Hell

  The three men looked at one another.

  “Women!” they exclaimed in unison.

  “Even in death, they can’t let go.”

  “They cling to the vanities of life.”

  “It’s sad, really.”

  “The persistence of a woman.”

  The three men laughed nihilistically.

  “But isn’t that proof that I’m alive? You’re the ones who’re dead. I am alive!”

  Shibata stamped angrily on the floor of the lift, and the doors opened smoothly and silently. It was the lobby of the hotel, looking no different from before. The guests walking back and forth. The hotel staff. The classical music. It was as peaceful as ever. No one seemed to realize that the lift had malfunctioned. The four people in the lift shuffled out into the lobby. Were they alive or dead? They had no idea. They went their separate ways as if trying to take back their lives.

  By the age of eighty-five, Nobuteru had grown quite senile.

  “Well, if it isn’t Takeshi. Welcome, welcome. How is your leg? Any better?” he would say to his brother-in-law Koichi when he came to visit. “You look wonderful,” he would say with tears in his eyes. He called his daughter-in-law “Nobuko” and treated her as if she were his wife. His own wife he didn’t recognize at all. “Who are you?” he would say whenever he saw her. And when he saw his great-grandson the primary-school student, he would shout, “Yuzo!” and try to hug him.

  “Takeshi? Yuzo? Who is he talking about? Do you know, Mother?” asked his son.

  “I have no idea.” She guessed that they must be some old friends of her husband’s, but whenever she asked him about his childhood, he would turn suddenly cross.

  “What could have happened back then?”

  “I don’t know. But something happened, that’s for sure.”

  Nobuteru was too far gone by then for them to find out the truth.

  “My father comes from a generation where just about anything was possible,” his son Shinichiro would tell people. “Just after the war, it was difficult to tell right from wrong. In fact, you couldn’t survive without doing some things that were wrong. Anyway, laws weren’t as strict as they are today, so you were more or less free to do what you wanted. You didn’t have to worry about environmental problems, and people weren’t so concerned about how much education you had. I’ve even heard people say that when someone swindled you, it was your fault you got swindled. So I guess my father just came up with his own morality. It was the only thing he had to go by. But now he’s senile and starting to lose it. He’s reverting to his childhood, before he had a sense of right and wrong. So you can never tell what he’s going to do. Recently he started wandering away from the house. My mother should really be more careful…”

  It was nice day. Maybe Nobuteru would go out for a walk. Who was this old woman? One of the neighbours’ maids? What was she saying? Don’t leave the house? He’d go if he wanted to. She had no right to tell him what to do. Now, where were his sandals? And where had Nobuko gone? He hadn’t seen much of her recently. Had it been ten years ago that they had got married? No, it was five – maybe two. It didn’t matter. The important thing was that she was young and beautiful. She was a good wife. He was proud of her. Where had she gone? She wasn’t dead, was she? These days whenever he mentioned a name, someone would say they died long ago. Were all of his friends dead? How sad.

  Where was he? How had he ended up here? Who was that walking by? Had he eaten lunch? No, maybe it was breakfast. That pasta sure was tasty. Wait, pasta for breakfast? Must have been lunch after all. Yes, it was lunch. Ha! He wasn’t senile after all. Wait a minute. He had the pasta the day before. At a restaurant. What was it called? The Inferno? Yes, the Inferno Italian Restaurant. He had gone there with Nobuko. Where was she, anyway?

  Wait a minute! He knew that old woman. He knew who she was. It was his mother. She had got a lot older, but she was his mother, no question about it. How had she lived so long? How had she lived so long? How had he… lasted so long without eating? He was starving. Starving. His stomach was rumbling. It was like this during the war. Things were tough then. Whatever happened to Takeshi? And what about Yuzo? Were they in school?

