The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl

by Tomihiko Morimi

  When I said that, she winced. “My name’s Noriko Suda.”

  The way I had said it, it sounded as if she were an elephant bottom. To call a beautiful maiden in love an elephant bottom was rude, even for me.

  The people packing up their booths pointed at us and said, “Oh, it’s Princess Daruma!” Having my face remembered was both a great honor and a great embarrassment. When I looked back as we ran, I saw the office staffers rush out of the tent and head our way.

  Princess Daruma is in danger! I thought. Whatever will happen to her?

  Having wandered Yoshida-South campus after not finding any clues at the festival office headquarters, I sat in a corner of the area by the north gate where everyone was breaking down their booths. There’s a saying about doing all you can and then waiting for providence. I’d definitely done everything I could do.

  I watched the school festival end, and without any high points I could personally attest to, I thought, I could use some providence right about now.

  The students packing up bustled around. The haunted-house guys were carrying boxes of their supplies, but they were still wearing their monster makeup, so it was like a monster parade of Japanese legend.

  The members of the Bedroom Investigation Commission filed through the courtyard near the multipurpose building in an orderly fashion carrying boxes of explicit materials.

  As I was cradling my head in despair, I heard a pitter-patter of racing footsteps. I looked up without thinking, and what should I find but the girl with her red koi running hand in hand with a girl I didn’t know. The moment I stood up, thinking, Whoa, it’s actually providence! I got shoved aside by office staffers. I hit my elbow hard and writhed around like a shrimp.

  She ran across the bustling area screaming, “Please save me!” A dozen or so guys and girls in office staff armbands were chasing her.

  “The festival office is after Princess Daruma!”

  “The office was masterminding the whole thing!”

  “I heard they have the Crackpot of Monte Cristo locked up!”

  “That’s horrible!”

  The students shared misinformation in turns and blocked the staffers’ way. The haunted-house guys shouted, “It’s the girl with the red koi! Save her!” and threw yam jelly in the staffers’ faces.

  “You’ve got it all wrong!”

  “This isn’t the play!”

  “Wait, is this the play?”

  The sudden attack enraged the staffers, and they had no idea what was going on anymore.

  I finally stood up and went after her.

  The Bedroom Investigation Commission opened their cardboard boxes and dropped sexy materials in strategic locations. Several office staffers emitted screams from their souls—“Whoa, nice tits!”—and knelt in front of erotic treasure. She managed to gain some distance, about to fly out of the north gate and onto Higashi Ichijo Street. At this rate, I would lose her. I dodged the jelly the haunted-house guys threw at me, cried as I abandoned the erotic goods, and followed her through the gate.

  The director was on my tail. He wanted to safely lower the curtain on the school festival; I wanted to raise the curtain on my new future. Though we had different goals in mind, the object of our chase was the same. We ran side by side in silence. When we reached Main Campus, the Rice Fundamentalist demonstration was blocking the direction she ran in, and the whole area was crowded. The Rice Fundamentalists were chanting their slogan—“Japanese people should eat rice!”—and stuffing rice balls into the mouths of the office staffers one after another.

  “Get those guys out of the way! Don’t eat the rice balls!” yelled the director.

  I thought for a moment. She was running away from the office to perform the final act of The Crackpot of Monte Cristo. It was unclear what trick of fate landed her in that major role. All that was clear was that the director was trying to rob her of her dream. Her friend is my enemy. Her enemy is also my enemy. Yesterday’s friend is today’s enemy.

  As the director was trying to shove the Rice Fundamentalists aside, I told him, “Hey, your belt is twisted!”

  “What? Really?”

  I pretended to fix his belt for him but whipped it off instead. Then I pantsed him, pushed him over, and charged into the demonstration.

  Watching me go, he cried out in a pained voice, “What the heck was that? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Sorry, my friend,” I quipped. “The girl takes priority.”

  I was lucky to run into the Rice Fundamentalists by the clock tower. To them, I was a debate opponent as a member of the Bread Alliance’s Bisuko Faction, but they cared more about seeing The Crackpot of Monte Cristo to completion than about our difference in opinion. “We’ll share our leftover rice balls with the office staff, so use that time to escape,” they responded.

