In which we are introduced to our protagonists, Shoki Nakamura and the demon, Nanashi.
2
Shower Scene
They call this country the Floating World. Yet sometimes, when I move to the window, I expect the town to have sunk into the crust of the Earth to be swallowed up by the magma. This morning the streets of Yōkoso Harbour are still there. And unfortunately, so is he.
Nanashi is perched lazily on my left shoulder. A plain, grey mask covers his face and only his red eyes are visible through the small openings. I try to avoid those eyes. There’s something foreboding there, like the first firebombs blinking in the night sky over wartime Tokyo. His countless ghostly fingers rest on my neck, stroking and tapping the raised tendons beneath my skin as if they are piano keys. But he’s no musician. His fingers only burn and scar whatever they touch.
“So that quaint little café is actually a hotbed of depravity and you don’t think to mention it?” he asks.
“Why would I?” I reply. “Not like it’s the sort of place I’d go to meet friends.”
“Puh! You? Friends?”
I think of Tiger and the other homeless residents of Shiranami Memorial Park. On the occasions I’ve stayed there, someone was always awake to keep me company. I miss the park. I miss friends.
“Of course, it won’t be an authentic pleasure house,” Nanashi continues. “I’ll wager it’s some pink salon or soap palace guaranteed to leave the tongue and tackle limper than pickled sardines.”
“If you’re not interested then stop talking about it.”
“You just shouldn’t have kept it to yourself.”
This coming from the king of secrets: secret name, secret past, secret motivations.
I walk over to the electric cooker where oil has started to pop and spit from the base of a wok. I drop in a handful of noodles that I bought from an elderly vendor who always calls me ‘little man’. I could blame his poor eyesight, but when I’m wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie, I can look a bit tomboyish.
“Do you plan on stuffing your face whenever you can’t asleep?” Nanashi asks. “When I said you needed a thicker skin, I didn’t mean a fat suit.”
“What are you on about? It’s not like I eat junk food. Besides, last time I wore my hair up you said I looked like a shabby calligraphy brush. So what am I? Fat or thin? I can’t be both.”
He stretches to look me up and down as if scrutinising a catwalk model. “Neither. You’re shapeless.”
I’m shapeless. He’s the one whose limbs and fingers constantly divide. And that mask of his goes through more changes than a Kabuki actor on performance night.
I shove the noodles to one side and tip in a dish of tofu chunks, broccoli florets, cashew nuts and diced spring onion. The mixture meets the hot oil, sending droplets up my bare forearm. I hardly notice. When the tofu begins to brown along the edges, I pour in a broth of vegetable stock, soy sauce, sugar, ginger and whisky. Nanashi stretches over the mixture to inhale the fumes. He slumps back when the whisky has evaporated.
“What a waste,” he huffs.
I glare at the space between the oven and the fridge where there sits a strange device that could double as a prop for any Science Fiction B-movie. I kick it hard enough for the homebrewed saké inside to slosh about.
“Hey, take it easy,” Nanashi protests.
“You take it easy! That’s half a keg you’ve drained this week already. I’m not brewing again till Friday so you’d better slow down.”
I know he won’t. He’s incapable of pacing himself when it comes to alcohol. If he had a body or anatomy of any description his vital organs would resemble mouldy figs by now.
“It’s hardly expensive,” he says. “And someone worried about money doesn’t then buy whisky to go in their stir-fry.”
“Firstly, the whisky’s from your emergency supply in case the homebrew kit malfunctions again. And secondly, did I say it was expensive? You’re just knocking it back at a rate of knots and I can’t keep up.”
“I need it to stay strong, you know that. You wouldn’t deny a bodybuilder his protein shakes.”
“I would if they stunk out the apartment and leaked through the floorboards.”
“Back to this again. I told you the valve was faulty.”
“You left me sleeping while a gallon of saké was busy marinating the neighbour’s carpet.”
“I dealt with it.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that. Of all the actions you could’ve taken, including waking me to discover any minor repairs were covered by my damage deposit, you decide to set his place on fire.”
“If he’d smelt the alcohol he would’ve called the cops.”
“The same cops probably now investigating an arson case.”
