Salmonella Men on Planet Porno (Vintage Contemporaries) (4 page)

Of course, none of this was ever reported in the news. The media only ever covered my dull, everyday affairs. These were blown up into major headliners, even surpassing politics, world events, the economy and other more important topics. For example:

In the end, there were even expert analysts who knew everything that could be known about me. I was quite amazed.

One day, I found my photograph on the front of a weekly magazine published by a newspaper company. A colour photograph. Of course, I had no idea when it was taken. It showed me on my way to work among a group of office workers. It was quite a good picture, actually, if I say so myself.

Writing articles about me was one thing. But if they wanted to use me as a model on their cover, I would expect the newspaper company to thank me at the very least. I waited three days, four days after the magazine had been published, but still heard nothing. Finally, I’d had enough. On my way back from a client one day, I paid them a visit.

Normally, I only had to walk down the street for everyone to be turning and gawking at me. But as soon as I entered the newspaper company building, I was treated with total indifference by receptionists and staff alike. It was almost as if they’d never heard of me. I regretted going there at all, as I waited in the reception lounge. Then a man with a sour face appeared and identified himself as the magazine’s Assistant Chief Editor.

“Listen, Mr Morishita. We’d prefer it if you didn’t come here, you understand.”

“I thought so. Because I’m supposed to be a nobody who has no connection with the media?”

“You’re not talented or topical. You’re not even famous. So you have no business coming here.”

“But I am, aren’t I? I am famous now!”

“You’re merely a nobody whose life was reported in the media. You were supposed to remain anonymous, even when people recognized you. We thought you’d understand that well enough.”

“So why did a nobody like me have to be reported on the news?”

The Assistant Chief Editor sighed wearily. “How should I know?! I suppose someone decided you were newsworthy.”

“Someone? You mean someone in the media? What idiot had that idea?”

“Idiot, you say? As if there’s just one person at the bottom of it? In that case, why are all the media companies falling over each other to follow you? The media don’t need to be told. They’ll only follow someone if they think he’s got news value.”

“News value? In the daily life of a nobody?”

“All right then. You tell me. What news items would you consider important?”

“Well… Something about the weather forecast being wrong… A war going on somewhere… A ten-minute power failure… An aeroplane crashes, killing a thousand… The price of apples goes up… Someone’s bitten by a dog… A dog is caught shoplifting in a supermarket… The US President is caught shoplifting… Man lands on Mars… An actress gets divorced… The war to end all wars is about to start… A company profits from pollution… Another newspaper company makes a profit…”

The Assistant Chief Editor watched me vacantly as I continued. But now he shook his head with a look of pity. “So those are the things you regard as big news, are they?”

“Aren’t they?” I replied in some confusion.

He waved his hand with an air of irritation. “No, no, no, no, no. Of course, they could be
made
into big news. That’s why they’re duly reported. But at the same time, we report on the life of an ordinary office worker. Anything can become big news if the media report it,” he said, nodding. “News value only arises
after
something’s been reported. But you, by coming here today, have completely destroyed your own news value.”

“That doesn’t bother me.”

“I see.” He slapped his thigh. “Actually, it doesn’t bother us either.”

I hurried back to the office. From my desk, I immediately phoned through to Admin.

“Akiko,” I said loudly. “Will you go to a hotel with me tonight?”

I could hear Akiko catching her breath at the other end of the line.

For a moment, the whole room fell silent. My colleagues and the Chief Clerk gawped at me in amazement.

Eventually she replied. “Yes. Of course,” she sobbed.

And so that night, Akiko and I stayed in a hotel. It was the shabbiest, seediest hotel in a street full of tasteless neon signs.

As I’d expected, there was no mention of it in the newspapers. Nor was it reported on the TV news. From that day on, news about me vanished from the media. In my place came a middle-aged office worker, the type that can be found just about everywhere. Thin, short, two children, lives on a suburban estate, a clerk in a shipbuilding company.

I’d once again become a nobody – this time for real.

