It is Friday fairytale time again. This time it is less of a fairytale, more a little story of loss. 

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Death of a Salaryman

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock…

A life of repetition should be feared. A life of repetition is a life wasted. However circadian rhythm echoed all around him, it was in his nature like the tides. Swelling movements to the same cubicle, the same desk, the same problems and the same answers, drawn by the gravity of his building. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in his reports for Monday, month end procedures and protocol he would have seen her falling apart in front of his eyes. He thought of his father’s life on the coast, early starts and late evenings. His father’s life was at the mercy of chaos, dependant on skill and gusto, verve and volition. His life was dependent on the steel caterpillars that transported he and the other lost hearts into the high rise, low soul environments of computers and order.  Millions of people moved in invisible spirals to their inevitable crash, like universal whirlpools. He should have seen her falling apart.

Instead all he got was tick tock tick tock, dinner in front of the portable television and half hearted platitudes to his wife. The fluorescent tube lighting hummed and clicked above him, as he looked at the ingrained dirt on the kitchen linoleum, it was peeling away from the floor in the corner and had become frayed from the dragging and scrapping of industrial canteen chairs. When he was younger he had dreamt of living in Norway, with wooden furniture and a forest outside. He would stock up his timber, as the dark winter arrived and he would tell stories to the daughter who was growing in his wife’s womb. This life that would know woods and trees and life, not cold seats in a rain drowned city. While he pretended to sleep, he would listen to his wife’s breathing. He imagined that oxygen going through membranes in her lungs, the gas going through her arteries, passing over the barrier at the placenta and being used in tiny chemical reactions in her ever changing body. He loved this new life, so much when he thought of it, it hurt. He saw her as an escape route, the last escape route he had. His wife had given up on him, and this little life was going to save them. It wasn’t a fair deal, it wasn’t fair on them or this unborn, soon to be new born. It was too much pressure, and he felt his chest tighten and his breath catch, there was going to be no escape.

He had a few affairs, none that he was either proud about or that he enjoyed in any way. He had these inexplicable urges, as if he had deserved more. He felt let down and betrayed, that his life hadn’t worked out in the manner of a rock song. He tried to justify it, he remembered the days when he was courting his then fiancé, how she had cheated on him. It was a one night stand, after an argument, a mistake she regretted before it had even finished. He had never let her forget, he always used it as leverage, of how he had forgiven her and how he had given her another chance. His wife had no idea, and she would never find out, and in a perverse manner he was glad that this was the case. He couldn’t imagine how to explain escort girls with their wide European eyes had an allure that he couldn’t fight. He couldn’t explain to her that it was all his own fault, he didn’t talk to her about these things, he realised that he didn’t talk to her anymore.

Like a silent ballet, she would pirouette mutely by the sink, tray in hand with bowl and noodle spoon clinking away. He would drift into the living room, settling in front of the glow of the television. It painted him with a sickly blue colour, slithering over his skin like the film on a petrol station forecourt. Inane game shows and sports would bombard his eyes with high definition love and Technicolor loneliness. She would stand in the door frame, looking at the beer can stood proudly, coaster less, on the table. The flickering gave her a strange feeling, like he could be soon switched off and he would, click, evaporate into the static that surrounds our lives. She could feel this life growing inside her, being bombarded with her negative thoughts and she felt nauseous. Her hand instinctively went to her stomach, wishing in part to tear this life out. She had never chosen this path, she hadn’t chosen to be a mother.

So these two lives shared their microcosm, their little bubbles of life, and all they had was each other and their own disappointments to justify why neither of them slept at night, and yet neither could hear the other screaming.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock

So we come to Yoko’s birth, the story that she would never know completely, just enough of.

The monsoons had come with vengeance in their eyes, and had given the metropolis wave after wave of falling sheets of water. As it tore off the coast and into the wind tunnels of the city, her father sat at desk barely large enough to hold it’s computer. Row after row of these desks filed obediently in all directions and he could see some fellow colleagues hunched over, their greasy skin reflecting the columns of numbers that rifled down, crushing all their dreams. Tick tock tick tock, click clack click clack. The rhythm was inescapable, like a hypnotist’s pocket watch, click, tick, clack, tock.

