ME

by Tomoyuki Hoshino

  I was again euphoric—I would go on being useful!

  Oh, how I had longed for this feeling! What I’d been hungering for was not so much food as the sense of being needed. It was true that the one needing me was himself a ME, but I didn’t care. In fact, it was important that he was such, for in this way I could confirm my own value. I could now see myself as crucial.

  After hitting bottom I was now recovering. The vicious circle was breaking. Things were beginning to go well for me.

  And yet . . . I remembered that I was already dead. I had been living in a fool’s paradise, for it was all too late—and would have been even if I had come to my senses when I was first deleted. How clueless I was!

  The many MEs I had devoured must have felt the same way when they were being eaten. For the first time in their lives they must have felt satisfaction in serving a function, and thus wished to convey their joy to the ME who was eating them. But upon realizing their inability to do so, had they simply vanished after being consumed?

  And if that were true, it would mean that I had already ingested all of that emotion. Bitterness was being stored in my flesh.

  Hey, ME, you who are eating me! Beware of the taste of concentrated bitterness! Before you yourself are eaten, recognize that MEs are meaningful forms of existence, capable of serving a useful function for others!

  * * *

  Even after cutting the meat into strips, I embraced that bitterness and wept. Was it due to the intensity of my emotions? I was filled with regret, painfully aware that there was no going back, that it was all the result of my betrayal. Wrapping up the flesh in the shirts of dead MEs, I wiped my knife with a rag and in a daze sat down in the chair. And now I became aware of discomfort, first in my hips and then in every joint.

  Oh, I was experiencing pain. Pain, something I had no reason to feel. I tried saying that aloud: “I am in pain.” I could hear my voice faintly reverberating throughout the kitchen. I banged the table and heard a thumping sound. I blew on the dust, and it billowed upward.

  It all meant that I was alive. I felt both joy and sorrow—sorrow at not being able to communicate my joy. And that was not all. The hand with which I had today successively deleted two MEs vividly remembered the sensation of committing those deeds.

  A miracle seemed to have occurred, something that had not happened before in all my experience of eating MEs. Though seemingly the consumer, I had become the consumed. No, it might have been the opposite, with the consumed becoming the consumer.

  It didn’t matter which was which. I could no longer distinguish between the two. I had neither acquired a dual personality nor felt more inclined toward one or the other of us. In any case, the devourer knew in physical terms both the joy and the regret of the devoured. All hatred prior to my having become the devourer, imbued as I had been with the spirit of revenge, had simply dissolved.

  Little by little, a sense of bliss seeped through me as the sorrow eased. Every nook and cranny of my being was filled with happiness—my hands and legs, my ears and head—together with a pleasurable, gently tingling feeling. In my state of tranquility, it was as though I were looking out from a slightly elevated vantage point at myself and the entire landscape. There the sun was shining, and a breeze was blowing—soft, warm, and southerly. The surface of the snow was melting, the light reflecting off a long and narrow strip of land.

  I had already lost my inclination to delete MEs. Any more such acts would not be likely to come from me.

  In my imagination I again had a bird’s-eye view of the mountain, now free of snow. On the slope numerous MEs were puttering about in the soil. They were no doubt able to grow their own food; they now trusted one another and were engaged in communal work.

  Mutual deletion had stemmed from a lack of trust in oneself, and that was why any sort of cooperative endeavor had been impossible. Even the most superficial sort of cooperation invariably led back to betrayal, making MEs all the more inclined to avoid one another.

  But now I sensed that things had changed. I now liked myself and thought of myself as useful.

  I gathered the remaining bones, put them on the kitchen counter, and ignited them. I then left, having spread the fire throughout the ruins of the shop. Gradually making my way into the hills, I hid my belongings and sat down in the shade of a tree to watch the burning building.

