Tribulation

by Kaz Morran

  “We’ve been in here too long,” Taiyo said through chattering teeth as Dad dug through the closet for the cashbox and their name stamps.

  “Think,” said Dad. His lips were blue. “Think ahead, Tai. Survival goes beyond immediate needs.”

  Survival? Yes, Taiyo supposed so. Obviously. Against his shaking, he laughed that it hadn’t occurred to him until now just how serious a situation they were in. People had probably died. A lot. And he could die, too.

  Poor blood-flow kept them from separating the sunken blankets from the tangle of laundry, so on the way back up to the roof, they took the curtains and huddled beneath them for shelter from the wind.

  That evening, a helicopter team plucked them from the roof of their house and set them down on the roof of the school, reuniting Taiyo with all his classmates except one.

  “She went home,” was all he could reply when they asked what had happened to Sakura Kawashima.

  Being on a small hill, the school had escaped with minor flooding. The military converted the two-floor building into an evacuation center, but, the next day, when bodies began washing up, it had to double as a morgue. Soldiers in SDF fatigues handed out food, water, and blankets, but the scene grew unbearable.

  While the adjacent classrooms filled with corpses, the walls of the gym amassed messages of hope and prayer, photographs, paper cranes, news clippings, and pleas for missing loved ones. The newspapers presented a scale and scope of devastation Taiyo had only seen in movies, and the water wasn’t expected to recede anytime soon.

  Volunteers gave each family a blue tarp, 180 centimeters a side. On this tarp, they ate, slept, and idled. Mostly idled. The tarps were laid out in a grid, the edge of one flush against the edge of another, meaning eight other families surrounded Taiyo’s. The shortest route to the toilet involved tiptoeing through the living space of five different families.

  After three days, Taiyo and Dad wanted out of the overcrowded, flu-infested shelter. As the only hafu and foreigner, they felt trapped in a microcosm of aging, conservative Japanese society, the bulk of which had lost their homes and loved ones, or weren’t sure if they had. With no way to pass the long, painful hours, the tenants of the surrounding tarps filled their grief-size holes with unapologetic stares, patronizing complements, and ignorant assumptions.

  “They mean well,” said Taiyo’s mother.

  “I know,” answered Dad. “I know they do, but …” He tucked in his legs and apologized over his shoulder for the crinkling sound of the tarp.

  She added, “Be grateful there are only three of us.” Most tarps had only an elderly couple, but one the neighboring tarps had five.

  At age sixteen, Taiyo was still feeling out the best way to deal with the petty irritations that came along with being a hafu.

  Adults were the worst:

  You’re bilingual? Oh, then you must forget a lot of Japanese, right?

  I promise you I have a bigger vocabulary than you or any of my teachers. In two languages.

  Ha-ha. It must be really hard for you going to Japanese public school.

  Not only for me. Did you know the leading cause of death in Japan for children age ten to fourteen is suicide? And guess what the leading cause of death is for age fifteen to twenty? … Also suicide. And age twenty to forty? You guessed it.

  Why don’t you go to the international school?

  You’d like that.

  When is your family going “back home”?

  Taiyo noticed a boy from that five-person tarp staring at him. The boy, about eight or nine, should’ve known better than to gawk—especially from such a creepily close range, but the curiosity of children never bothered Taiyo. Adults would kill that curiosity soon enough.

  “Good morning,” Taiyo said to the boy.

  The boy’s eyebrows narrowed as he inspected Taiyo. “Where do you come from?”

  Taiyo smiled and sighed at the inevitable first question. “I’m from …” Taiyo began, but he saw that glimmer in the boy’s eyes that only a curious child could have. Taiyo could’ve answered how he usually did: that he was from Japan. Then he’d watch the inquisitor’s face contort as he or she tried, and failed, to fit him into some neat little box. The person would repeat the question, get the same answer, and laugh at the preposterousness of a tall-for-his-age, white-skinned, big-nosed young man believing he is Japanese.

  Taiyo pointed to the tiny, blanket-covered windows at the top of the gymnasium wall, and he answered the boy, “I’m from up there. Do you ever look at the night sky?”