‘Kana-san, we are going to a bar after work, you fancy coming?’ Shoji was one of the few people at work he liked, he was quiet and nervous. He gave the impression to Kana that he would like to run away and live in a small hut on a mountain, with only the spirits of his forefathers for company. ‘Kana, I know your baby is due, but you’re barely showing! Come for one, it is only down in Akhibira, that is near where you live isn’t it, a walk away.’

‘I’ll come for one.’

‘One, one….sure one is great, you are great, you are lucky I would marry you if you weren’t married, and if I was gay, Kana-san, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

He didn’t let him down, but he would let down the one person he shouldn’t have.

Eight came and went, whilst he struggled with numbers he didn’t care about. He wasn’t going to solve Fermat’s last theorem, at this rate he wouldn’t be going anywhere, or solve anything other than how he had ended up so desolate. He looked to the one part of his desk that wasn’t swamped in papers and wires. Out of a simple black clip frame shone the face of his wife, one from her uni days. Her hair was blowing in an autumn gale, a beret from her visit  to Paris, worn in the corner and worn at an angle. She looked so distant, so ghostly. In her hand a book of English poets, Wordsworth and Byron jostling under her fingers to describe how they thought we all felt. He could see her onyx eyes, staring at the camera, staring at the taker. He looked at her and hoped she felt that way about him.

He didn’t take the photo, it was an ex boyfriend who had taken it, she wasn’t looking like that for him. Or even at him! But it was his favourite image of her, it was the only image he had. Why couldn’t he love her any more? Why didn’t he love her any more?

Yoko’s mother stared out of the window, the paths of droplets merging and separating on her double glazed window. Like the lives that moved about under plastic umbrellas, slight contact was all they would all have. Event horizons of meetings and annihilations, tête-à-têtes with protection and distance. The pains in her stomach were getting longer and harder. Where was he? He should have been home hours ago! She looked into the hallway at the small over night bag. Some satin pyjamas, a dressing kimono, toiletries and her book of British poetry were all she had packed. There was no need for traditions or birthing manuals, diatribes on how not to panic and how to raise a genius. She wanted to raise a child who loved the people she met, and who would read and smile and dance and show her all that was good in the world. Yet she didn’t, she didn’t want to be that responsible for someone else, she wasn’t responsible for her self. She looked at her reflection, glowing was what they all had said. She didn’t feel glowing, she didn’t feel magical, or special. She felt infected, she felt like she was host to a parasite that would have it’s claws in her for ever. A life cursed by this part of herself, she couldn’t justify it, or rationalise this. She should have told him that it was killing her, she should have told him that she was and never would be ready. Instead she feigned joy at her missed period and cried at the ultrasound, she looked into baby names and dreamt of a daughter named Freya. Fair as the northern lights and equally enigmatic, yet this was always tempered by her self loathing, her knowledge that her life was ending before it started. The crunching and tearing was getting worse, she would have to ring for an ambulance and leave him a note. She couldn’t let him fail her. She would wait for him, and if she had to give birth alone, she would, show him what he had done.

We live by our mistakes.

Tick tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock tock tick tock

Shoji walked over and shook Kana in a light and friendly manner. ‘We are going now Kana, come on. Nothing is that important that it can get in the way of one drink.’ It had been a long day, he had time on this project and if anything happened she would call. Surely she would call? Something was tugging behind his stomach, was it the last chord of feeling to her? He swept up his papers and brief case and smiled as Shoji put his arm around him.

‘I really do think one day I am going to blow this building up or throw myself from it. I cannot decide whether it is all your fault, or mine.’ Shoji said laughing.

‘I think we are all slightly to blame.’

‘Yeah, I guess we are, so … would it be all our fault if I blew this place up?’ There was a two second silence, tick tock, he looked at Shoji’s pale face, he understood what he meant.

