Tokyo Stirs: (Short Stories about Asia)

by Harmon Cooper

  ‘So Shiva and John,’ Ms. Cherrydew says with a mouthful of cookies. ‘Best friends, huh? I like the sound of that.’

  I ignore her and continue telling my story. “‘Shiva and John were planning on going fishing in India,” I told Linda. “Where in India?” she asked. “Outside Delhi,” I said, “on the banks of a small river that feeds into the Ganges. Here’s the thing about this river though, there’s poisonous fish in there. Big, fat poisonous fish with sharp teeth and bellies lined with neon stripes.”’

  ‘How exotic,’ Ms. Cherrydew, stuffing another cookie in her mouth.

  ‘“So John is supposed to go to the river with Shiva, but he ended up canceling at the last minute to take a pretty young Indian girl out for lunch in a nearby town. Naan and curry, if I’m not mistaken.” Of course, Linda laughed at this.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Then Linda asked, “What was Shiva wearing?” She was trying to stump me, but nobody’s going to stump Bob once he’s got his mind set. “Shiva was wearing a straw hat, a pair of cut-off shorts, and he had a string of wheat between his two front teeth,” I told her. “Don’t you Americans have any literature besides old stories written by Mark Twain?” she asked.’

  ‘I love Tom Sawyer!’ Ms. Cherrydew says, interrupting my story. She’s nearly finished her lemonade. The damn woman could drink a kiddie pool of the stuff and still be thirsting for more. Don’t say anything, Bob. Wipe your eyes, Bob. Continue your story, Bob.

  ‘“Shiva sat down next to the Ganges on a large rock. Hanging from his mouth was a cigarette. Once he finished his cigarette, he brought his arm back and cast his fishing line into the water.” Linda asked, “Shiva fancies a fag?” Did you know that cigarettes used to be called fags?’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Ms. Cherrydew says.

  ‘Couldn’t get away with that nowadays. Damn political correctness. Anyway, “He’s the destroyer,” Linda said, “Makes perfect sense for him to try and destroy himself as well by smoking.”’

  ‘What does he destroy again?’ Ms. Cherrydew asks, smacking her lips.

  What do you destroy? You would think this woman hasn’t been working for me for two years by now. Can’t she see what you’ve done here, Shiva? Isn’t it obvious? You destroy everything. You destroy everything and nothing else. That’s why you’re the destroyer, and that’s why I wait for you like a damned hitchhiker. Come and get me already.

  ‘Shiva is the destroyer, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.’

  ‘Don’t make much sense to me,’ Ms. Cherrydew says. ‘He’s a destroyer? What’s the point of that? I guess none of that Indian religious stuff really makes much sense to me. Don’t they have like a thousand gods or something? Now, I know it’s not my place to comment, but I’ll be happy with just my one. Jesus doesn’t destroy anything.’

  Christ have mercy on her soul! Ignore her and continue, Bob. No sense in poking holes this late in the game.

  ‘So I looked at Linda as I cast a pretend fishing line over the bar. The Nepali girl behind the bar was now looking at me like I was crazy. “Shiva cast his line in,” I said, “and the biggest poisonous fish in that river watched the neon worm just wiggling away. Shiva was a good fisherman. He even did a few wrist tricks to make that worm seem more realistic.” Linda laughed at this joke. She always thought I was funny, you know.’

  ‘You’re a funny man, Bob,’ Mrs. Cherrydew says.

  ‘Thanks. “That big old fish has a name too,” I told Linda. “It was P.P., which was short for Poison Pisces. Boy did that fish love colorful things. Hell, he had a collection of odds and ends back in the little hole he shared with a young guppy couple. It’s true!” I told Linda as she laughed. “Old P.P. was stubborn as hell and hungrier than a bear in winter. He took the bait and the hook pierced his lip. After a short fight, Shiva reeled up P.P. to the world above.” Now can you imagine the world above?’

  ‘Like heaven?’ Ms. Cherrydew asks.

  Like heaven? Do you hear the ecclesiastical hoopla that pours from this woman’s mouth like a broken fire hydrant in the Bronx spilling sludge into the streets and mucking up everybody’s jean? Enough to make me sick.

  ‘Can you really imagine how different our world would be for a fish?’ I ask my not-so-bright caretaker.

