Japan - chapter 6 - Big Mouth Strikes Again

No doubt his detention had been a mistake, whatever the reason; not helped by his failure to adjust to this new environment in time. Perhaps the system had malfunctioned, unable to calculate the full extent of his innocence. Maybe it was down to quotas – just luck of the queue – for even the most complex situations often had very simple origins.

Of course, it wasn’t blind faith Harry possessed that his case would be favourably resolved, but a logical understanding that ethical outcomes were desirable to a high-trust society.

It was therefore important not to resist the process or impede it in any way, allowing it to course correct on its own. Indeed, one had only to look around to see that it had to be right: thousands of years of civilised continuity stood as evidence: denying this would only prolong his guilt, confirming in the meantime their initial doubts regarding his intentions.

The main thing was not to self-sabotage. The bar for that had been set quite high already, thought Harry, relieved that his cordial manner and sympathetic stance towards the guards would be rewarded soon enough. It went without saying, that compared to his cellmate, he must have looked like a saint.

Those were all his thoughts on the subject so far as he sat on his bed, staring blankly into the present, trying to enter a meditative state conducive to being suddenly interrupted. Any moment now, someone will come through that door to tell me this has all been a big mistake and that I’m free to go, he said to himself. Perhaps I should prepare some sort of speech for the occasion; graceful in its forgiveness, with a gentle hint that this ordeal was worth at least some complimentary airport vouchers.

Behind him he heard the man stir. ‘I need to stretch my legs. I can’t feel my body anymore,’ he announced.

‘Shall I call someone?’ asked Harry, a slight tremor in his voice. For something already told him that something more conspiratorial was required of him.

‘No, come and unstrap me yourself,’ replied the man.

It was strange that it had taken him so long to ask what Harry had been dreading.

He did not want to take sides with anyone at this point, even though he might assume a natural allegiance to his cellmate, he still he felt that he was under observation and if so, this action might damage his credentials with the authorities.

Held here he was certainly not free, but he didn’t feel like a prisoner either: preserved in a delicate state of limbo he did not wish to upset. His status could swing either way depending on how they viewed him. Though of course, with little else to go on than his word – which he had already given to Bryce 2.1 and apparently failed – they could only compare him to the other man.

‘Okay, I’m going to help you,’ he said, surprising himself, but trusting his instincts. ‘I see now how your treatment has been inhumane, whatever you might have done to deserve it.’

He stood over the man, realising that this could be the last time he would be in such a position of control, while deciding how he would go about freeing him. Should he start with the ankles first and work his way up? Or should he free the shoulders first and make his way down, risking a bite and with it the danger of potential infection? The man was almost stone-age in his dishevelment, with long nails and a muzzle of excessively carnivorous teeth. He decided to go for the middle strap first.

‘That’s right,’ said the man, his stomach flowing back to its usual proportions.

‘They warned me to be careful of you, but I think you’re alright.’

‘To be careful of me?’ said Harry, undoing the ankle strap. ‘But what on earth for?’

‘Apparently, you have no past and no opinions.’

‘That’s what they told you?’ asked Harry, straightening up with his hands on his hips.

‘Yes,’ said the man.

‘Well, even if that was the case, what would be so bad about it?’

‘That’s what I told them,’ said the man, ‘but they decided not to understand as usual.’

‘I’m just a young man harbouring an unknown adventure. My opinions are yet to be caste completely – that’s true – but is that something to be war of? I know the older generations expect this to be done by an early age and that one should be tucked away in his niche before twenty-five, but under the right circumstances it doesn’t have to be like that.’

‘That’s what I told them,’ repeated the man, quite obviously trying to charm him.

‘Oh really?’ said Harry playfully, his fingers lingering on the task.

‘Yes,’ continued the man sternly. ‘I looked the commissioner right in his kindly eye – it’s the glass one for your information – and told him straight: my friend is just going through a quarter life crisis!’

Harry could not help laughing at this statement from a man whose great tragedy was maybe to never know how funny he was, as he removed the last strap across the man’s shoulders.

The man remained motionless. ‘Okay – that’s the last one – you can get up now,’ said Harry.

‘How, when and where I get up is my business,’ replied the man stonily.

He didn’t even say thank you, thought Harry, no longer quite sure why he’d freed him in the first place. He went back to his bed and lay on it with hands behind his head; legs stretched all the way out and feet crossed. He shut his eyes, his vision still saturated in cold light, listening to the sounds of an old sunken vessel raising itself.

There he sat in Harry’s mind, head in hands, gently rocking back and forth, trying to formulate a new winning strategy. A gurgling laugh suddenly escaped Harry’s mouth as he imagined him attempting in vain to stuff his grotesque and swollen feet into his slippers. Harry turned on his side in order to hide his laughter – disguising it further with a bout of fake coughing.

‘You’re sick?’ asked the man, heaving himself off the bed and shuffling over to him.

‘No, no, I’m fine,’ replied Harry, breathless from his hysterics.

‘You don’t look fine,’ said the man, turning him over onto his back as if he were a beetle and poking him in the belly with a gnarly finger.