  My plan was to lure MEs down from the mountains with the flames and the smoke, distribute the meat, and convey to them the sense of satisfaction I was feeling. It was a gamble. I knew that my true intention might not be understood; in that case the stock of food would be seized, and I would be deleted and eaten. And yet my sense was that I would somehow succeed. The MEs had all grown weary of deleting and eating each other. They were surely waiting for someone to call a halt to it all.

  Once they had eaten the meat that I would divide among them, I would propose—assuming that no one had been deleted—that we all sleep in the crumbling Keiō Line station. If we got through the night without incident, that would surely be proof that life together was possible. From there we could move on to cooperative food production.

  I had devised a plan for raising spinach and pigs on the southern slope of Mount Takao. Floating up in my mind was a vision of MEs gathered there, plowing the ridges and weeding. With the power of that image I elevated my self-confidence to ward off fear.

  A shadow fell upon my mood, however, as I saw the flames abating. My guess was that two hours had passed. The sun too was waning, the light taking on an orange tinge. And still not a single ME had appeared. I continued to keep my eyes focused on the area, but there was no sign of anyone at all in the dark and shadowy places where they might be lurking.

  A glowing band of red was spreading across the western sky. The fire was nearly out. In the smoldering remains coal-like embers glowed, crimson and black. I left the shade of the tree and moved back toward the burning building. There was a satisfying hissing and crackling as I threw snow on the burning wreckage. Steam and smoke rose into the air, turning to pink mist in the evening light. The sun goes down early in the mountains, and if I did not leave quickly I would be stranded in the darkness.

  At the place where the kitchen counter had been were the scattered remains of the bones. They had not been reduced to the fine ashes of a crematorium but rather had preserved their shape, appearing as though they had been coated with powder. Cooling them with snow, I spread out a shirt, gathered the bones, and wrapped them up. Then, having found a wooden post that wasn’t burned up, I began digging a hole in the ash-covered ground, hoping as I set about my task that someone would see me and come. I sang in a loud voice all the songs that I could remember. Yet still no one appeared. A few crows had flown down, but there was nothing more.

  When the hole was complete, I deposited the bones, still wrapped in the shirt, and then covered everything with dirt, which I stamped into a hard cover to prevent any animal from digging them up. I then piled small shards of broken porcelain next to the hole before planting the post deep into the ground.

  It was now twilight. It was so dark that even if a ME were to come, I would not see him. Bowing my head before my humble monument of porcelain shards, I closed my eyes and in my heart of hearts murmured to myself: Because I will remember; because I will not forget.

  I looked around me. Without any illumination, the base of the mountain appeared to have sunk into an indigo swamp. My integrated self was losing control and disintegrating. I sensed that the various components were flying off in their own directions.

  In fact, my mouth was emitting screams, quite by itself. Wordless screams. It was howling, roaring. Again and again. To do otherwise was to lose all sanity. With even greater speed than the nightly chill, fear was bearing down on me.

  I was here alone. Alone. Alone. Everyone else had been deleted. The two I had deleted today were the last! Like an undulating assault came the absolute realization that I was the only one left. Though I tried to think of other possibilities, I had been
flung into the face of a grim reality. Were they simply hiding? They were too weak to move. Perhaps they were waiting for me to go to sleep and would then launch a new attack. No. They had abandoned the hills and gone back to town.

  And yet I knew that not to be so. I knew it. After all, all of the MEs were me; I knew like no other the nature of MEs. MEs were bound to react to each other, and if they did not react, it was because they were not there.

  Though they were capable of foreseeing that they would be impacted by reality, the MEs had turned their eyes away. Hemmed in by myriad fears, they had engrossed themselves in the single-minded hunt for whatever food there was at hand, endeavoring to find refuge within their own shells. Without thinking of the eventual consequences, they had gone on devouring their own. Moreover, they had forgotten it all.

  I wanted to immediately erase the fact that I was the only one remaining; I wanted to delete and then eat myself. And if that was not possible, it would do just as well if my brain was destroyed by the sheer excess of my fear.

