Kojo Suzuki - Spiral

“Can you imagine what the world is like for a creature that can’t see? To the worms crawling around in the earth, the world is only what touches their bodies there in the darkness. For starfish or sea anemones waving around on the ocean floor, the whole world is the texture of the rock they’re stuck to and the feel of the water as it flows by. Do you think such a creature can even conceptualize seeing? It beggars the imagination. It’s one of those things you can’t contemplate, like the edge of the universe. But somehow, at a certain point in its evolution, life on earth acquired the concept of ‘seeing’. We crawled up onto the land, we flew into the skies, and in the end we grasped culture. A chimp can comprehend a banana. But it’ll never be able to comprehend the concept of culture. It can’t comprehend it, but somehow it gets the will to obtain it. Where that impulse comes from, I have no idea.”

“Oh, so there’s something even you don’t know?” Ando said with all the sarcasm he could muster.

“Pay attention. If the human race goes extinct and Sadako Yamamura’s DNA takes its place in the end it’s because the human race willed it.”

“Does any species desire its own extinction?” “Subconsciously isn’t that what humanity desired? If all DNA were united into one pattern, there would be no more individual difference. Everyone would be the same, with no distinctions in ability, or beauty. There’d be no more attachment to loved ones. And forget about war, there wouldn’t even be any more arguments. We’re talking a world of absolute peace and equality that transcends even life and death. Death would no longer be something to fear, you see. Now, be honest, isn’t that what you humans wanted all along?”

By the end of his speech, Ryuji had brought his mouth even closer and was whispering into Ando’s ear. Ando, meanwhile, simply kept staring at Takanori, who for some time now had been crouched in the same position, packing sand into his empty can.

“Not me,” he replied. His son was special to him, unique. Ando had no desire to see things exactly as other people did. He could say that with confidence.

“Well, whatever,” Ryuji laughed, getting to his feet.

“Are you leaving?”

“It’s about time I took off. What are you going to do now?”

“What can I do? I’ll find a deserted island someplace out of the media’s reach, and raise my son there.”

“That sounds like you. Me, I’m going to watch the end of the human race. Once it’s gone as far as it can go, who knows, maybe a will beyond human wisdom will came raining its wrath down on us. I’d hate to miss that.

Ryuji started walking along the embankment.

“Bye, Ryuji. Say hi to Miyasnita for me.” Ryuji stopped again at the sound of Ando’s voice.

“Maybe I ought to teach you one more thing before I go. Why do you think human culture progressed? People can endure almost anything, but there’s one thing they just can’t survive. Man is an animal that can’t stand boredom. And that’s what set the whole thing off. In order to escape boredom, humanity had to progress. I imagine it’ll be pretty boring to be controlled by a single strand of DNA. Think about it in those terms, and it seems like you’d want to have as much individual variation as possible. But hey, what can we do? People just don’t want that variation. Oh, and one last thing-I think you’re going to be pretty bored on that desert island.”

With that and a wave of his hand, Ryuji walked off.

Ando had no definite plans as to where they were going to live. The future was still too uncertain for that. Prospects were such that maybe no plan, no matter how ingenious, would work. He’d just have to drift for a while and let happen what may.

Ando took off his shirt and slacks. He was wearing swim trunks underneath. He ran to his son, took the boy’s hand, and helped him to his feet.

“Let’s go.”

He’d explained to his son a hundred times what they needed to do today and why they needed to do it. They were going to swim out into the ocean just as they had two years ago, and then, when the boy was on the verge of drowning, Ando would take firm hold of his hand. Two years ago their hands had missed. Today they were going to hold on tight.

In the letter she’d left him, Sadako had written that when she was reborn in the exhaust shaft on the roof of that building, she realized it was the exact same situation, physically, as the bottom of the well where she’d died. And only when she had crawled out of the hole on her own did she sense, intuitively, that she’d be able to adapt to the new world. Ando thought his son needed to undergo the same sort of trial. The boy needed to be put in the same situation he’d been in two years ago.

Takanori had an abnormal fear of water, so strong that it was going to make daily life difficult for him if he couldn’t conquer it. As they walked along over the wet sand, Ando could feel Takanori’s hand tighten on his in fear every time seawater lapped at the boy’s ankles.

Now the boy turned to him with trembling lips and said, “Daddy, you promised, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

Ando had already prepared the reward he’d promised the boy for meeting his father’s expectations and overcoming his fear of the water. He was going to let him meet his mother.

“Mommy’s going to be so surprised.”

His wife didn’t know yet that their son had been brought back to life. Ando got excited just thinking about the moment when mother and son would be reunited. He’d have to think of a plausible story. Maybe he could say that the boy hadn’t drowned after all but had been rescued by a fishing boat; that he’d had amnesia, that he’d lived with other folks for the last two years. It didn’t matter how ridiculous the story was. The minute she touched Takanori, alive in the flesh, it would become the truth.

Whether or not they’d be able to make it as a married couple again was another question. Ando wanted to try. He gave himself a fifty-fifty chance.

A particularly big wave tame along and started to raise the boy’s body off the sand. The boy gave a little shriek and clung tightly to Ando’s waist. Ando held his son tightly to his side and waded out into the sea. He could feel his son’s heartbeat. That rhythm was the only sure thing in a world facing destruction. It proved they were alive.