The Haunted Hikikomori
LAWRENCE PEARCE
Published by JuJu Books London, UK
Previously published by Proxima Books an imprint of Salt Publishing Ltd
Text copyright © Lawrence Pearce, 2011
All Rights Reserved
Book cover artwork is ‘Nothing Fits’ by Martin Blanco © 2013 http://martblanco.com
The right of Lawrence Pearce to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Lawrence Pearce.
JuJu Books 2013
Created by Lawrence Pearce
FOREWORD
I first met Lawrence when I landed the lead role in my first movie as an actress and his first movie as a writer and director. From that experience we shared we formed a close friendship, which has only grown stronger over the years. When I think about why we connect in the way we do, I come to one simple conclusion; we are both just a little bit crazy. We see the world differently to others. We express ourselves through our art without fear and we seek the truth beneath the secrets.
Lawrence and I have the kind of friendship where our secrets are shared and entrusted in each other's hold, and in a way The Haunted Hikikomori is all about such secrets and the need to share them, but also about the pain of not being able to.
The characters in this book don't have anyone to share their secrets with, and so the secrets are buried deep down inside of them instead, where they brew into paranoia and fear. The paranoia felt in this story and the detachment from reality these characters suffer is more frightening and disturbing than any wild monster tale, as this is a very real and very present danger in our world today. People go mad, and the scariest thing is that they don't even know when it is happening to them. Would you know? Would I know?
When Lawrence sent me the manuscript for The Haunted Hikikomori, along with a winking smiley face and the words 'I think you'll like this', I just knew I was in for something special. This book is terrifying in a way that will breed paranoia into your mind and burn suspense into your bones; it is a story that will disturb you in the truest sense. At its heart however, to me, this book is really about loss.
There is the loss of love, which is heart breaking and haunting, and can warp many a human mind as it goes to extreme lengths longing for it. This book is about surviving through the loss of love by escaping the ghosts in our damaged hearts.
There is the loss of freedom, where the main characters imprison themselves in order to protect themselves. There is also the loss of reality, as dreams and nightmares, haunting memories and ghostly fears all merge to create a world where nothing is as it seems. Finally, this book is about the loss of companionship, of loneliness, of not having someone to share your secrets with. At these times, 'letting go' means so many things.
I definitely see a bit of him and me in this book. Lawrence and I have lived different lives and yet we have shared similar scars. Scars are reminders of what life has taught us through the battering and the bruising, of how it has shaped us. Sometimes, just seeing a person's scar can teach you all you need to know about them. Read through this book, understand Lawrence's scar and love him for it.
I cherished The Haunted Hikikomori so much that I insisted Lawrence wrote a screenplay inspired from the book. I am now co-producing and starring in this haunting and emotional film we are putting together. I want it to move others as it has moved me, and my way of giving back is to add my art into the mix.
Finally, it seems fitting that The Haunted Hikikomori, a book about disconnecting from the world around you and reconnecting with love and told secrets, would build an even stronger connection between Lawrence and I, and hopefully with you too.
Connecting with people is really all we have.
Katia Winter
Wilmington, North Carolina, filming season one of Sleepy Hollow
August 2013
Ghosts haunt us all.
They live in our secrets.
Dedicated to the man who jumped.
I’m sorry I couldn’t stop you.
JARED
When I close my eyes, she becomes real.
1.1
Her flesh fills out, and she is really there. I can almost smell her; Moonberry Musk with a hint of sweet, fresh, feminine sweat. I can feel her breath on my skin, her warmth tickling my neck as she whispers into my ear. You wouldn't believe some of the words that come out of her mouth; the naughty minx.
Our relationship has been going strong for two and a half years now, as long as the last time I kicked off my shoes in despair. I now spend twenty-four hours a day bare-footed. She knows when to leave me alone and when I want company. Her body is amazing and changes according to my mood, which makes sex always unpredictable. How many couples can say that?
We sometimes argue, but that is only when I'm unsure of my own thoughts. If my position on a political issue for example is clear, then she tends to agree with me. We have similar worldviews.
She likes to call me her little Hikikomori, which in Japanese is the term used for those who wilfully imprison themselves at home, never stepping foot outside, shutting themselves off from society. Yeah, she has a very blunt sense of humour. I don't call her anything, maybe sweetheart if I'm feeling romantic.
Jared Lee Baines. The sharp font with which that name, my name, is printed on my passport even looks oppressive.
I've always found it strange how a passport, which should be a symbol of geographic freedom, leaves me feeling trapped. Sure, I could fly to Brazil, hop over to France, make the journey to New Zealand, but someone, somewhere would always know that I was there.
In my head I can go anywhere, and I'm anonymous. Unlike my rather excessive use of the Internet, with which I take in my daily dose of news, entertainment and fulfil all my shopping needs with the autocomplete function. Those credit cards numbers have been everywhere. Anonymity is impossible in the real world but in my own mind, I am free.