“You’re being paranoid as usual. The blaze only touched his living room before the neighbours started wielding extinguishers.”
“He could’ve burned.”
“Just like your food.”
Dammit!
Realising I’ve cremated the tofu, I remove the wok from the hob and empty the mixture into a bowl. I switch on the alarm clock radio above the fridge before carrying the food over to the lounge window.
…The attack on popular musician, Ms Kazuko Tanaka, known to her fans as Jo-Jo, has shocked the music world, emphasising concerns surrounding negligent security within the industry. An obsessive fan stabbed her during a live performance at the Fluid Rooms on Mercury Mile. Paramedics attempted to stabilise her condition, but she was pronounced dead shortly before reaching hospital. The twenty-two-year-old trained at the Tokyo Music Academy and was due to begin a tour of the United States this summer…
The newsreader’s clinical voice rasps through dust-clogged speakers. His tone is always the same whether he’s reporting on the tragic murder of a young musician or reading out the soccer scores.
It’s a little after two in the morning and all is quiet. My apartment is only a short distance from the docks though it’s too early even for the car manufacturers to be at work. In a few short hours my apartment walls will begin to vibrate as the factory machines warm up. I imagine they have a life of their own beyond their coding, a consciousness reserved for the dead of night when the security guard has dozed off in front of the CCTV panel. It would be like a ballroom dance: welding robots would bow deeply before reaching for a partner. Pneumatic arms would connect, tubes would coil and molten-metal sparks would shower the factory floor. The display would end just as the security guard stirred.
…The radical feminist group, Lips have used their popular radio broadcast to launch a scathing attack on the Prime Minister. The controversial programme was aired following a consensus to refuse the group a representative in court. Unfortunately for legal reasons we cannot air the Lips broadcast…
The New Year refuses to fade despite two months having passed. Tangerine lanterns still sway from rafters, trampled strips of confetti streak the pavements, and a kite dangles from the telephone cable beyond my bedroom window.
Yōkoso Harbour is big on festivities, to the point of inventing occasions to celebrate. Last October the crested ibis become extinct from the wild and the locals had their children create bird masks with red faces, beady yellow eyes and elongated black beaks. The procession that followed was like a Venetian carnival with every child dressed as a plague doctor. For an insomniac, having not slept for three solid days, witnessing eighty-or-so children wearing pale cloaks and grotesque masks pass beneath the window was comparable to a fever dream.
“It’s time we moved,” Nanashi says.
I shake my head. “What is it this time?”
His dissatisfaction with our living conditions is a regular topic. I could turn the apartment into a distillery and he’d still find something to complain about.
“Those shit-dribbling gulls,” he explains. “How can you put up with them? Always clambering across the roof tiles with their ridiculous feet, this way and that, this way and that, all the while screeching and flapping their wings like apocalyptic messengers.” He waves his countless arms like a sea anemone beneath a breaking wave.
I sigh. “Is that all?”
“No, there’s the smell too.”
“What smell?”
“Seaweed.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“You’ve gotten used to it;” he says, “living here has dulled your senses.”
“My senses are just fine.”
“They’re not what they were up north surrounded by all that untainted mountain air.”
“The same mountain air you couldn’t stand.”
“I’d take it over this stench. Think about it… sea-weed. Imagine a Zen garden with weeds. They’d be plucked from the ground and incinerated on the spot.”
“You’re talking about kelp. Doesn’t bother anyone else. In fact the salarymen can’t seem to do without it. They believe it’s got healing powers or something. Convinced enough to empty their wallets if they see it anywhere on a menu. Tiger told me that with the right ingredients you could even make soap out of it.”
“What does the bum know? Bet you had to barter for that useless piece of information. What did he ask for? Donuts please, Shoki. Cigarettes please, Shoki. A blowjob please, Shoki.” Between each request he bows mockingly.
“That’s disgusting! He’s never asked me for anything and you know it. What is it with him? Are you jealous?”
“Jealous!” His mask changes from the usual grey to terracotta with smooth lumps of amber appearing on the surface. “How could anyone be jealous of that subhuman?”
“I’ve obviously hit a nerve.”