  The boy looked confused. “Not really.”

  “Well, sometimes you can see a red one up there. But it’s not a star. It’s Mars. That’s where I come from.”

  Finally, the boy smiled. “No, you don’t!”

  “Really. I’m from space.”

  “No, no, no.” The boy said in English as he shook his head and laughed. Then back to Japanese, he told Taiyo, “I know you’re from Earth.”

  “But look at my skin. It’s green, isn’t it.” He pulled up his sleeve, but not far enough to reveal his tattoos. He didn’t want to scare the boy—or the boy’s family. Tattoos were for gangsters and hooligans.

  The two compared skin tones. “It’s not green,” said the boy.

  “Yeah, you got me. An Earthling like you. Same planet, you and I.”

  “I thought so.”

  “For real, I’m from right here in Sendai, but a long time ago my dad moved here from …” Taiyo looked over his shoulder and then got up on his knees to look past the boy and pointed. “Over there. That way, about ten hours by plane. That’s why I look like an alien. Half-alien, anyway.”

  “You look like an American, not an alien.”

  “Why’d you ask if you already knew?”

  The boy shrugged. “I could be wrong.”

  “Smart kid.”

  “Because I was wrong. You’re only hafu.”

  Taiyo suppressed a frown. “But half Canadian, not half American.”

  “So I was one-fourth wrong.”

  They talked a while longer, and then Taiyo rolled up some newspaper to make a pair of swords. They battled hard, but in slow-motion, and quietly so they didn’t disturb anyone. Being a child, the boy kept forgetting to keep his voice down, and at one point yelled out, “Kill the foreigner! Kill them all. Die!”

  Taiyo let his paper sword fall to the floor. At first, he put on a look of pain and sadness as a show—part of the swordplay act—but as it sunk in just how rotten the boy’s words were, Taiyo really felt like crying. “Why would you say that?” he asked the boy. And he heard the boy’s parents and grandparents laughing. They’d been watching.

  “We have to save everyone from the foreigners. Kill them!” The boy hit Taiyo in the side of the face with the rolled up newspaper. Again, the boy’s whole family laughed.

  “Do you really want me to die?” he asked the boy. “Haven’t I been nice to you?”

  The boy now shared Taiyo’s look of hurt, though because of remorse or disappointment that the game had ended, Taiyo couldn’t tell. Without a word, the boy handed over the two swords to Taiyo, turned his back, and re-joined his family.

  ***

  The flu spread through the shelter, as did news. Few had died in the actual earthquake. The bulk of the losses had come from the tsunami. People said the airport had been washed out then taken over as a base of aid and rescue by the US military and foreign relief organizations. People said thousands of more bodies had washed up. People said busloads of Koreans and Chinese had come into the area to loot people’s homes. People had said the same thing after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, and people had said it after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, leading the army, police, and vigilantes to hunt down and murder over six thousand ethnic Koreans.

  People said a lot of things.

  Then came news of the triple meltdown. The Japanese government stood firm with its business partner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company: everything was under control. T
he mass evacuations in Fukushima were only a precaution. And besides, by the time the radiation made it eighty kilometers up the coast to Sendai, the air and ocean would dilute it.

  Five, six, seven days passed. The bottled water, having been donated by the Chinese government, was at first treated with suspicion but necessity soon overrode the xenophobia.

  The rice and miso soup portions got smaller. Mealtime had been an excuse to engage others even if only on a superficial level, but now people stood in line and accepted their ration with barely a nod to one another.

  Dad began to disappear on walks. Two, three, four times he left the gym, each trip lasting longer than the last. On the fifth walk, Taiyo insisted on going with him. That’s when they found the body.

  They headed downhill from the schoolyard, past sewage tanks, and between rubble piles. They waded into oily, bone-cold floodwater toward the source of a million bits of floating styrofoam from coolers and fishing floats. Toward the stench of old fish and into the dark remains of the cannery, they pushed through the dark icy water, around twisted sheets of corrugated aluminum, crumpled metal drums, and islands of plastic and foam.

