Read by Kevin Shen
I find myself in someplace scary: a living room. It’s nothing like the sparse-save-for-spiderwebs tatami mat cottages I’ve squatted in my whole life — it’s nicer, but nowhere as grand as the Emperor’s Palace I once frequented … no longer do.
I feel my kimono on me; gentle, like a shy woman’s embrace … I miss my iron armour. I swerve my right hand to my left side: I still have my sword. I draw it, scan the opaque room for danger: an ugly sofa with a stain that actually adds character, a mantel with smiling foreign faces, two slices of pizza, a can of soda and four fallen bottles of beer float in their own puddle on a mahogany coffee table, and beyond that, against the wall, boxes with flickering lights, and above those … a portrait of … me … on the TV.
‘ZZZ ...’
I notice the snoring carcass on the floor behind the sofa: poke his naked belly with my sword. He smiles, giggles like he’s being tickled.
‘Rise!’
Only drool shudders from his mouth. I try lifting by wrapping my arms around him; a dead whale washed ashore has more grace, even after having its liver gutted. After many attempts, he’s barely standing.
‘State your name,’ I say to the fat half-naked man before me.
‘What the hell are you doing in my living room?’
‘Explain!’ I point my sword at the frozen TV image.
‘Holy shit!’ He knuckles his eyes. ‘You’re that Samurai dude!’
I nod.
‘How can you be there and here together?’ he says.
I sense if there are others — no. The current state of the abode confirms this; the other faces in the picture frames no longer live here. On the far north corner, atop the kitchen counter, a drawing on a box of cereal substitutes sunshine. Any natural light has been denied passage through the East Wall by drawn curtains: wrinkled pillars freckled with dust … like the palace gates that closed on my face, forever.
That burning memory is still not as deplorable as the frozen sight on TV.
‘It’s one thing to delay my journey of redemption,’ I say, ‘but to mock me in this fashion is preposterous! How dare you?’
He looks at the screen; I’m midway in a scream with my hands up in futile defence, my eyes fixed on potato shaped stones frozen in mid flight, and beyond that, the erratic still-motions of villagers in various state of flinging more stones at me.
Fat man chuckles at the sight; I ready my sword to dismember him.
‘That’s not so bad,’ he says. ‘Anyway, you escape, even though you’ve been a total dick in this scene.’
‘Silence!’ I brandish my sword between his two chins — terrified — ‘You mean … you know my fate?’
‘Easy, man!’ He steps back, unafraid. Seeing that he is unarmed in his pathetic flaunt of flesh, and remembering my vow, I lower my sword. ‘Sure, lots of times. This one’s my favourite,’ he continues. ‘But after this scene, things get …’
‘Enough!’
“We Are The Champions!” a vociferous chant bursts out from under the sofa; Fat man reaches for the cellphone, answers, hangs ups, grimaces, ‘Damn bills!’
He straightens the creases on his underwear formed by the folds of protruding flesh underneath; a name: Calvin Kl… is barely visible, veiled by a drooping stomach.
He proceeds to the refrigerator, consumes orange juice directly from the carton. Watching this wordless display, I gasp with a harrowing question: How can I speak to him when I don’t know his language?
‘You can speak Japanese?’ I ask, trying to word it in perfect Kanji characters, but I have no idea how to and I continue blurting demonic Western alphabets.
‘Japanese?’ he says, picking pulp off his naked chest and slurping, ‘Of course not. Hey, your English is pretty good.’
More importantly: all the alien objects that surround me in this room, I have laid eyes on them for the first time ever, yet … I recognize them.
I realize at once that I am subjugated to the laws of the domain that confines me: his.
I cannot be a part of such a world: turn my sword upon myself; ritual suicide - but then I notice my frozen image on the TV, and look back at my pale hands; everything else … is in colour.
I stare back at the TV screen, the profound simplicity of the world I inhabit and understand: black and white is still a part of me, even if it is far away. I realize that I don’t consider this room as much as it does me.
‘How can you comprehend the interactions in my journey in there,’ I point my blade at the screen, ‘if you do not speak my language?’
‘Subtitles,’ he says.
My expression demands elaboration; he goes on, ‘The little words at the bottom of the screen.’
‘So,’ I muse, ‘reading subtitles on a black and white screen is akin to watching a book in colour.’
‘Huh?’ he says.
‘I’m thirsty.’ I insist on service; after all, I’ve been standing like a statue for hours waiting for stones to flatten my face.
He holds up the carton of juice in inquiry; I stare at it.
*
An hour and six bottles each of McCourt’s Stout later, we’re both at ease on the couch, though I’m careful that he sits on the side with the stain.
‘Best beer in the world, eh?’ he says, slowing down on the last bottle from the wonderfully ingenious six-pack; this is the first foreign invention I regret our superior kind didn’t think of first.
‘Beer,’ I say slowly, knowing I’ve never tasted it, but yet, familiar: it’s mind-boggling. Maybe the witch who lives atop the hill on the far side of our village performed voodoo and banished me here to this foreign place full of sights experienced only in heaven: or hell. It’s possible that I’m dead already.
This beer thing is even better than the sake served by the innkeeper at the last village we requisitioned. We had defeated the warlord of the province and set free the area, or, rather, transferred power over to ourselves. Many of my comrades died in that battle.