With a faint groan, he turns away.
I rest my forehead against the windowpane. The glass is reassuringly cool. “Is that it? Nothing more to get off your chest? No more smells bothering you? Maybe I should buy an air rifle and pick off those gulls one by one? I’m sure that wouldn’t draw any attention.”
I can feel his anger. He’s visibly trembling. I know he wants to retort, to shower me with curses like acid rain, but something’s holding him back.
“Look, the gulls are only a problem when they start mating,” I say, attempting to pacify him. “That won’t happen till at least March. And I admit the kelp can smell a little, but only during the summer months when it’s baking on the shoreline. There’s no reason to move right now.”
...And in local news. Despite lengthy protests, plans to build an offshore wind farm are to go ahead this spring. Spokesperson for OceanMill Hydroelectrics, Haruto Eda said the operation would mark a new chapter in Japan’s clean energy future…
Ignoring me, Nanashi has switched his attention to The Crying Lemon café. Though its security shutters are down, steam continues to seep from vents connected to the brothel downstairs. I often watch the girls smoking on the basement steps, huddling like arctic penguins in the chill air while they tout for customers. Since setting up the homebrew kit, Nanashi’s interest in the outside world has admittedly dwindled, though how I noticed such a place before him is beyond me.
I lift a large portion of noodles with my chopsticks and attempt to pick clear the charred tofu chunks with my fingers. Realising I’m getting nowhere, I head for the kitchen bin.
“Stay at the window,” Nanashi barks.
“The meal’s ruined so I’m taking a shower. If you don’t bother me for the next five minutes, I’ll fix you a drink as soon as I’m out.”
The mere prospect of alcohol should keep him quiet.
After snapping the pull cord to the bathroom light, the already dreary space is now remarkably bleak. I wouldn’t shower so often but for Nanashi’s constant remarks on my personal hygiene. I don’t know why I listen to him? I guess I’m like any other girl my age when it comes to these things.
Once in the bathroom, I routinely inspect the ceiling for spreading damp. I’ve used thick emulsion paint to cover a large patch in one corner but the moisture always manages to bleed through. Damp is where the jellyfish come from.
Removing my t-shirt, I drape it across the sink before stepping from the bunched legs of my tracksuit bottoms. Forgetting to put on underwear is just another symptom of sleep deprivation. I’ve also placed frozen food in the oven, mistaken emulsion paint for moisturiser and added rat poison to the homebrew instead of rice, which Nanashi still drunk without complaint.
For the longest time, I wouldn’t bathe or shower in his company, and if I had to, I would always wrap myself in a towel. I gave up this pretence after waking from a rare sleep to discover him fondling my breasts.
Once in the bathtub, I draw the plastic curtain across before switching on the shower. The spluttering jet forms a cold pool around my feet. I wait for the temperature to rise before leaning forwards. The warm spray passes straight through Nanashi, striking a particularly angry blister above my left collarbone from a recent quarrel.
Not every scar is of his making. The raised tissue crisscrossing the length of my thighs is barely visible to the naked eye and yet still prevents me from ever undressing in public for fear of being labelled a self-harmer.
Tilting my head back, I let the water overwhelm me. I enjoy the brief feeling of disorientation as the stream hits my eyelids and trickles down into the hollows of my ears. I feel safe in the knowledge that I can return to the real world simply by opening my eyes.
I reach blindly for the shampoo.
The radio shrieks.
The bathroom light flickers to life.
Panicking, I flail and knock the showerhead with my hand, pushing the jet into the curtain. I back up against the wall; my palms flush to the tiles, fingers rigid and spread apart like dehydrated starfish.
Something scuttles across the lino. My breathing turns shallow and raspy. The thing scratches the smooth surface of the bath side. I imagine a crab: leathery green shell, eyes attached to stalks, jagged legs, bulbous claws. It’s trying to climb up! Can it do that? Maybe a spider could, but not a crab; they’re not as agile. What if it’s a Spider Crab? Would that make a difference? Can they climb?
Cowering in the tub, I listen as its claws open and shut and picture them clamped around my toes, squeezing, rings of blood framing my nails, bruises blossoming like ink in water.