  “Just over there,” said Dad. “A little farther. Then we’re done.” He pointed past a fallen gantry crane and into abject darkness.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Doesn’t mean nothing’s there.”

  “I know.”

  Somewhere, there had to be a storeroom or walk-in freezer. Dad climbed up onto the crooked metal arm of the fallen crane, jumped off, and landed on the other side with a splash. Taiyo’s arms shivered so badly Dad had to help him over.

  So numb were Taiyo’s hands, they worked like blunt instruments batting aside the drifting iceboxes and tangles of nets.

  “You want to wait here?” Dad asked.

  He imagined another quake and tsunami hitting; better to be together in the dark than get caught alone in daylight. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  “Here. Give me your hands.” Dad rubbed them like he used to do in the park so the snowball fight could go on, and then he breathed on them the same way Taiyo had done with Sakura.

  Hardly a shred of light made it inside the cannery, so Dad knocked periodically on the aluminum wall to give Taiyo a sound to navigate by. The burdened sloshing of one leg plowing after the other worked just as well, though.

  They rounded a cold metal doorframe that had no door. The smell all but overpowered them.

  “Wait here,” said Dad.

  Taiyo pulled his jacket up over his mouth and nose and held onto the rusty frame as best his frozen fingers would allow. He alternated his grip. A tinge of feeling—mostly pain—returned to his fingers as he opened and closed his free hand. The knocks and sloshes got fainter until the only thing Taiyo could hear was the cry of rubbing styrofoam and the gentle ebb of ice-crusted water crinkling against the walls.

  He could also hear the gnashing of his teeth. And his heartbeat. A normal reaction, he supposed; a spike in adrenaline to prepare the body for fight or flight. Nothing intrinsic to be scared of. Dark was just the absence of light.

  Something poked him in the thigh. He jerked away and banged his knee on the doorframe. He fought to keep calm. Sharp, stagnant air burned his lungs with each shallow breath. He swallowed hard and felt around underwater with the toe of his shoe. Nothing yet. Holding the frame with both hands for balance, he prodded some more. Contact. … He sighed relief. Just a dead branch.

  “Nothing here,” called Dad. The sudden break in silence gave Taiyo another kick. “You want to keep looking, or go back?”

  “Go back.” Taiyo hid his trembling hands under his arms.

  Dad sloshed toward him. “You’ve never been scared of the dark before.”

  “Dark is just the absence of light,” Taiyo told him; but it took several tries to get the words through his chattering teeth. “I’m not scared, but …”

  “Why don’t you try that thing your mom says to do? Writing stickmen on your palm and eating them.”

  “What?” Taiyo’s whole life, Dad had been drilling rationality into him.

  “Even if you know it’s a placebo, the effect can be real.”

  Taiyo paused to rein in his shaking. “Dad, my nuts are numb. We’ll freeze to death if we stay here.”

  Dad agreed. “Returning empty-handed is one kind of failed expedition. Not returning at all is another.”

  “Maybe we’ll find something on the way back,” Taiyo added as consolation.

  “We might.”

  29

  The rumble deafened and the darkness blinded. In the dust-filled air of the Asylum, Taiyo fought to breathe. He zipped the collar of the jumpsuit up over his face and shut his eyes. Even on all fours, he couldn’t keep his balance against the renewed shaking. Water licked the backs of his legs. A moment later, it reached above the knee. A wave beat against his back, and another, and another. Debris-filled spray struck from all sides, and rocks rained from above.

  Underwater, something clawed at his ankle. He snatched his foot from its grasp. It hit his leg. Something lunging and scratching. Nails. Fingernails. A hand.

  Nel! She was conscious.

  He gasped relief, and they pulled each other upright, embracing against the gush of debris—the most massive objects had the bulk and texture of the crates. The mangled rods and webbing of a hammock forced them underwater to escape entanglement. They gulped for air and strained to keep ahold of one another as the current and slurries of rubble sent them head over feet. Her flailing body tore from his hands, leaving only her sleeve clenched in his fist. His lungs burned. Desperate for air, holding her by one hand, he kicked at the water, desperate to surface for air.