‘Are you … ,’ I correct myself after glancing at his sunken beehive chest, ‘were you, ever a soldier?’
‘Yeah.’
I knew it. ‘And you were conspired against? Dishonoured, you now roam the land seeking redemption?’ I mirror my own story to his.
‘Something like that.’ He stretches his toes, the only exertion I have seen him perform. The nails have harvested and been plagued with soot.
I insist that he shares his misfortune.
He was part of an empire called Choco-Fest. They planted flags across the entire Southern region of Fat man’s large land. ‘We ruled millions!’ he crows.
Villagers paid homage at temples called drive-ins, and were blessed with nourishment. Fat man was rank of Assistant Manager at one of these forts.
I hear of his heroic involvement in the ‘discount wars’. But then, an even larger empire from the North East invaded through a style of battle called ‘Mergers & Acquisitions’. There was bloodshed, and Fat man was banished from the empire, stripped of his bronze nametag; a pain I can only compare to a Samurai having to surrender his sword.
I breathe horror after listening to his tale, disgusted at myself for having judged him.
He is in pain, but doesn’t show it: sucking down the last drop of beer the way a cow sucks on a mother's tit, after which, he belches loudly, burying the silent sound of death around the room.
The world he occupies is more hostile than mine, that is why the curtains are forever drawn: even the sunlight must sting in these parts; or there are wolves lurking outside.
‘Well, that’s that,’ he says, flinging the empty bottle on the soft floor; it doesn’t break on the carpet, makes the slightest pat … like my bride’s footsteps.
‘What?’ I say.
‘The beer — it’s finished.’
He has offered me the last of his antidote from pain. I am ashamed and in awe.
The leather sofa fights to suck him back in, but he manages to rise to his feet.
‘Wanna drive down to town?’
‘Drive?’ I say.
‘Yeah. We can pick up more beer … and maybe some trouble,’ he grins.
He is obviously ready to murder and pillage for this only comfort. I, on the other hand, have sworn never to take another life again after the atrocities I committed. That is why I’m not reacting when the villagers throw stones at me — two years ago I would have placed their heads into their own hands.
I realize I am blocking my own journey by filling another’s.
‘What is your name, comrade?’ I ask.
‘Sam.’
‘Sam, Assistant Manager of Choco-Fest.’ I address him with past glory.
He chuckles humbly. ‘That was a long time ago, bro.’
Bro?
When I was 11 years old, my whole family died in a famine. Last year, the new family that I had made perished in a fire when the warring clan set ablaze my village in retaliation for what we did to them. This man who possibly out of shame has to wear another’s name on his underwear, has accorded me a lifetime bond over the acquaintance of a single morning, or night; I cannot be sure of the time with the darkness around me.
I scan the room one last time: miniature portraits of laughing life reside in frames atop a mantel; the word photographs invades my consciousness just by seeing them. Fat man is in them too, looking not so fat; happy. I do not know if his family perished in a gruesome battle too, but I know they’re not here any more. Maybe he seeks to return to them.
‘I must go,’ I say hurriedly.
‘You sure? The drive won’t take long.’
I decline again.
‘Hey, what’s your name?’ he asks.
I have no name … any more.
‘Sam,’ I begin, avoiding his inquiry, ‘you must promise me something. Please, stop these drives to pillage beer, no matter how rewarding the excelsior, it will always empty out to pain. You have shared with me the last of your rations, for which I am eternally grateful, taken me in as your brother, a gesture that I could never repay …’
‘Chill, man …’ he gestures with his pudgy hand but I go on speaking:
‘The hardest part about life is not seeking something unattainable … but not knowing what it is that we seek.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he says.
I turn to the TV, begin walking, stop, turn again, draw out my sword, bow and present it before him.
‘Woh,’ he says.
‘Please,’ I kneel further; ‘it may help you in your journey.’
‘I can’t take that … you need it for —’
‘No!’ I plead he doesn’t speak further: a warrior’s destiny must never be revealed to him.
‘Are you sure about this, bro?’ he says holding the sword with both hands. He’s already fixated by it: smiling.
‘You deserve it more than I, Sam. But remember, a true warrior looks for every way not to fight.’
I can make out that Sam is giving serious meditation to what I have just said: I cannot make out that he is thinking about calling his ex-wife.
‘Goodbye, Sam,’ I bow.
‘Peace!’
‘Peace!’ I repeat, agreeing that is a better word.
I stand before the TV, take a deep breath as Sam sets aside the sword and picks up the remote, finger on play.
I have never seen a movie; do not even know what one is and how they always have the same ending. Entering back into my war-torn world without my sword, I believe in the power of miracles.
(c) Gotham Mamik, May 2015
Gotham Mamik's short stories have appeared in literary journals in the UK and USA. His story, A Word Unlike was shortlisted in the Writer's Village contest. An excerpt from his novel-length satire, How Bollywood Killed My Family was selected for the Kriti Literary Festival at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He serves as Prose Editor for Papercuts, a literary magazine.
Kevin Shen (left) has a number of credits including: Theatre: Yellow Face (National Theatre, Park Theatre), Chimerica (West End). Film: Unlocked, Generation Z. Television: Tyrant, Hoff the Record, 24: Live Another Day, One Child, Obsession: Dark Desires, Bite of the Living Dead. For more information, visit www.kevinshen.co.uk
Comments