Nanashi sniggers and his amusement is enough to bring bile to my throat. I retch and spit out undigested noodles. The shower stream washes them down where they settle over the plughole guard. A single piece of tofu disintegrates in the water, leaving residue like cigarette ash.
The scratching gets louder. The crab has burrowed through the side of the bath. It’s directly beneath me! The stiff tips of its legs echo off the fibreglass layer separating us. I reach up and lift the showerhead from its cradle. If the crab gets through I’ll spray it, and if that doesn’t work I’ll club it into a pulp.
The scratching ends.
The light bulb pops and fizzles out.
The reporter’s mutterings return.
I stay there for a minute, not moving a muscle. I know as soon as I draw the curtain across everything will be exactly as it was. I’m certain of this, just as I’m certain there was never a crab in the first place.
“Dammit!” I scream. “And damn you.”
“Nothing to do with me. You’re the one seeing things. What was it this time? Jellyfish from the ceiling? Eels from the plughole? Octopi from the showerhead perhaps? Now stop your whining and return to the window.”
“Get lost!”
He digs his fingers into my shoulder blade. I feel a scratch against bone. I may have a high pain threshold, but Nanashi can still hurt me.
“Okayokay!” I cry. “Enough… please.”
“To the window,” he repeats.
I switch off the shower and step from the bath. Struggling back into my tracksuit bottoms and t-shirt, which cling to my wet skin, I stamp theatrically across the lounge, my hair trailing water as I go.
I’m breathing hard as I reach the window. Nanashi leans over and wipes clear the condensation my breath has produced on the glass. I half expect his fingers to cut through like one of those gadgets professional thieves use to break stealthily into museums and galleries.
The street below is deserted and there are only distant sounds: the familiar chugging engine of the weekend road-sweeper, an intermittent car alarm, Nanashi’s ‘apocalyptic messengers’ screeching from the rooftops.
“What?” I demand.
“Just wait.”
“It’s freezing. My hair’s dripping…”
“I said wait!”
Out of nowhere a young girl emerges from the alleyway running alongside my building. She moves to the edge of the pavement and then stops abruptly, eyeing the tarmac as if it’s been freshly laid.
She could pass for an ordinary student: she’s wearing a typical school uniform and though she’s exceptionally skinny and pale, it is a popular look these days. She could pass, but for one glaring oddity – she doesn’t have any feet! It’s why Nanashi calls her Faintfoot.
“Why do I have these eyes?” I groan.
Nanashi lowers a cluster of fingers, suspending them inches from my face. “Perhaps you’d rather be blind?”
Sometimes I long for just that, for all my senses to burn away. In that place beyond darkness maybe I could truly sleep.
Faintfoot finally leaves the pavement and drifts towards The Crying Lemon. Even from such a distance, thick glass between us, I can feel her malice. If her sinister energy were visible it would leap from her like solar flares.
Nanashi leans in until his mask is practically touching the windowpane. I glance at his reflection, just for a second, but long enough to look into his eyes. I can usually detach myself from his cruelty, ignore his malicious words and tolerate his soldering fingertips, but there’s no escaping those eyes. What terrors have they seen? What atrocities have they guided?
“She’s after your baseball enthusiast,” he says.
“What’s Gotō doing here? I told him to stay clear of the Harbour!”
“Relax, he’s not here.”
“You just said she was after him…”
“But not that she’d find him. Gotō’s probably lounging in a rooftop Jacuzzi someplace surrounded by smooth-skinned women serving sakétinis.”
“So why is she heading to the brothel?”
“The bloated maggot must’ve hired someone to pose as him. Wouldn’t have to be anything elaborate; wearing the same aftershave would peak her interest.”
I dash into the bedroom and fling open the bedside cabinet door. Inside is a leather-bound journal, which I remove and place on the duvet.
“What are you doing?” Nanashi asks.
I negotiate a cluttered pile of equipment used in homebrewing and lift a towel from a clotheshorse beside the radiator. Feverishly drying my hair, I squeeze the last of the droplets free and then gather the damp mass up into a bun to secure it in place with a pencil. “I have to stop this.”
HATCHLINGS 