  Oh, look, children on their way home from school. This road leads to the primary school. The neighbourhood has changed a lot, but this road is the same. Just walk straight along and you reach the primary school. Yes, there’s the front gate of the school. There’s no school today, so no kids playing in the schoolyard, but there’s the raised platform in the middle of it. Wait, there are some boys playing there after all. It’s Takeshi and Yuzo! Yes, it’s definitely Takeshi and Yuzo. Just as he remembered them. Yuzo as dirty as ever, and Takeshi young and handsome. Hey! Hey! Nobuteru waved to them, and they waved and called back to him.

  “You took so long to come that we decided to come and see you ourselves.”

  “We’re just like we used to be, but you’ve got so old.”

  “You mean you remember me?”

  “What’re you talking about? You think we could forget good old Nobuteru? Don’t be stupid!”

  Nobuteru hugged the two of them and began to sob like a child. Takeshi and Yuzo patted the old man on the back – a gesture that seemed strangely at odds with their childlike appearance.

  “We know. You’ve been thinking about us all this time.”

  “We died a long time ago, but don’t worry. We’re not angry about you living so much longer than us.”

  Nobuko had gone out looking for her husband and found him standing on top of the platform in the schoolyard crying and laughing to himself. She called out to him, thinking that he might finally have gone mad. At the sound of her voice, he quickly returned to his usual self.

  “I’m sorry for worrying you, Mother. I’ll go home now.” He obediently climbed down from the platform. He had mistaken his wife for his mother many times before. She gently put her arm around his waist and led him back home.

  Daté and Yuzo were watching a movie. There must have been other people there in the old, dingy theatre – they could make out motion in the darkness. The flickering black-and-white images that the rattling projector created on-screen were of a small room in a run-down part of town – a club, maybe a bar. A meaty, unattractive woman grasped a kitchen knife tightly as she glared down at a man. It was Hattori! He was tied to a chair and looked exhausted. Next to them were three Ikaruga gang members lying on a sofa. They looked exhausted too, and were just watching as the woman did as she wanted with Hattori.

  “Let’s help him out,” Daté whispered to Yuzo, who nodded.

  “Just wait a bit longer.”

  On the screen, Hattori raised his sweat-and-blood-stained face slightly and smiled an eerie smile. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more… We’ve gone to the other side. And I’ve taken you all with me.”

  The mama-san, who until that moment had been beating and screaming at Hattori, suddenly stopped. “I’m sorry for using you,” she said, “but it helped me work out my hatred of men. It’s all gone now. So I don’t mind going with you. I can’t stand another day of the anger and hatred of the real world.” A gentleness came over her as she looked at Hattori.

  Her change of heart brought one of the yakuza slowly to his feet. He glared blackly at them. “What do you mean you’re taking us with you? You little shit. You think we’re just going to let you die? You’re just going to Hell anyway, so what’s your hurry? Why not stay and enjoy the Hell we have for you right here?”

  “Isn’t this ever going to end?” Hattori bowed his head and slumped his shoulders. “I’d rather be dead than face any more of this. Please, somebody help me!”

  “Who’s going to help you?” said the yakuza who was the leader of the three; it was he who had stabbed Yuzo. “This is your Hell. You’re never getting out of here. We could keep this up for ever.”

  On-screen there was a close-up of Hattori’s despondent face. In the background, the song ‘Nightmare’ reached a crescendo, just as
the words “the end” appeared.

  “Let’s go.” Yuzo stood up and began to walk down the aisle.

  “We can’t let it end like this,” said Daté angrily.

  The two of them jumped up onto the low stage at the front of the theatre, pushed aside “the end”, and walked into the screen. Yuzo went first, then Daté.

  “Hattori! We’re here!”

  “You think you can do this to our friend and get away with it?”

  The three Ikaruga yakuza froze. “Where the hell did you come from?” cried one of them.

  “Hey, didn’t I just kill you?” asked the leader.

  “That’s right, and I went to Hell. Then I went into a dream and stepped into a movie and now here I am. Simple.” Yuzo snatched the knife from the mama-san. “Let’s get this over with. Come on, where’s the knife you stabbed me with?”