Every move I'd make in the real world would be followed. CCTV cameras would track me, my credit card transactions would expose what shops in what areas I visited and my mobile phone would allow the network providers to pinpoint my exact location at any one time. Even living as a Hikikomori, however, which is not nearly as cute as she makes it sound, I am still observed like a lab rat.
I close my eyes again, and she taunts me with a giggle, ‘Hehe, you called yourself a rodent.’
1.2
The doorbell rings and I know exactly who it is, I don't have unexpected guests.
I open the door just wide enough for the pizza delivery guy to slide the pizza box in vertically, along with the receipt and a pen for which to sign it with. I use the pizza box as a flat surface, sign that I have received the oh so delicious pepperoni deluxe, and push the signed receipt and pen back through the opening to him. I close the door, we don't say a word to each other, and we never make eye contact. Internet takeaway orders are a wonderful thing.
Another benefit of having an imaginary girlfriend is that she doesn't need to eat; more pizza for me. Although even if she did need to eat she wouldn't tuck in to my pepperoni deluxe, as she's a vegetarian, I decided.
As I chomp through my third slice, I pull at the parcel that was delivered earlier today. I rip the box open and pull out of its packaging a shiny new leather football. I refuse to call it a soccer ball. It drops to the wooden floor, which my bare feet know intimately, with a short bounce and then rolls away from me. I haven't tested my skills in over two an
d a half years. This should be interesting.
Holding my fourth slice of pizza in one hand, I attempt kick-ups in the kitchen, a smaller room than the dining room I started my meal in, so that the football won’t roll away too far. I reach three kick-ups each time, before I lose control and the ball escapes. Thud, thud, thud, roll. Yeah I'm no good, but the upside is I have plenty of time to practice.
So instead I make myself a cup of tea. I live on tea. I go through the motions, pouring the boiling water while stirring with the other hand, squeezing the teabag before spinning round and flicking it with panache into the bin.
I make tea in style; I am a tea making pro. When you drink six or seven cups a night, you better be.
I tend to sleep all day, as the city below my tenth floor apartment bustles; little ants scurrying down thin lanes, worker bees chasing the honey. I tend to sleep all day because then I don't have to hear remnants of a society that carries on without me. When I do venture onto the balcony, it is night time and the air is brisk.
The city's tungsten and neon glow creates immense light pollution, so strong that the sky is no longer black in this part of the world. It is a dark, foggy blue in which the millions of stars in our galaxy struggle to be seen through.
There are other benefits to being a night owl, but the silence is certainly a primary one. I don't have a particular place where I sleep; I guess I just settle down wherever I happen to be when I feel tired. I have woken up many times on the sofa, in various chairs, on the balcony floor, in the bath naked, on the kitchen counter, and sometimes, just sometimes, in bed. And every time, she is there to bid me good morning with a smile as I rub the sleep from my eyes. I keep telling her it is not good morning if it is night time. She never learns.
If she was real, I'm sure she would be holding a cup of morning tea, steaming hot and ready for me.
1.3
The bed, being the least often place I sleep, is used more for our many absurd but intimate conversations about love, life and the world we reluctantly live in. I shuffle my feet, wearing just pyjama bottoms and nothing else, into the bedroom, and let myself fall back onto the mattress. The duvet and bed sheets are a mess, but that's okay, she is already laying on her side in complete snuggly comfort and facing me. I look up at the ceiling, but I can feel her warmth. I close my eyes.
‘Honey,’ she starts.
‘Yes?’
‘Everything is going to be okay you know.’
‘I know,’ I whisper back as both our voices become gentle and sombre. ‘I mean it. You just need time and then one day...’
I interrupt her quickly. I have heard this before.
‘I don’t want to talk about it please.’
I turn on my side, with my back to her, and all goes silent for a moment. I open my eyes and in front of me, on the bedside cabinet, is a framed photo of the only woman I have ever loved. Sarah. She has jet-black hair and sparkling blue eyes. Behind her are sun-washed trees. Sarah is smiling in the photo. She looks so sad to me, so I close my eyes again.
My magically morphing imaginary girlfriend whispers, ‘Baby, it’s okay to hurt. You loved her so much. You need time to grieve. I understand, and so will everyone else when you’re ready to return.’
She wraps her arm around me for a cuddle. I have been grieving for two and a half years. We have this same conversation every day, and I never believe her.
After what feels like a good hour of just lying there, breathing the stillness of the silent air around me, she speaks again.
‘I’ve made a poem. Do you want to hear it hunk?’
‘Sure, I’d love to,’ I say, with a smile that creeps across my face as fake as a Bangkok chick-boy’s strip tease.
She clears her throat, sits up and begins to recite, hands placed together on her lap.
‘Peter, who swam, had nowhere to swim. But he did swim, for as long as he could. Amber, who ran, had nowhere to run. But she ran away, they knew she would. Anna, who jumped, had nowhere to jump. But when she landed, she was no more. Patrick, who hung, had nowhere to hang. But he dangled from his neck, legs a metre off the floor.’
