserted when you arrived?’ Harry asked.

‘What the hell difference does that make? Even if you speak their language, they still don’t have to understand you when they don’t want to. You’ll see. And besides, I don’t need one of those to know what’s going on,’ he said, chuckling to himself.

But whatever his views, Harry found it inconceivable that the man felt himself at no serious disadvantage without the translator chip. Surely you couldn’t possibly be taken seriously without one here?

‘Understand nothing!’ exclaimed the man suddenly, determined to have the last say, even over Harry’s thoughts.