Some time later, I asked Akiko out again as a test. Would she like to have coffee with me after work? Of course, she refused. But I was satisfied – now I knew what sort of person she was.

A month later, nobody could remember my face. But even then, people would occasionally stop and give me curious looks when they saw me. On my way home one day, two girls were sitting opposite me on the train. One of them gave me that look and started whispering to the other.

“Hey! Haven’t I seen him somewhere before?” she said, nudging her friend with her elbow. “What was it he did?”

The other girl looked at me with a bored expression. After a moment, she answered in a tone of utter boredom: “Oh, him. Yeah. He was just a nobody.”

I had a call from Saita, a bachelor friend of mine, an electric-appliances repair specialist with four technical patents to his name.

“Would you mind coming over?” he said in a tremulous little voice like a mosquito’s hum.

“Why? Is something wrong? Has something happened?” I asked.

“Well… You know,” he mumbled, then said nothing for a moment. He seemed to be looking for the right words. “Well, I’ll tell you when you get here.”

It was a diffident voice. Usually, he’d be loudly and forcefully debating with me on subjects like topology, relativity or parallel universes – so much so that I could hardly get a word in edgeways.

“You in a hurry then?”

“Yes. Well, no. It’s not particularly urgent. But if you’re free… Well, you know. It would help if you came over right away.”

His voice sounded even more hesitant now, almost apologetic. But his odd tone had the opposite effect on me – it made me think something really serious must have happened. So I agreed to go over right away.

His shop was on the main street. As I walked in, he greeted me with an “Oh, hi,” gazed at me with an expression of utter gratitude, and led me to a small reception area at the back of the shop. There, Saita and I sat facing each other across a table.

“What’s up, then? What’s happened?” I asked with deliberate nonchalance, taking out a cigarette. He was clearly finding it hard to come to the point.

“Well,” he replied, then hesitated again. For a while, he rubbed his palms together, drew circles on the table with his fingertips and stared into space. “Well, it’s not such a big deal, really…”

“But you said I should come right away!”

“Yes, that’s right.” He was cringing with embarrassment, squirming in his seat. Then he glanced up at me with a coy look. “Well, actually,” he said, and started to giggle.

It couldn’t be anything serious if he could laugh about it. But why on earth was he so embarrassed? I’d never seen him like this before.

Though now quite irritated, I was beginning to catch his giggles.

“What? What’s it all about? Tell me, quick!”

His face turned red. “All right. Well, I’ll tell you,” he said in a throwaway tone, giggling again. He glanced at me briefly before averting his eyes. “I’ll tell you. But please. Don’t laugh.”

“You’re laughing, aren’t you?!” I said, laughing.

“Am I? Oh. Well, anyway…” This was all quite unlike him.

“What, then?”

“Well, I’ve invented a time machine,” he said.

He clearly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I said nothing for a moment. If I’d opened my mouth, I would have exploded with laughter. But I could do nothing about the uncontrollable ripples that were spreading all over my body – bad though I felt about it.

Saita glanced at me sideways and writhed in embarrassment. “D-d-don’t laugh. Don’t.”

In the end, I let out a suppressed snort.

Saita, still with his half-laughing, half-weeping expression, now laughed aloud.

“Wahahahahaha!”

I laughed too.

“Wahahahahaha!”

Saita stopped laughing abruptly. He looked at me rather forlornly as I continued to laugh with no apparent end.

I eventually managed to control myself.

“Sorry,” I said, trying my hardest to suppress the chortles. “Tell me again. What have you done?”

As if to contain his embarrassment, Saita rubbed his palms hard over the surface of the desk as he answered.

“Er, invented a t-t-time machine.”

“Wahahahahaha!” I gripped my sides.

“Wahahahahaha!” Saita started to laugh like a madman.

We contorted our bodies, bent ourselves double, bent backwards, then contorted our bodies again as we continued to laugh. For a long time we continued to laugh.

At last, our laughter subsided to a point at which we could speak again.

“Have you invented a time machine?” I asked.