  ‘Fish ain’t smart enough to know the difference,’ she says matter-of-factly.

  For the love of all that is holy get this woman an encyclopedia and make her read it cover to cover. Then, shove her head in a fish bowl. Everything knows when it has been submerged.

  ‘So what happens next?’ Ms. Cherrydew asks, yawning.

  “‘So anyways, after a successful date, John, Shiva’s friend, strolled on up to Shiva the exact moment he was yanking P.P. out of the water. The two friends looked at P.P. as he beats his tail against a rock. Old P.P. starts a-smacking that yellow-green tail of his against the rocks trying to indicate he’s poisonous. Finally, he looks up at John and Shiva and asks, “Don’t you know I’m poisonous?” And Linda laughs until tea is pouring out of her nostrils and onto her thin wrists.’

  Ms. Cherrydew smiles vacantly. Maybe she has heard the story before. The fact that she doesn’t get the joke sinks in. Linda understood it, and I understand it now.

  ‘Don’t you know I’m poisonous?’ I say, bitterly this time.

  Of course you knew the fish was poisonous, Shiva. Of course you did. You’re the destroyer; you would know a poisonous fish from a regular one. You were destroying the fish. Plain and simple. It was John and P.P. who didn’t understand then. It was Ms. Cherrydew who doesn’t understand now.

  In the days following my impromptu story, Linda and I embarked on a journey the likes of which I would never come close to having again. We climbed the foothills of the Himalayas, played soccer with young Tibetan monks in saffron robes, rode leathery elephants through the mosquito filled jungles of Lumbini, circumambulated milky white stupas, and fought off hungry monkeys with sticks and stones.

  All these experiences culminated the night we united souls on the rooftop of our guesthouse in Pokhara, our bodies sparkling under the full moon’s reflection off Phewa Lake like wet silk, a light drizzle wetting our hair. She was the only one and this would never change.

  That’s when you got involved. See, Linda told me about you, Shiva. She told me how you operate and what it means to destroy something completely. Couldn’t stop there could you? Couldn’t stop then and can’t stop now. Like a jailer dangling the key in front of a starving prisoner while eating a candy bar. Just taunting.

  You took her from me! You plucked her right off the face of the Earth. That’s when I started believing in you. That’s when I started realizing who you were and what you did. Linda fell asleep one night and she never woke up. You pulled her from her dreams like a coward! No noose necessary when you wield pulmonary embolisms. Never knew someone could die that quickly.

  The next morning, I woke up next to Linda’s body and my heart filled with hatred for you, Shiva. I left and tried to get as far away from you and your influence as possible. But you’re too strong, strong and blue as Linda’s lips.

  You’ve got your different names. To some you’re a bullet, to others you’re the last step in front of a speeding train. To me you go by the name Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. You took Linda quick; you’ll take Bob slow just to prove you can.

  I only have one picture of Linda now and I’m afraid to look at it because I know you’ll try and take that too. Who knows how, Shiva, but you will. I know you’re waiting for me. Going to take old Bob soon, but not soon enough. Let him suffer. That’s why I say, come and get me. I’m sick of waiting. Sick of it.

  Come and get me.

  ‘Would you like some more cookies?’ Ms. Cherrydew asks. ‘Hey, you never told me what happened to Linda after your Nepal trip. Do you want to tell me now?’

  She knows dammit. She knows and damn you for using her in this way. I reach into my pocket for my tissue. Can’t let her see my tears. Not this time.

/>   ‘Are your eyes feeling ok, Mr. Latchman?’

  ‘Can you believe he doesn’t know I’m poisonous?’ I say it again and again, for Linda and for Ms. Cherrydew, lest we forget.

  The End

  If you have a moment, please leave Tokyo Stirs an honest review on Amazon. Reviews are essential for independent authors to reach a wider audience. If you liked what you’ve read, or you thought it could be better, please let me know. Don’t forget to sign up for my reader’s group to get two no three free books. :-D As always, you can contact me at writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

  Thanks for the support and enjoy the samples on the following pages.