  But the surface wasn’t there. Terror tightened around his throat. He held Nel and kicked and kicked, searching blind, reaching and flailing for the top of the water. Again, he came up short. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. Not and keep hold of Nel, too. No. No, no, no. He paddled with one hand. He kicked and kicked, refusing to choose.

  Dust and rock shards whipped his face. The vacuum in his lungs collapsed his sealed throat, and grimy air rushed into his body. Consciousness faded, but his loosening grip on Nel’s jumpsuit jabbed him back into control. He still had her. No. … She had him. Now swim, he thought. Keep afloat.

  He ignored the dust in his eyes and pain in his bones.

  They held each other and paddled as one, but the Earth’s unsettled plates still rattled, and the ceiling lost purchase on its few remaining lavacicles. Taiyo heard the sinister whistling of one such ballistic projectile and knew it was about to split his skull. He also knew he’d heard it too late to react. In the instant when gravity closed the gap of black space between the falling lavacicle and the top of his head, microcolumns of air must have rushed through the pores in the pumice—hence the whistling. The pores must not have been distributed evenly. The resulting uneven drag steered the lavacicle off course. It impacted the water on its side, exploding right behind Taiyo and hammering him with a surge of water and a thousand fragments of rock.

  He and Nel slipped apart.

  Slowly, he sunk beneath the surface. Up, he knew, was where he could find air, but there was no up. Only shifting dimensions. Shifting Earth. Shifting consciousness.

  No! He would not succumb. Fight!

  No. Don’t fight.

  Think.

  He’d survived disaster before, and he could survive this. Of course, the analogies didn’t entirely line up. Dad had been in charge of his safety then, and although the water was much colder then than now, that night on the roof had eventually turned into day. But here, the roof was 25 meters above with the only access through a twisted fifteen-meter chimney. Taiyo was trapped, condemned to the dark like a mummy in a tomb.

  He remembered the rebreather training. He wasn’t wearing one now, but the advice still fit. His instructor, a former astronaut, had equated moving while wearing a rebreather to moving in microgravity in a spacesuit.

&nbs
p; “Don’t fight it,” he’d said. “Some astros find it easier to pitch and roll or pivot upside down to navigate. In micro-g, you’re not limited to conventions of up and down. Get momentum to work with you, not against you. Your instinct when you get stuck or in trouble is to flail and overexert yourself. Don’t. Remember your physics. Tuck in to spin faster, open up to slow down …”

  It wasn’t easy. There was too much interference in the wave patterns—the crests and troughs were undefined. Still, he rode the prevailing sloshes, side-to-side, up and down, and his buoyancy told him which way was up.

  He surfaced to find the debris shower had eased. Having gained some control, he spent the reserve energy thinking what to do next. The waves began to settle. The worst of the quake had passed. But he could not rest.

  “Nel!” He screamed her name into the dark. His voice echoed right back. The wall was close. He yelled for her and for all his crewmates. He screamed their names so he could help them. He listened, hoping to hear someone cry out in reply so he wouldn’t be left alone … in the water … in the dark. A darkness so dark, the stars not only did not but could not shine.

  Anton answered back first, and then Ronin. The water still sloshed a little from the aftershocks, but at least Taiyo could hear, even if the darkness had rendered him blind. He swam toward Ronin, the closer of the two voices, who called back from the vicinity of a different sound: water plunging down from the chimney.

  “Meet at the waterfall,” Taiyo called. “Under the chimney.”

  It was the only landmark they could all tune their ears to.

  Like micrometeorites breaching the hull, bits of the ceiling plopped into the water as a backdrop to the din of the showering chimney. The sounds combined to fill the flooded chamber with a constant echo. A hunk of rock grazed Taiyo’s arm as it plummeted to the depths. He decided to swim underwater as much as he could, so the force of an impact would be absorbed. The jumpsuit dragged against the water, but he remembered not to fight it.

  Coming up for air, the only hint his eyes were open came from the sting of dust. “Stay there. I’m coming,” he called to Ronin, and he dove back under.