  The sun had now sunk behind the row of hills, and a fierce chill crept up from my feet. Hampering my desire to end it all by simply remaining where I stood was the lingering sense of joy that I had known. Despite having been thoroughly battered about, I was surprised to realize that I had not completely given up. And so, lugging the heavy bundle of meat, I trudged back to my cave.

  * * *

  I thought that I would be plagued by wakefulness, but no sooner had I curled up than I fell into slumber. Though I endured a series of gruesome nightmares, I awoke to the morning light having forgotten them all.

  The sun appeared over the mountain ridgeline. Yesterday’s terror had somewhat dissipated. But when I faced the matter squarely, I knew that it might well once again have me in its grip.

  I checked the meat that I had salted and hung up on a branch the night before. It had a good, freeze-dried feel to it. Shade-drying it for the day would yield some decent jerky. There was nothing to be done about the birds pecking at it. I took three slices, chewed them well, and swallowed.

  I then walked the hills to look for MEs. I let my voice reverberate as I shouted out: “Anyone out there? I have food!” And yet despite my thorough search, there was no response. I found not so much as a corpse. All that I occasionally found lying on the ground was a broken shoe, a torn shirt, or a bone.

  The sun had crossed the meridian when I returned to my cave. The meat was still there, unplundered. Lying in the sun, I resolved to leave Mount Takao. The next day I would head into the town, taking the food with me. Perhaps there would be no one there. Still, it hardly seemed likely that I was the only soul left on earth.

  I had no idea how long I had been living here. Though I knew that the town might be largely deserted, the prospect of leaving the hills and descending into human habitation was frightening. And so I planned my departure in order to arrive in the obscurity of the predawn hours.

  The half-moon was illuminating the pale shadows as I walked along the tracks from Takaosanguchi Station. I was resolved not to commit any more deletions, but I still kept my knife concealed in my pocket.

  I was loath to enter the tunnel and so left the tracks and walked along the highway. After an hour the residential area opened up before me. The snow was sparse compared to the mountain drifts, amounting to little more than traces on the northern side of the buildings. As there was no electricity, neither the streets nor the houses were illuminated. Holding the flame of my lighter against a utility pole, I was able to make out the street sign: Takao-chō. I soon turned left onto a side street.

  There was no sign of life. By way of experiment I tried to open seven doors. Of these, six were unlocked. The entrances were in disarray, with signs of forced entry. Elsewhere there were houses that had been partially destroyed, their broken windows making them look as if they had been bombed.

  Some time later I came to a small stream, which I crossed over a bridge. Here was another residential neighborhood, but directly behind it loomed a low-lying hill. For no particular reason I headed in that direction.

  As I rambled there, night began to wane. Feeling weary, I sat down at the entrance of a building. Sleep immediately overcame me. The only sound was the echoing cry of an occasional bird.

  * * *

  When I awoke from my doze, the day was advancing. I looked up at the sun and saw in the distance a wisp of smoke rising into the sky. Beyond the road was another hill; the smoke appeared to be coming from there, and so I pursued it.

  I passed through the trees and suddenly came out on a bare, stump-covered slope. The stumps were new, their fresh surfaces jagged, indicating that the woodcutters were recent arrivals. The soil had been turned up, and in the frozen ground the water had turned to veins of frost, glittering in the sun.

  I took a deep breath to contain my excitement; the smoke was near. I walked slowly, so as not to disturb the air.

  Again I entered an area filled with stumps; beyond, where the copse was less dense, I could see the source of the smoke—it was rising from the chimney of a hut. Outside were three female MEs, engaged in exercise.

  I felt like an outlaw, certain that if I went to them I would instantly be seized. I threw my knife away and then lowered my load of dried meat, sensing that it would be taken as evidence of criminality. Holding my hands up, I started to move forward.

  But then I stopped, altering my plan. I mustn’t be so self-disparaging, I thought. I sensed that throwing away the jerky would likewise be wrong, that this too would show an attitude of denial, dismissal, consignment to oblivion. I was now sure that I should treasure and eat it to the last morsel. And so I again picked up my burden and called out in a loud voice, as I resumed my steps, “Good morning!”