  Asahina replied shakily, “I told my man to get rid of the knife along with your body. Come on, can’t we talk this over? I can’t fight you – you’re already dead. You can’t kill me, and I can’t kill you. Look, your man there is half gone. Whether he pulls through or he goes to Hell with you is your decision. Take him wherever you like. We won’t do anything to stop you. We’ll just let him go, okay?”

  Yuzo laughed loudly. “You want to talk? There’s nothing to talk about. Hattori, your lady friend, you and your men – you’re all going to Hell with me. In fact, look around. You’re already there.”

  The bar had disappeared. They were standing in a sprawling field, dotted with flickering wisps of flame. They were completely naked. But Yuzo was dressed in a smart-looking suit.

  “Now you have to choose an eternal form,” he said. “You can be anything – a pig, a dog, a weasel. Take your pick.”

  Dreams can show us where our past will take us. They can symbolize our relationships with other people. And they can even predict our fates, showing us clearly and concretely when and how we will die, and beyond.

  The Night Walker was stuck between reality and the world of dreams. The living and the dead mingled there, their forms visible in the darkness like anchored boats floating on a sea of shadows.

  “Here we are again,” said Kashiwazaki, looking around him. “How many times have I had this dream? Or is it the first time and it just feels like I’ve had it over and over? Look, there’s Konzo. And Yumiko and Izumi. Shibata and Nishizawa. Even Osanai is here. If this was real, you couldn’t all be here like this. We’re not even sure if Konzo is alive or dead, and we heard that Izumi was killed in that place crash. And Osanai certainly has no business being here.”

  “This is my dream,” insisted Shibata. “After all, I’m here saying that, aren’t I? There can’t be any other explanation.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t be in a place like this if it wasn’t a dream,” said Nishizawa, irritated. He downed his glass of bourbon. “I can’t seem to catch a break at home or at work. I got demoted and still my wife won’t stop spending money.”

  “Of course it’s a dream. How else could we all be here?” Osanai was bowing to Kashiwazaki, a pained look on his face as he tried to apologize. “I know I couldn’t show my face here otherwise. Not after what I’ve done.”

  “Then we must all be having the same dream. But is that really possible?” Yumiko looked around fearfully. She looked away from Izumi as his eyes met hers. “You’re a ghost, aren’t you?”

  “You all know me, so I can be in any of your dreams,” said Izumi. He looked calmly at the other people around him. “That’s the only way the dead can return to the world of the living.”

  “Konzo. Konzo. What happened to you?” asked Kashiwazaki, fighting back his tears as he tugged at Konzo’s sleeve. “Are you still down under the stage? Are you still alive? Or did you die?”

  “It makes no difference if I’m alive or dead. This world and the next are bound together like strands of braided cord.” Konzo slowly rose to his feet, walked out to the middle of the empty dance floor and began to dance. “The false death of dreams. The real death of the afterlife. Hell and the world of the living. They’re all connected.” Konzo assumed a classic kabuki pose. “And now my friends, we must be going. Allow me to be your guide. No, on second thought you have no need of a guide. After all, you have been there before. Leave all your cares and worries behind and follow me to Hell. Allow its cleansing flames to burn away all of your desires, all of your anger. Come. Come.”

  At Konzo’s beckoning, the group left their seats and followed quietly behind him, their expressions blank.

  Takeshi, Yuzo and Izumi were sitting at the end of a long conference table. They were on the tenth floor of a high-rise building, in a meeting room that could have accommodated twenty people. Sunlight was streaming in through a large window that overlooked the city street below. The sunlight in Hell looked exactly like sunlight in the real world.

  “What’re you asking me for? How am I supposed to know who’s in charge here?” said Takeshi to Izumi with a laugh.

  “Well, they have to have some kind of administration, don’t they?” said Izumi earnestly. “You have to have some kind of system in place for managing things, even in Hell.”

  “What do you think?” Takeshi asked Yuzo. He walked over to the window. “If they do have some kind of command centre, where would it be? I guess it could even be in this building right here, for all we know,” he joked.

  Yuzo walked over next to Takeshi and looked down at the street below.