She swallows and smiles, like a child waiting for her teacher to place a gold star on her work.
‘Very good angel, very, thought-provoking.’ I rub her arm approvingly.
Content and happy, she drops back onto the bed and lets her eyelids drop. I roll my eyes, and curse my imagination for being so morbid.
I completely disagree with suicide. Yes, I don’t enjoy life as most people live it, and yes you could say I am wasting away, alone. But my heart is still pumping and my brain is still thinking, and I would never voluntarily end that. I don’t want to be that guy who brings the barrel of the gun up under my chin, closing my eyes as I whisper to an empty room fuck you.
Fuck you to everyone who had ever hurt me, had ever let me down.
I don’t want to be that guy who through killing myself, would hope to get revenge on those that hurt me, forcing them to live with guilt for the rest of their lives.
I don’t want to be that guy who, as I pull the trigger, remembers I had forgotten to write the suicide note blaming these people, and I certainly don’t want to be that guy whose expression of oops freezes for a split second before the angry bullet destroys my face.
No, I’ll keep my face thank you.
1.4
I stare into the mirror daily, sometimes for hours. My face is so familiar now. Most people don't realize how little they look at themselves.
Sure, you have the vain that preen in front of their reflection, admiring the make-up they have recently caked on, or flexing those biceps they spend hours in the gym maintaining. They are confirming. The confident confirm that yes they are attractive, and the low self-esteemed confirm that yes they are unattractive. Whether I am attractive or not does not concern me, as she accepts me unconditionally.
No, I look into the mirror to confirm something else, to confirm that I exist. When you live like I do, with only surface communication with relatively random strangers through social network websites, and pizza delivery guys, you need a more tangible reassurance that you actually exist.
I don't have family to demand attention from me. I don't have a boss that will call me if I don't turn up at work. I don't see the same newspaper vendor every morning to share hello with. I experience zero eye contact with other people.
The only eye contact I have is with me, in this mirror; a freestanding full-length frame of eccentric glass I had delivered from France; another stupid Internet buy.
Interspersed with just simple staring as I rock back and forth in my granny rocking chair (an eBay bargain) I sometimes stand. Standing in front of the mirror feels very much like walking on stage, I become very self-conscious. The performer in me rises to the occasion, and truth be told I find myself very entertaining. An exquisite showman the world will never enjoy.
‘You talking to me? You talking to me?’
I question my reflection, believing I really am Travis Bickle.
‘I don't see anyone else here, so who you talking to?’
I stare myself down, my brow tense and menacing.
Breaking the silence, I whip out from behind my back a banana and point it at my reflection, like Travis aims his homemade forearm-sliding pistol. I smirk into the mirror, before peeling the banana and enjoying that fruity goodness.
Still looking at my reflection, a blur passes through. That is the only way I can describe it. It wasn't a mist, or light bouncing off the glass surface. It looked like a certain portion of the mirror turned to blur, moving from right to left, entering the mirrored frame and exiting again.
My jaw drops open, half eaten banana resting on my tongue. I begin to chew again, as I stare more intently. The blur passes through the other way now, from left to right. I step back and drop the uneaten banana on the floor. The pulp squishes against the wood.
I become very aware of the silence around me, as the music player on my laptop reaches the end of
the playlist. It is just my reflection and I. She isn't around right now so it couldn't be her. And even if she was, I'm not so far gone as to believe an imaginary girlfriend could affect my eyesight.
Was it my eyes? I can't recall anyone in my family wearing glasses but maybe due to the lack of sunlight I receive and the limitations of distance that my apartment affords me, my eyes are becoming damaged. I step closer to the mirror and edge my face towards my double. I want to look into my eyes, see if the pupils are enlarged, if the whites around the pupils are clear.
I lean forward.
I almost choke, as my face in the mirror is replaced by something else.
There are eyes, and a nose, and a mouth, but they aren't mine. They are feminine, but they aren't hers. They belong to another woman. The eyes stare back at me vacantly. The mouth opens wide, stretching the jaw to breaking point. Her feminine lips look like they’re about to tear across her face. Her eyes fill with fear.
Just as suddenly as the face replaced mine, it is gone again. And now I'm left inches away from the mirror, close enough for my breath to mist up the glass. I am locked in place. Without moving my head, my eyes dart left to right, down and up. I breathe again.
What the hell?
2.1
I am lying on the balcony floor staring up at the night sky, trying to recite in my mind the details of the dream I have just awoken from.
The dream is fading fast and I know soon I won’t remember much at all, but this dream was a wonderful one and I want to hold on to it for as long as I can.
A girl, she looks like Sarah with black hair and blue eyes, but she is someone else. In the dream, I dress her up as an antique porcelain doll and painstakingly paint her face on. She remains motionless and silent the whole time, but I feel we are connecting on a deep and all-consuming level. With each new stroke of my brush, my love for her is pronounced. She is a real life mannequin, and as I gently place her into her glass bedroom, I swear I see her lips curl up into the faintest of smiles. The dream ends.
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