‘I think we are all to blame.’

Shoji gave a nervous laugh as they walked out into the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. There was noise as neon lights swam in greasy puddles, the smell of cooking mixing with the stench of dirt, money and power. Lights and sound were used to programme the masses, twenty four hour living, three hundred and sixty five days of saccharine, sugar coated, preservative injected living. This wasn’t a Norwegian wood. He was dragged along in the natural eddies that solitary people create, which could be described through mass movement models and complicated fluid dynamics. Thesis could be written on the choices of humans, how they mirrored particle physics, yet no one wanted to though, they were too busy drowning in these lonely moments.

She looked out, it was dark now and all she could see were colours that were bleeding into each other, bleeding out of her. She had the television on, but it was the same colours and the same noises of a world that didn’t really exist. She could smell the drunken atmosphere rising up from the streets, percolating through her breeze block walls, and all she thought of was old wives tales of warm baths and gin.

A bolt of pain shot through her, every ten seconds, he wasn’t coming.

Call the ambulance, her heart was screaming, this is your baby. How could she be so stubborn? How could she be so upset that she was willing to use this as a lesson?

He looked at his wrist watch, it was difficult to see the little gold flecks that represented the hours and the light in the bar was low. He looked over to Shoji who was talking to two Australian escorts, he looked at the umber whiskey at the bottom of his glass. It seemed to be crawling up the side of the glass, desperate for him to notice it.

He had to go.

‘Shoji, I am going. I have already had four, which as you should know is three more than one.’

‘But Kana-san, look at the two here!’ He said, smiling and waving his arms at the escorts. They smiled, oblivious to his Japanese.

Like a slow motion car crash he got up and walked out, waving slightly and smiling. His wife was giving birth to a future.

She had managed to dial the ambulance from the house phone, now she was lying on the floor, their flooring stained with blood and water. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she couldn’t feel anything other anger, anger that Kana wasn’t there.

The walk was short, but he sobered up quickly. He had done the right thing, maybe he should have phoned to see she was ok, but that was just a slight over sight. He would chew some gum, buy some flowers and all would be forgiven. He would soon have something that was a part of them, something they could share. Stopping at a stand he bought some white lilies and bounded up the stairs, he didn’t notice the flashing red light that was coming from the other entrance. He didn’t hear the mass that was gathered. Running down the corridor, he saw people huddling by his door and men in orange jumper suits carrying a stretcher and shouting at people to get out of the way. She had gone into labour, it wasn’t perfect but it would be ok. As the stretcher came closer he started to scream out supportive words, he went to grab her hand but her hand was zipped up in the bag, along with her. As it dawned on him, his knees buckled and he fell to the floor, hands spread out, lungs heaving. The flowers were trampled by rushing paramedics. Tears were silently leaking down his cheeks as he tried to make a noise, to shout at someone or to rail at everything. Instead he looked up to see a female paramedic leave his door, silhouetted in the light from the room, like an angel, carrying a little bundle of rags.

‘Are you Kana-san?’

He couldn’t speak, he just nodded.

‘This is your baby girl.’

Shaking he dragged himself to full height, she smiled a forced grin, knowing that nothing could convey how she felt. How could this man of let his wife gone through this herself? How was he feeling on his happiest day, a beautiful daughter but … but …

He realised he was always in love with a ghost, a phantasm, something that was just a memory and an echo. He realised that this was all he would ever have. They had made a big mistake, but his was greater. He was going to cradle this beautiful error, this special catastrophe and never let her think she wasn’t anything less than perfect.

When he was discharged from the hospital, with his baby girl, he came home to find his house clean, but cold. Everywhere were scars of her, everywhere was something that reminded him of her. He had to leave this place! He ran, and kept on running from that place, and he would make sure his girl knew how to run. He would make sure she knew that you must never let yourself get trapped in something you would regret.

She remembered another story, not a syllable of similarity to the truth, but she didn’t need to know that.

- Anand