  Harmon Cooper

  www.harmoncooper.com

  Reviews for Book One:

  'Read it, then read book two!!' - Amazon reviewer

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  'Mesmerizing, dark dystopian thriller. The action never lets up.' - Amazon top 500 reviewer

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  'If Palahniuk wrote Trainspotting as a dystopian futuristic sci-fi, it would be this book...smart, funny, stylish, quick-moving, and cyberpunk-sexy.' - Amazon top 500 reviewer

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  'Strangely thrilling; imaginative and depressingly fresh, Cooper introduces a freakishly diverse cast of characters in a futuristic setting that is, sadly, a feasible reality in which to devolve.' -Liquid Frost, Amazon Top 100 reviewer

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  'This book will make you want to read the entire series.' - Amazon reviewer

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  'Crazy, funky, mind-boggling view of a whacked out future.' - Amazon reviewer

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  'Imaginative and fast paced.' - Amazon reviewer

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  ‘Love it or hate it – this is stunning!’ –Amazon UK customer

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  'Definitely cyberpunk (William Gibson meets Phillip K Dick) with a side order of Clockwork Orange sums it up.' - Goodreads reviewer

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  'Serious page turner.' -Amazon reviewer

  (Sample) Life is a Beautiful Thing

  BOOK ONE

  Harmon Cooper

  Available here on Amazon

  ZERO∞

  **A note from the author before you get started**

  This book hops right into the fray with Meme, a human therapist for Humandroids (read: androids) who is at a bar in LA using what are known as pollutes. He’s just met Nelly, a pregnant woman who will have a huge impact on his life as the series progresses. He is on the verge of meeting Sauria, a powerful businessman and CEO of a company called Executive Executions who will later call for his death. Meme is also about to encounter Yeshi, a Humandroid escort who, like Nelly, will greatly impact his life.

  Whew.

  I tell you this for the sake of clarity. I read loads of novels, and it is always helpful to get a grip on things before diving headfirst into a series, especially one that is as bizarre as Life is a Beautiful Thing.

  Books two and three are out now and available here.

  Book Four will be out in September 2015, and will complete the Red Books, named because of their covers.

  The madness begins on the next page. Enjoy and strap yourself in.

  --Harmon Cooper

  ONE∞

  Currently, I’m getting wasted off pollutes with a pregnant woman three days before Halloween at POLLUTION CLUB 512 in Los Angeles. Nelly is a tall chick with a silver glaze on her belly caused by a recent application of C-Baby. She’s in a cheesecloth shirt, topless underneath. Conservative compared to most at the club tonight.

  As I speak to her, Nelly closes her eyes and logs into iNet. I really don’t care if she’s paying attention to me or not. I’ll have her soon enough. I reach for a pollution mask, strap it on. Inhale, exhale, repeat. Life is a beautiful thing.

  ‘So, do you want to switch bodies or not?’ I ask her. I push the pollution mask to the top of my forehead. No sense in wasting time when time wastes you. The bulge of her pregnant stomach touches something primal inside me, reminds me of my own time in the womb, a glorious nine months. Rattle dasein!

  ‘I’m talking to my friend Carloza about it,’ Nelly says with her eyes closed. ‘It’s complicated when you’re pregnant.’

  ‘So you’ll think about it then?’ I ask. ‘Let me get the next round.’

  ‘Okay, just a little though.’

  I set my pollution mask on a hook in front of the bar. The mask resembles a plague doctor’s mask with emerald polypropylene eye lenses. It has a long beak-like nose to allow excess pollution to linger. The nose is connected to a series of distributor cables tucked under the bar. The designer ones are made from real leather and on some occasions, endangered animal skulls and other fine materials.

  I glance back at Nelly. She reaches for her mask and pulls it down over her forehead. She’s calm and collected, ready to inebriate. There’s something different about her gait, as if she isn’t used to coming to this pollution club or perhaps, not used to the commotion on the ground floor level. Intriguing to say the least, fascinating to say the most.

  ‘I’ll have one Naked Lunch and one Loathing Hunter,’ I tell the bartender. He pulls out one of his dreadlocks and starts cleaning the inside of a shot glass with it. He positions the dreadlock above the first shot glass. An antifreeze-colored liquid trickles out of the end of his dreadlock. Nothing like getting high off fresh pollutes.

  ‘You want an Ayahuasca topper?’ He looks at me through a pair of old leaks.