Harry let out a little scream as he struggled to escape. But the man was immensely strong and kept prodding – ‘Does it hurt you? It could be an appendicitis.’

Harry could hardly talk from being tickled, but at last managed to wheeze out:

‘I’m fine!’

‘I’m going to call someone for you,’ he announced the man with a last poke. ‘You were always helpful to me, so it’s time to return all your kindness.’

Still gasping, Harry watched the man walk over to the door and summon someone. After a few minutes of shouting and buzzing a guard arrived.

‘My friend here is very sick,’ explained the man. Though after a few lines, the conversation became muddled: the man seemingly had lost all focus and was delving very inappropriately into the private life of whoever stood on the other side of the door.

‘Well, don’t you like women? What’s wrong with women? Don’t you want children?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, you like women?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a bisexual then?’

‘Yes.’

The man rubbed his beard, thinking hard. ‘Are you transexual too?’

‘Yes,’ said the guard.

This was all very odd, thought Harry. The prison appeared to have a psychological containment policy for this man which revolved around saying yes to anything.

For curiosity’s sake Harry decided to join him to see which guard he was talking to and at the same time reassure them he was fine.

But when he reached the door he saw that the guard had gone.

‘Where did he go?’ he asked the man.

‘They can only go because we can’t’ he replied. A noble ogre, thought Harry, gazing up at this great old endangered thing.

Just then a guard walked past, greeting both of them.

‘Wait there a second,’ called out the man. ‘Come over here—I want to tell you something.’

The guard did as he was told. ‘Turn around,’ instructed the man. ‘It’s a secret. I have a big secret so I think it’s better if you turn around to hear it.’

The guard complied again, turning so that his back was toward them.

‘Knight to g5,’ said the man, grabbing hold of the guard’s uniform and pulling him back sharply so that his head bounced off the bars with a horrible clanging sound, tearing his uniform as he did so.

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Harry as the guard fell to the floor. ‘Why did you do that?!’

‘I’m in a bad mood today,’ explained the man with a shrug.

The guard got shakily to his feet. ‘Look, you’ve concussed him,’ said Harry. ‘Hello, are you okay there?’ he called to the guard, who was now trying to rearrange his uniform.

‘I used to get quite bad headaches too,’ he continued, ‘usually from traveling in the car too long, although it wasn’t necessarily car-sickness.’ The guard stared at him as if he were a talking zoo animal. Oh no – surely, he doesn’t think I did that to him? he thought. Then again, he’s had a nasty crack to the head, so he probably doesn’t know what’s going on.

‘That’ll teach them to lock me up,’ said the man.

A while later they were both lying on their beds when a siren sounded.

‘Get ready, my friend, that means they’re coming,’ said the man.

‘Oh,’ said Harry with a sigh. ‘I wonder what for?’

The door burst open and dozens of guards in black riot uniform swarmed and in a matter of seconds carried the giant man away, leaving only stillness behind them. Harry jumped up and ran to the door – just in time to catch the seething black mass as it carried off its prey. To his shock, he noticed the door ajar. Should I just leave, he wondered. Maybe it was a test – presenting him with the exact thing he was guilty of. Or, if he truly believed himself innocent, then here was the chance to prove it. Besides, if a system error had led him here, then it only seemed appropriate that one should help him leave too.

Yes, thought Harry as he pushed the door forward… Let the innocent walk.

Stepping forth into the corridor, however, he immediately felt overwhelmed and decided it was best to alert an official as soon as possible.

If he followed the guards – who had just turned a corner – that would almost lead him to someone. He took a few quick paces before breaking into a run, following the echoing shouts of his former cellmate.

Reaching the turn, he caught sight of the group going through a set of swinging doors – wincing as he imagined them using the poor man’s head to do so.

He continued to run, until he was at the doors – with green tinted windows on either side. They had taken him into the canteen, holding him down on a table while another man in uniform sat opposite, calmly eating cereal. Undoubtably, by his unflustered, almost melancholic demeanour, he wielded considerable power

Harry, understanding that he was not really the one in trouble, pushed through the doors and entered without anyone noticing.

The man had now finished his bowl of cereal and was speaking to the captive, who was still held down with only his head untouched so that he could see who was addressing him:

‘Unstable stranger, I am the officer in charge here: Officer Anti-Loop. You must not resist us. You are our prisoner. You never resist us – never! Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ replied the man.

With that, he gave a signal and the guards released the man, who then got up and punched officer Anti-Loop in his face.

‘Take him back!’ shouted the man, stumbling back. ‘I don’t want to hear about him for another week!’

The guards grabbed the man again, swinging him like a log between them as they headed to the doors.

‘Very naughty!’ shouted officer Anti-Loop. ‘Very naughty, again!’

‘Remember me,’ the man said as Harry stood aside to let them pass.

‘Keep on fighting,’ whispered Harry, ‘whatever you did to get here.’

But what exactly had he done in the first place? Of course, one might take his chaos for granted and assume, as Harry did, that his actions had somehow overruled the question of what he was actually here for. But surely such treatment could not be solely prescribed on a predictive model of punishment: surely, he hadn’t been detained for crimes he would commit during his detention?