“I’ve invented a time machine,” he answered.

We burst into laughter again. We continued to laugh even more insanely than before. For a long time we continued to laugh.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said in a wheezing voice as I held my aching belly, my face still contorted with laughter. “You’ve gone and invented a time machine!”

I was virtually laughing my head off. “And where is it, then?” I asked with heaving shoulders.

Still laughing, Saita pointed to the ceiling with his chin. His workshop was on the upper floor, which resembled a loft. He got up and started climbing the stairs to the upper floor. I followed him. In a corner of the workshop was a time machine.

“Is this a time machine?” I asked.

Saita nodded. “Yes. This is a time machine.”

We both exploded with laughter at the same time. We pointed at the machine and laughed, pointed at each other’s faces and laughed, squatted on the floor, coughed convulsively, and gripped our aching sides as we continued to laugh.

“That’s ri-ri-ridiculous!” I said, as wheezing sounds issued from my throat. “How does it work? Go on, tell me!”

Saita, also with shoulders heaving, still managed to climb slowly into the time machine. “Come on in,” he said.

“All right,” I answered. The laughter had finally subsided, but it was not without the occasional giggle that I got into the time machine and sat next to Saita. “So, are you going to explain?”

“Yes. Well, first of all…” he started in his timid little voice. He scratched his head in embarrassment, and sheepishly pointed to one of the dials with his chubby index finger. “Th-this dial, you see, well, it’s for going back in time.”

“Wahahahahaha!” I was already gripping my stomach before he could finish.

“Wahahahahaha!” Saita opened his mouth wide and laughed too.

We contorted our bodies and rolled around with laughter as we sat there in the time machine.

Still laughing, Saita casually pointed to another dial. “And this one’s for going forwards.”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Wahahahahaha!”

I laughed so much that I thought I would die. Eventually, we stopped and looked at each other’s half-crazed faces in the time machine, our face muscles floppy with fatigue from laughing.

“I thought I was going to die,” I said.

“So did I,” said Saita.

“Just now, when you said you’d invented a time machine,” I said with another involuntary snort, “that was b-b-brilliant!”

Saita also let out a snort. We continued to laugh for a while.

“How about going back to see it,” I suggested through my giggles, pointing to the dial with my chin. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“Yes, I can. Shall we then?” Saita agreed with a giggle of his own.

Still giggling, he turned the dial very slightly, then pressed a button and gave me a nod. “Right. Let’s get out.”

“All right.”

We got out of the time machine, lay flat on the floor, and peered down into the shop below through cracks between the floorboards. I hadn’t arrived yet. Saita was on his own, pacing up and down nervously inside the shop.

“Someone’s pacing up and down.”

“It’s me,” said Saita.

We were both about to laugh, but hurriedly covered each other’s mouths with our hands. Our eyes widened. Only our bodies continued to laugh.

We peered through the cracks again.

I arrived.

“Oh, hi,” said Saita.

Saita and I sat facing each other in the reception area at the back of the shop.

“What’s up, then? What’s happened?” I asked, taking out a cigarette.

“Well…” Saita drew circles on the table top. “Well, it’s not such a big deal, really…”

“But you said I should come right away!”

“Yes, that’s right. Well, actually,” he said, and started to giggle.

“What? What’s it all about? Tell me, quick!”

“All right. Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. But please. Don’t laugh.”

“You’re laughing, aren’t you?!”

“Am I? Oh. Well, anyway…”

“What, then?”

“Well, I’ve invented a time machine.”

“…………………”

“D-d-don’t laugh. Don’t.”

“…………………”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“…………………”

“Sorry. Tell me again. What have you done?”

“Er, invented a t-t-time machine.”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Have you invented a time machine?”

“I’ve invented a time machine.”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“That’s ridiculous. You’ve gone and invented a time machine.”

“Wahahahahaha!”

“Wahahahahaha!”

We wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. So we covered our mouths with our hands and writhed around in contortions on the floor of the upstairs room.