floor, apologizing to me as they wept.
As always, I went off to the bedroom in a fit of pique, leapt into bed and pulled the sheets over my head.
There was nothing unusual about this. I have an outburst like that about once a month, on average. For my family, who don’t understand why I’m so angry, it must seem like some kind of natural disaster. But by the next day, it’s all forgotten, and they try to smother me once more with their sickening phoney happiness.
That utterly repulsive,
Just after lunch the next day, I went to the bank near my office. I wanted to deposit my wages and complete the direct debit forms for the television. The bank was heaving with other office workers like myself, taking advantage of their lunch break, as well as salespeople from the nearby shopping centre. Expecting a long wait, I sat on a bench near the window and lit a cigarette.
While I was waiting for my number to be called, a gaunt young woman with narrow slanting eyes came and sat on the bench in front of me. She was accompanied by a boy of about the same age as Shigenobu, a mischievous-looking brat who just couldn’t keep still. Before long, he started knocking over ashtray stands and grabbing handfuls of leaflets, which he scattered all over the floor.
“Yoshikazu! Stop that!” shouted the boy’s mother. “What do you think you’re doing? Stop it, I said! You naughty boy! Keep still! Yoshikazu! Where are you going?”
Ignoring his mother’s incessant scolding, the boy continued to wander around, until he eventually knocked over the entire leaflet stand.
“YOSHIKAZU!”
The boy’s mother stood up, grabbed the brass pipe of an ashtray stand and, brandishing it high above her head, brought the solid metal base down onto his head.
There was a dull, sickening sound, like that of a wooden post being driven into the ground by a mallet. The child cowered on the floor, his eyeballs turning white. With the look of a woman possessed, the mother continued to beat the boy over the head with the ashtray stand. He was sprawled belly-down on the floor, but I could still see his face. White matter was coming out of his nose. His mouth was gaping open, and it too was full of white matter. His pummelled brains were oozing out through his nose and filling his mouth. The tips of his fingers twitched convulsively at first, but then stretched out limply. The mother staggered out of the bank with the same empty look in her eyes, leaving the boy’s body on the floor behind her. And still the aftersound of the incident continued to echo in the vaulted ceiling of the bank.
Two or three of us stood up slowly. After checking the expressions of those around him, a middle-aged man in a business suit went up to a security guard and whispered to him. The guard nodded gravely, went over to the body and peered at the boy’s face. Then he went to a nearby telephone, picked up the receiver and calmly started dialling.
Eventually, the police arrived. They questioned two or three people, then turned to me.
“Did you see it all from the beginning?” they asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Could you be sure it was the child’s mother? The woman who killed him?”
“Yes, I think it was.”
“Why do you think she did it?”
I said nothing. How could I possibly know? But I could immediately picture the headline in the newspaper that evening:
“HALF-CRAZED MUM BEATS CHILD TO DEATH
IN FRONT OF BANK CUSTOMERS”
But until she picked up the ashtray stand, there was nothing to suggest she was “half-crazed” at all. And although there were other people in the bank, she wasn’t really “in front of” us. It was absolutely certain that the people who read the article would never see the incident as I’d seen it just moments ago – vividly, with horrible reality.
Everyone in the bank had displayed a kind of indifference when the incident happened. I wondered if all the incidents we read about in our newspapers were actually reported in the same way – with a casual concern akin to indifference. To be sure, a kind of peace was maintained in the process. But I wondered if, perhaps, something really awful might be happening. Or perhaps this incident was just the start of something else.
As the days went by, abnormal incidents started to happen all over the place. So much, at least, could be gleaned from the newspapers – which, as always, satisfied themselves with nonchalant concern and smug explanations.
“HYSTERICAL NURSE TORCHES HOSPITAL – SIXTY-SEVEN MENTAL PATIENTS BURNT ALIVE”
“UNBALANCED OFFICE WORKER STABS PASSERS-BY IN BROAD DAYLIGHT”
Despite the use of phrases like “random killing,” most of the perpetrators were paradoxically described as “hysterical” or “unbalanced”. When neither of these applied, mental conditions that are more or less universal – such as “agitation” or “irritation” – were cited as the cause. But you only had to open your eyes just a little wider to realize that these episodes couldn’t be explained so easily.
Meanwhile, our sham family happiness continued as before. The pretence was merely encouraged when my salary was increased to three hundred and twenty thousand yen a month.
Then, in June, I was given an extra day off per week. Other employers were increasingly changing to a four- day week, some even to just three days.
On the last weekend in July, I decided to drive my family to the seaside. I wasn’t all that keen, to be honest, as the holiday season had only just started and the roads were bound to be congested. But I was getting pretty fed up of lounging around at home for three whole days every week. So I resigned myself to the coming “leisure hell” and decided to go. Of course, the others were all delighted.
As we moved out of the city centre, we had little more than light congestion to contend with. But when we turned onto the trunk road leading down to the coast, it was jammed solid with traffic. Each car was packed with family members. We’d remain stationary for several minutes at a time, sometimes up to an hour. When at last we’d start moving, we’d travel for a few hundred yards before stopping again. There was no room to manoeuvre, and it was already too late to turn back. Trains on the line running alongside the road were packed to the rafters. Passengers were piled high on the roofs of the carriages, while others clung onto doors, windows and couplings.
We’d left home in the early hours, but were only halfway to the coast when it began to get dark.
“Shigenobu! Where are you? It’s dinner time!”
He was playing tag with children from another family in the spaces between stationary cars. My wife brought him back to our car, where we enjoyed a truly bland meal.
Expecting the worst, we’d brought blankets with us. The others went to sleep. But I had to drive on through the night. If I thought we’d be stationary for a while, I’d rest my head on the steering wheel and take a nap. Then, when the traffic started moving again, I’d be woken by the driver behind me blowing his horn. With so much congestion, at least there was no fear of causing a major accident. Everyone was falling asleep at the wheel; the worst that could happen was a minor bump from behind.
The following afternoon, we crawled into a small town about two miles from the coast. We had to abandon our car on the town’s main road. Vehicles had been abandoned on all roads worthy of the name, including back streets no more than two yards wide. Continuing the journey by car was quite impossible. The town had ceased to function altogether – simply because it was near the coast.
We changed into our beachwear in the car, then started to walk along the pavement. It was already full of families like us, and nearly everyone was in swimwear. We had no choice but to join the flow of people and keep shuffling forwards with them. The sky was clear and the sun shone a bright shade of purple. I was immediately
