Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

“If he were alive now, what do you think he’d be doing?”

Shinobu thought for a while. Then she lowered her eyes to the floor, for all the world like a rejected child, and murmured, “I don’t think there’d be anything he could do.”

The doctor agreed. After all, there was nothing he could do himself, and he was beset by dizziness.

“I’d guess he’d be much more miserable to be in the world than he was before he tried to kill himself,” Shinobu continued.

“True enough. After all, if he’s still alive he’ll be wanted for abduction, theft, attempted murder, drug offences, and fraud. He’d be an overnight sensation, like you. I’m an accomplice, after all, so I know what I’m talking about…”

“No,” she broke in, “that’s not what I’m saying.” Then she went on, twisting her fingers as if to weave together into a coherent whole the words that floated insubstantially in her mind. “What I mean is… Kita, well he rejected all the lies about freedom. All he did was plan to kill himself without anyone ordering him about or meddling. But then all these people gathered like flies and tried to use him. Even suicide isn’t a free act. But I think that Kita ended up confronting society without ever intending to; he just let things take their course. It’s just that when he encountered an enemy bent on obstructing his freedom, he could only turn and fight. It’s backbreaking work, maintaining real freedom. If his suicide attempt really did fail, he’d be left living a life that was a hundred times as cruel as his old one. And he’d really and truly be alone this time. No one who’s had a near-death experience can ever return to a world and a life of lies, see.”

It was as if someone from some other existence were borrowing Shinobu’s voice to speak.

“Freedom is lonely. Jesus Christ has taught me that. If you want to be truly free, you have to resist all the temptations of money and fame and nation and society. As long as all you want is your own happiness and the pleasure of the moment, you’ll remain a slave, whoever you are. Christ cut himself off from the world for the sake of those who’d come after him. I want to follow him. If Kita really is alive, I want to be a comfort for his loneliness. I believe that if people who’ve discovered what real freedom is can join hands and work to create the future, the evils of the world will slowly improve. If I didn’t believe that, I could never survive this cruel present.”

This meant that Yoshio Kita had in effect given Shinobu the courage to live in true freedom, didn’t it? He’d shown her that even when there’s nothing more you can do, you have to bear it. The doctor wasn’t inclined to hear any more of her religious confession. She could choose to become her own version of a saint or Joan of Arc if she wished. He guessed she wanted to save her soul from the depressing reality she lived in. But as for the doctor, he’d never had any truck with Freedom, or The Future, or The Soul. He’d lived his life simply in terms of biological life and death. He’d been too busy cutting up others’ bodies, putting them back together again, and sewing them up, to spare a moment’s thought for such deep questions. From Shinobu’s point of view, he’d be classed among the people who go about madly conning and deceiving others.

“I doubt we’ll meet again,” he said, and put out his hand.

She took it in a weak grip. “What will you do?” she asked.

What indeed? He wasn’t cut out either for doctoring or for killing, but he’d realized this a bit late. Yet he too had been given a kind of cruel freedom, and he had to bear the painful reality of it. “I think I might try working in a convenience store.” For some reason, it seemed to him that this would be what he was most suited for. A bright, white space that somewhat resembled a hospital ward, providing “convenience” to a series of transient, anonymous clients. A quick word of thanks directed at their departing backs. A presence neither hated nor loved, merely considered convenient… could it be that he’d spent all these years unconsciously wishing to fulfil just such a role? If only his path had crossed with Kita’s and Yashiro’s and Shinobu’s simply through the fleeting exchange of employee and customers, he’d have been spared all the hassle and misdeeds of this past week. At this thought, the doctor suddenly found himself imagining the expressionless convenience store employee as a kind of priest of infinite wisdom, quietly living his life in accordance with the laws of nature.

“If you really do plan on working in a convenience store, we may meet again in fact.”

The doctor nodded. Then he bowed, and left the room almost certainly never to come back. Why not head straight for a convenience store? he thought. But three steps on, he had a sudden thought. Just possibly, if Kita hadn’t died, he’d suddenly turn up there wanting a packet of instant curry.

The sky was a pale pink. He’d never seen such a sky. There ought to be sea below it, but everything was dyed such a pink that there was no distinguishing one from the other.

His skin was so goose-pimpled with cold that you could have grated cheese on it. The cold was fierce, but there was no point in worrying over it. His body didn’t register the cold.

He wished someone would explain to him what he was doing here. Why was he lying here sodden, on this rocky beach? Why was he so horribly thirsty? Why was blood running from his hairline? Was there any reason why he wasn’t wearing shoes?

When he drew in a breath, his chest wheezed like an ocarina, and he coughed and spluttered. No one was there, yet he felt as if someone was gently patting his back. Trying to tell him to stop? Someone was beside him, but he couldn’t see anyone. Or was it a rock? A rock that bore a strong resemblance to his mother. When had his mother become a rock? But when he looked more carefully, it looked rather like the grumpy face of that killer, who shared his mother’s Alzheimerish puzzled look about where and who he was. Kita had forgotten whether the killer had died or was still alive. And what had happened to his mother after she lost her memory?

It was cold. He wanted to go somewhere a bit warmer. If he prayed for it, no doubt he’d find he was lying on a paradisiacal summer beach. Here goes – one, two, three.

There must be some mistake here. He couldn’t remember how things were supposed to be. Before he’d got here… yes, he could remember swimming. Underwater, in his clothes, through the swaying seaweed, deep down in the salty water with bubbles racing upward. While someone was making him tingle.

Had he been dreaming? And if so, did that mean that this gooseflesh and his sodden trousers and socks were part of the same dream? Was blood red in dreams just like in real life? Maybe the sky and sea were this pink colour because it was a dream. There was a certain special way to behave in dreams. He didn’t need to do anything. The dream would do it all for him. But whose dream was this? The stone’s dream? The sea’s?

How he longed to get into a good hot bath. OK, let’s try a bath dream. And he’d love to eat some noodles or curry. Right, let’s have a curry dream while he was at it.

The sky had turned a dark brown. The sea was dark red. Time was constantly slipping forward somewhere at the edges of his consciousness. The blood on his forehead had apparently dried now, and his clothes were barely damp. Well at any rate, he thought, let’s chase time.

He set off to walk along the water’s edge, picking up a driftwood stick to use as a crutch. He must have walked for close to an hour, his easy tempo following the rhythm of the waves, yet still time seemed to be racing ahead of him. His toe had been cut up on shell fragments, and he could walk no further. But when he sat down, he found himself looking at a shoe like a weather-beaten old fisherman’s face, washed up on the shore. He put his wounded foot into this and walked on some way further, and then he came across a sneaker that looked like some fat kid just woken from sleep. With two shoes, he could now walk at a pace that kept up with the passage of time – but now the wind had changed direction and was blowing in from the sea, catching him like wind in a sail and pushing him up towards the mountains.