  The startled women paused in their exercises and looked toward me. One of them called to someone else, and then two men and a woman came running out of the hut from which the smoke was rising.

  I walked slowly. “Hello there. Ah . . . I’ve had quite a time of it, getting here.” I moved closer. “How do you do? I am . . .” I started to say, only to realize that I didn’t know my name and so said nothing more.

  The two men stepped toward me.

  Flustered, feeling that I should say something, I went on: “I . . . I’ve been living for a long time on Mount Takao. But there’s no one left there.” My head and body were hollowed out. It seemed as though no words were coming out, that my mouth was merely flapping open and shut.

  All six people now approached. I immediately felt a wave of terror sweep over me. I made an about-face and started to run, when the sound of a voice assailed me from behind: “Good morning!”

  Turning around, I tripped over my own feet and fell to the ground. When the MEs reached out their hands to me, I took one of them and felt its softness and warmth. Like a time bomb exploding without warning, I suddenly broke down, wailing wildly. Unable to hold back, I moaned and sobbed with all the power my voice could muster.

  * * *

  I was welcomed to live as a member of a small collective, fourteen of us in all. We work together to produce our own food, but that’s another story.

  The hamlet was founded at the grave of a very famous person, but of this I did not know—and had I known, I might well have forgotten. Those like me who had run off and wandered about as despairing loners had gradually come together. Every ME who had experienced the extreme solipsistic vision, the sense of being the only creature in the universe, had become incapable of deletion. When they were confronted with that situation, their bodies did not move.

  Though ignorant of most of the practical ways of life, the MEs had set about earnestly producing food, building homes, and assembling other survivors. Such hamlets proliferated here and there, and as they came to consort with one another, the reconstruction endeavor gained unrelenting momentum. With a grand leap, a society was restored in which electricity, gas, and water flow, transportation systems run, communications circulate, and food is distributed. With astounding
alacrity, town life returned to normal, though the crowds passing through the streets were much thinner than before.

  And so, as it dawned on us, the MEs had vanished. They were no longer ME but rather simply themselves—people distinct from one another.

  Becoming aware of this, I felt a vague sort of sadness, sentimentally regretting that an intuitive insight into the other as oneself was gone. But then I revised my thought: if one constantly endeavored to comprehend the other as oneself, there would indeed be occasional understanding. And that was enough, for it was precisely because we had all been the same—with the dissolution of oneself—that there had been such terror. In this way, we had been resurrected and so are able to relate our story to you.

  Why speak of it? It’s because I want the nightmare that was the time of the MEs to be remembered. I am now an old man, grown weak in the head, with only a hazy memory. Yet even now my body remembers the deeds committed. And what it recalls I wish for all of you to keep in your own minds as living sensations.

  You must not think that because this is a different era you are irrelevant to us. What happened then is not something that happened to others. No sooner will you forget than you will become MEs yourselves, for they are lurking, waiting for you to lose sight of the present and of the past. Here then is my plea: remember! And this above all: remember who you are.

  END

  Afterword

  A Model for the Power of Literary Thought

  by Kenzaburō Ōe

  Among the many leading authors of the twentieth century, I have recently been giving much thought to one in particular, Kōbō Abe—and in doing so, I associate him with another formidable artist of the same generation, the world-class composer Tōru Takemitsu. I count myself most fortunate in having enjoyed the friendship of both these men. I once lived twenty minutes away by bicycle from Abe-san—who himself was quite an automobilist—and two minutes’ leisurely walk from Takemitsu-san. It was the latter, five years my senior, who, at the time I published my first short story, remarked: “You’ve got the makings of a novelist.” I was then able, through ties with the University of Tokyo newspaper, to publish my first review. It was of a novel by Abe-san: Kemono-tachi wa kokyō wo mezasu [The Beasts Head Home].