  Noriko waited for the noisy collision of the office staff and the Rice Fundamentalists and then took the string of Daruma dolls from my neck and put it around hers. Then she put the red koi on her back.

  “This way, they’ll chase me instead of you.”

  “What a wonderful plan!”

  “Don’t stand here admiring it. Get going and find the next stage. I’ll definitely be there watching.”

  With that, she dashed off east of the clock tower toward the engineering department.

  After getting mixed up and running a circle around a big camphor tree, I made a wild guess and ran toward the university library. After all, I had no idea where the final performance would be. My only option was to run around randomly.

  But no matter how much I circled Main Campus, I couldn’t find any clues. Time was wasting away, and the area was growing darker and darker. Though a cold evening wind was blowing, I had beads of sweat on my forehead. I had run too much, and with stabbing side stitches, I finally couldn’t run anymore. “Oh, the Crackpot of Monte Cristo!” I wanted to cry. “Where are you?”

  It wasn’t easy, but I broke through the wall of Rice Fundamentalists and ran after her again. She was already disappearing between two engineering buildings. As the sun set, the only thing I could see clearly was the red koi on her back. She ran weaving through the booths as they were being torn down. I was immediately exhausted.

  Eventually, she hurtled into a gray building towering in the night. Following her light footsteps up the stairs, I went higher and higher, breathing so hard my lungs were creaking.

  I finally caught up to her on the roof. Exposed to the elements for thirty years, the concrete roof was like a barren wasteland. Below us, the school festival was fading into the darkness as it approached its end. In the west, some faint pink remained, but the sky was clear navy. Beyond the dark shapes of the school buildings, the clock tower stretched toward the heavens, its face illuminated. The wind cooled my sweaty body.

  She ran to the center of the roof, where I saw a familiar table. It was the Speedy Kotatsu. I had no idea why it was there.

  I can’t even describe how stunned I was the moment I ran to her side, saw her face, and realized she was someone else.

  “Who are you?!” I bleated under the twilight.

  “Noriko Suda!” she shouted. When I just stared back at her, she said, “You really hung in there through all that running, but you’ve got the wrong person.” Then she took off the Daruma necklace, proclaimed, “You win first prize,” and hung it around my neck.

  Higuchi called out to me from beneath the kotatsu, “Oh, funny seeing you here!” without a care in the world.

  Hanuki patted the space next to her and said, “It’s cold once the sun goes down. C’mon, get in here!”

  The top of the table was a messy heap of Daruma dolls and fireworks. I grabbed one of the fireworks and muttered, “Why do you have these?”

  “Because it’s almost time for the final act. Can’t have one without fireworks!”

  At that moment, I realized I’d meandered down a dead end and was stuck.

  Where is she?

  Where will the final act of The Cr
ackpot of Monte Cristo be performed?

  Above all, where is my happy ending? Could it be I don’t get one? Will I have to make do as a pebble by the wayside until the curtain falls?

  As I was standing there in the cold wind, having lost my steam, office staffers came running up the stairs. The director was among them. They surrounded the Speedy Kotatsu and Noriko with the koi on her back.

  The director struck a forbidding posture and glared down at Higuchi. “I’ve finally caught you, Crackpot of Monte Cristo. You say it’s theater, but you’re just a terrorist throwing the school festival into chaos. In the name of the director of the festival office, I won’t let you stage the final act!”

  Higuchi looked back at him blankly and responded, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. First of all, I’m not the Crackpot of Monte Cristo. Second of all, the performance is about to begin.”

  The director brandished a fist and hollered, “Don’t play dumb with me! I know you’re the ringleader. Here’s what I’ve deduced: First, you write the script at the Speedy Kotatsu and somehow leave it at the scene of the performance. Then after the Speedy Kotatsu leaves, the theater troupe arrives, grabs the script, and puts on the show. So while the performance is happening, the ringleader is absent. It was impossible to know where the Crackpot of Monte Cristo was because he was on the move with the Speedy Kotatsu.”