  “Actually, there’s something about this place that bothers me too. If I was my old self, I’d probably go find the people in charge and beat the shit out of them.”

  “If you’re serious, I’ll help you,” said Izumi earnestly. He was still seated at the table. “It’s got to be a huge office, filled with computers. There must be dozens, maybe hundreds of people there. If we started trouble, it’d be total madness. It would be interesting. But where is it?”

  “It could be in the Devil’s Palace,” said Takeshi.

  “Ah.” Izumi grimaced, as if remembering something unpleasant.

  “Devil’s Palace? What’re you two talking about?” Although he would have been bothered by it in life, Yuzo didn’t particularly mind that the others knew something he did not..

  “Izumi and I just happened to see it a while back when we were out walking.”

  “It’s a place where people go to play a video game called The Legend of the Devil’s Palace. They’re all otaku – those guys obsessed with games or movies. We wouldn’t have even known about it, but we had a run-in with one of them when we were alive.”

  “We had just been talking about it when we came upon that building. What was the name of that guy, anyway? He was in sales.”

  “Yamaguchi. He played that game all the time, even during working hours. Of course, that didn’t win him any friends, and I think he just snapped. One day he came to general affairs and demanded the key to the Devil’s secret chamber. He was convinced that our building was the Devil’s Palace and the president was the Devil. When I tried to talk some sense into him, he slugged me and ran off to the president’s office, so I called my boss, Mr Uchida here. His office was on the same floor as the president’s.”

  “I hurried to the president’s office to find Yamaguchi strangling the president’s secretary, Miss Matsuda. He thought she was a witch. He kept yelling at her to tell him the magic words to open the door to the president’s office. I couldn’t fight him off – not with my crutches – so I called security and they finally got him under control.”

  “The president was shocked when he heard about it. And after that, nobody was allowed to play video games on company property.” Izumi pointed out the window. “Hey, there it is over there. I wonder if it appeared just now when we were talking about it. You see that gaudy building that looks kind of like a mosque? That’s the Devil’s Palace. You want to try looking for the control centre there?”

  “We don’t really need to look for it. If there’s an organization running this
place, all we have to do is go down there and start some trouble nearby. They’ll come to us.” Takeshi laughed again. “But I don’t think any of us really wants to do that. What’s the point? You’ll have to admit that you don’t have the same desires or curiosity that you had in the real world.”

  “If Nobuteru was here, he’d think of something interesting to do,” said Yuzo, a nostalgic look coming over his face. “But he won’t be coming here, will he?”

  “No. You can’t come here if you’re senile,” said Takeshi.

  “This kind of thing has been bothering me ever since I got here. We all know that senile people can’t come to Hell. But how do we know it? Who told us? And who decides that they can’t come here, anyway?”

  “I think maybe we do,” said Takeshi solemnly. “I think this whole place is a product of all of our subconscious minds. And the whole point of Hell is to get rid of our attachments to our previous lives. Curiosity, hate, love. We’re here so we can cleanse ourselves of all of those things.”

  “And then we can move on.” Izumi nodded. “Attain nirvana, or whatever they call it. That’s what they’ve been saying for hundreds of years. Maybe it’s created a sort of collective consciousness.”

  “Who the hell are those guys?” said Yuzo, looking down into the street. “I think they’re dancing. And the guy leading them looks like he stepped right out of the Edo period. The other ones don’t seem too enthusiastic.”

  Takeshi also looked out the window. “I think he’s a kabuki actor. He’s dressed as Iso no Toyata, from that kabuki play. Hey, the guy behind him looks a lot like you, Izumi.”

  “It seems like you can be in two places at once here.” Izumi stood up and walked over to the other two men by the window. He looked down at the group below, unsurprised to see himself walking with them. “That’s me, all right. That’s a group of regulars from a club called Night Walker. I used to be one of them, so I suppose that’s why I’m there.”

  “What are they doing here?” Yuzo asked Izumi. “Did they all commit suicide together so they could go on a sightseeing tour of Hell or something?”