  ‘Sure.’ I nod towards Nelly’s stomach. ‘It’ll do the baby good.’

  The bartender pours the drinks into a grimy tube connected to a series of pipes attached to the bar. I hear a hissing sound as the drinks are instantly vaporized into a fresh pollute. I point to the tube connected to Nelly’s pollution mask. She nods and pulls her mask over her face.

  We inhale to exhale.

  TWO∞

  Let’s get this out of the way.

  You’re a tall person, or maybe you’re short. Perhaps you’re between tall and short. You’re a fat person who is skinny at heart, or a skinny person who wants to be larger as to appear more intimidating. You’re a mixture of tall and fat, fat and short, skinny and tall, or simply medium sized. Nothing wrong with being medium-sized. You are almost above average and we’re both mediocre.

  You’re my grandmother on the verge of her seventy-sixth birthday, five hundred and thirty-two in dog years. You’re my ex-girlfriend who is mad at me for breaking up with her over iNet. You’re Columbian. You’re a mix between Irish and Brazilian. You’re a protomartyr with a penchant for self-righteousness. You’re white and your grip on the world has finally started to subside. You’re Asian. You’re a librarian and you have a small pen in the shape of a Kalashnikov. Your mother is from Malaysia. Your father is from Niger and he rode velocipedes as a child. You were born in Melbourne and are a closet kangatarian who is into auto asphyxiation.

  You’re unique, you’re angry, you’re patriotic, you have an addiction, you don’t give a shit about politics, you love your country, you’re racist, you’re funny, you’re a thief, you’re good in bed, you’re a war veteran, you believe in magic, you aren’t sincere, you think too much, you say too little, you’re pathetic, you love your television, you hate your country, you routinely French kiss your spouse, you’re a sex offender, you loathe your brother, you dance while no one’s watching, you listen when no one’s speaking, you’re going to die tomorrow (goodbye!), you have a long life to live, you’re aggressive, you believe the fortunes in fortune cookies, you worship God and despise the heathens, you day trade in crypto currencies, you’re the ninety-nine percent, your mother is dead, you’re a virgin, you have an eating disorder, you’re lactose intolerant but you always crave cheese, you suffer from coulrophobia, you have traveled the world in search of nothing, you were born over international waters, your uncle is nuts, your sister is getting married soon, your half-brother sells frozen yogurt for a living, you’re a victim of senescence.

  You’re at least one of the
se things and I’m at least two. On a good day, I’m three. Remember that.

  The pollution club has a dance floor designed by a Mongolian immigrant named Batbold. The ceiling has over two thousand black lights interspersed with strobe lights. The corners of the club are tenebrous and mysterious, a perfect place to fuck or be fucked. In the center of the floor is a cream-colored stupa adorned with mirrors. On top of the stupa are light-up eyes with multifarious lasers that respond to the choons. The walls are coated with velvet speakers and pencil-thin LCD screens. Boom-boom goes the bass as people lose face.

  The floor tilts backward and forward, increasing the chances of vomiting. Smart enough to realize this, Batbold built a vomit trough on both sides of the dance floor. The vomit funnels into a cement truck outside, where it’s churned until morning comes. The following day, it’s freeze-packed at a factory on the outskirts of LA and shipped off to Third World nations under the highly successful Vomit-For-Petrol Program started by the UN.

  All around the dance floor, people perch like long-nosed gargoyles inhaling pollutes from pollution masks. No one sits. Instead, people squat on plush cubes stained with three-dimensional world currency symbols that change colors every couple of minutes (they’re updated every time a currency gains or drops in value on the global market).

  Popular pollutes such as Burberry Third World Exhaust, Prada Stink Bomb Bloody Sundays, White Comma Lead-Based Paint, Marc Jacobs’ Sinsemilla and Clive Christian’s Imperial Atrocity are pumped into various pollution masks. The pollute clouds mingle with the sweaty bodies on the dance floor. They create an odor that is instantly orgasmic. Delete occhiolism.

  Almost everyone wears masks on the tilting dance floor. The DJ, in a caged booth that sits atop the stupa, wears a fluorescent Guy Fawkes mask. All the other masks are various degrees of frightening or anodyne – this shit cray!