  “I’m not the only one who was with the Speedy Kotatsu.”

  Then I shouted, “I’ve got it. It’s that guy, Chief-in-Chief Underpants. Where is he?”

  Higuchi laughed “Ho-ho-ho” like an aristocrat and pointed south. I ran to the southern edge of the rooftop. My momentum nearly tipped me over the edge, but when I looked out, I could see the rooftops of shorter buildings.

  One of them looked quite mysterious. Junk from all over campus—lumber, sandwich boards, grimy tents, blankets, bicycles, drainpipes, aluminum window sashes, liquid waste tanks, weathered lockers, experimental apparatuses that must have been taken from the science department’s garbage drop location, shady-looking electrical appliances—were put together to construct a strange, elaborate structure. A ton of chimneys jutted out of it, belching white steam that drifted across the navy sky. A light tracked back and forth as if to search for something, and illuminated the billowing steam in the process. A scarlet flag raised high flapped in the chilly wind. This had to be the place where the Crackpot of Monte Cristo was imprisoned, that fearsome fortress—the Crackpot Castle of Wind and Clouds.

  From our vantage point, it appeared that the opposite side had audience seating, which meant we were seeing it from backstage. Among the theater troupe members with their red armbands, calling the shots so the final curtain could rise, was the Crackpot of Monte Cristo—Chief-in-Chief Underpants.

  “They’re performing on the roof?! That’s far too dangerous!” The director, who had rushed over next to me, stomped his feet. “Go to the next roof and order everyone to disperse!”

  I had to get them to wait until I got there to begin. I waved the Daruma doll necklace and called out to Chief-in-Chief Underpants at the top of my lungs, but he was absorbed in preparing for the play.

  I lit the firework I’d taken from Higuchi.

  The director was about to rush away, but he turned to me and warned, “Don’t shoot that at them—someone could get hurt.”

  Just as I tried to turn and reassure, “I know,” my foot got caught on the concrete lip of the roof. And I fell over backward in slow motion. In my left hand, a lit firework; in my right hand, a Daruma necklace. In my left eye, the future I was about to lose; in my right eye, the last things I would ever see: the director and Noriko gaping down at me, Higuchi standing up from the kotatsu, Hanuki juggling Daruma dolls, and the office staffers racing away. They say when your time comes, your life flashes before your eyes, and it’s true that the human brain works in mysterious ways. I remember that scene with bizarre clarity. Slowly, calmly, I was leaving this Earth. I had tried so hard, but now I was falling, and she certainly knew nothing about it. Good-bye, despicable youth; good-bye, glorious future.

  As I fell from the roof, the firework in my hand went off.

  A red light drew its tail up into the navy sky, and I saw it burst.

  A red light drew its tail up into the navy sky, and I saw it burst.

  I felt instinctively that it had to be Over there! And I raced through the gap between the engineering buildings. If that firework hadn’t gone up, I probably would have missed the final act of The Crackpot of Monte Cristo. Running between dark trees and the school buildings, I suddenly encountered that big lucky cat standing at the entrance of a building. A sandwich board standing next to it said, THE FINAL ACT OF THE CRACKPOT OF MONTE CRISTO IS ON THE ROOF! I saw a crowd of students going past the cat to climb the stairs. “Over here!” the lucky cat called.

  When I jogged over, out of breath, a window opened in the lucky cat’s stomach, and the prop girl peeked out. “Sorry. We had to escape the office staff so quickly that I forgot to tell you where the next performance was.”

  “I’m just glad I found you… I thought I’d never make it in time.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re fine.”

  She got out of the lucky cat, took my hand, and led me upstairs.

  “The Crackpot Castle is on the roof?”

  “We’ve been collecting materials and building it bit by bit throughout the festival.”

  She gave me the script plus some props—a walking stick and a big key. Before long, we reached the roof. A cold wind was blowing across the bustling, crowded rooftop. Beyond all the people, an eerie building towered. It seemed to be in ruins but also steam powered and like a castle. White steam shot out here and there. All who saw it were overawed by its majesty—I’d finally arrived at the Crackpot of Monte Cristo’s prison, the Crackpot Castle of Wind and Clouds.

  Aside from Hollywood stunts, it’s impossible for a falling person to grab hold of a window ledge and be fine. So how was I saved, then? Four strokes of good luck overlapped to make it happen.

  First: I was holding the Daruma necklace. Second: An exchange student from Singapore was hanging laundry in a lab, and the pole was jutting out from a window. Third: The line that fearless adventure rogue used to tightrope-walk was still up. Fourth: The moment the firework in my hand went off, Chief-in-Chief Underpants on the neighboring roof noticed me falling. Just as that girl said, god really does have a weakness for plot convenience.

  I was clenching the Daruma necklace in my right hand as I fell. That caught on the end of the pole jutting out from the lab window. For a moment, I dangled in the air along with the white coats, lamely suspended like a blockheaded student sleepwalking through life on his parents’ money. But even he’d eventually need to take his future into his own hands. The Daruma necklace had kept me alive a little longer but snapped at almost the exact moment I reached out and grabbed the laundry pole. The Daruma dolls scattered to the dark ground below.

  I had no idea how the pole was supported, but it was definitely starting to bend horribly. As I panted and held on to it for dear life, a graduate student walked into the lab with a cup of coffee, flipped on the light, and shrieked. In the next second, he’d grabbed the pole and shouted, “Anyone, come quick!”

  The director and the others must have been leaning out over the edge of the roof, because I heard them shout, “Don’t let go!” Not that I could have let go if someone asked me to.

  But the laundry pole wouldn’t hold out. It was clear that one scrawny-looking grad student wouldn’t be enough to support me.

  “It’s gonna break!” shouted Chief-in-Chief Underpants from the opposite roof, and he moved the spotlight to point at me. The light illuminated my feet. Chief-in-Chief Underpants was furiously shouting something. The grad student was shrieking. The pole swayed. The lab coats and shirts fell into the dark valley between the two buildings.

  “There’s a line below you! Look! Look!” I heard Chief-in-Chief Underpants cry.

&nb
sp; When I forced my eyes open and looked toward my feet, there was a thick line stretching out of a fifth-floor window. It appeared to be attached to the rooftop water tank of the building next door. Thankfully, it seemed as though I’d be able to reach it if I stretched. But to do that, I would have to let go of the pole and free-fall for a moment. Do you think I have those kinds of guts? I was stuck, unable to move, with a furious grimace on my face.

  Then it seemed the laundry pole had lost its support. From inside the lab came a crash and another shriek from the grad student. At the same time, I started falling again. Chief-in-Chief Underpants was shining the light on my lifeline—literally and figuratively—strung between the two buildings. I frantically grabbed it. It was truly a miracle. To think a guy like me, who never works out, would be forced to do a thrilling action scene that puts movie stuntmen to shame—and live through it. I clung to the thick line, waiting for the shaking to stop, and belatedly steeled my resolve. “I’m not about to die here!” Then, like a koala, I clutched the line with my arms and legs and moved my hands and feet little by little to cross the line to the Crackpot Castle. I knew Chief-in-Chief Underpants was watching.

  Having crawled with an indomitable fighting spirit back from the brink of an utterly meaningless death, nothing scared me now. There was more adrenaline rushing through my brain than ever in the history of my personal existence. I would hold the girl to my chest and seize a happy ending with these hands. I’d never struggled harder for something in my entire life.

  Eventually, I was climbing up backstage at the Crackpot Castle, and as Chief-in-Chief Underpants gave me a hand, he said, “Are you all right?” He looked flabbergasted. “Way to stay alive!”

  He had a cape on. Apparently, the Crackpot of Monte Cristo himself was going to play the Crackpot of Monte Cristo. I took a deep breath, suppressed the trembling of my agitated body, and wiped away a waterfall of sweat. An old drainpipe was sticking out at an angle into the sky, and a trickle of water flowed through it. I fell upon it and shook the scenery to pull it free.