Tatami Time Machine Blues

Chapter 1 — August 12th (Part 3)
Let us turn back the hands of time once more to the afternoon of August 11th.

After shooting had wrapped, we set out to Oasis, the bathhouse.

It was past four that we set out onto the sun-baked streets. The sinking sun cast out long, dark shadows from our feet, and cicadas trilled from the trees that lined the road.

I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Maybe it was just that every afternoon this summer had been so hot and oppressive.

Oasis, the nearest bathhouse, was to the east of Shimogamo Izumigawa-chō, along Mikage Street in the residential neighborhood across the Takano River. It was the most stereotypical bathhouse you could imagine, from the shop curtains hanging at the entrance with the symbol for “bath”, to the front counter where the owner sat, to the large cubbies in the locker room.

Shimogamo Yūsuisō only had coin-operated showers (100 yen for ten minutes), so whenever the residents wanted to relax and take their time, they crossed the Mikage Bridge to Oasis. As the name implied, this bathhouse was a veritable oasis for the wandering wraiths of the 4½ tatami rooms.

We lowered ourselves into the wide bath and spaced out. Ozu started to hum “Where is Thumbkin”.

“Slayers of the Bakumatsu is shaping up pretty well, isn’t it?”

“Like hell it is,” Jōgasaki grunted.

You don’t like it, Jōgasaki?”

“No shit. You think I’d let a clunker that one slide?”

“Akashi seemed pretty pleased with it.”

“Movies are fundamentally critiques of society, dude, you’ve gotta be serious about how you approach them. From the script I already knew it was gonna be all over the place. The second you think about adapting a script like that you’re already underestimating the Man. Far as I’m concerned, she’s just wasting her talent.”

“But it’s all just for fun anyways, isn’t it?”

“It’s people like you that are ruining art!”

“At any rate no one can fault my superb performance,” Higuchi interjected abruptly. “Dawn breaks over Japan!”

“How the hell’d you get to be Sakamoto Ryōma, anyways?”

“I could hardly turn down a request from my disciple.”

“That’s the dumbest part of it all,” Jōgasaki sighed. “How come a dude like you gets to be the Master instead of me? I’m, like, the respectable one, right?”

Jōgasaki was quite frustrated at not being able to get Akashi’s respect.

There was no doubt in my mind that if I’d joined the Misogi Movie Circle I would have raised the flag of rebellion against Jōgasaki. I would have joined forces with Ozu to churn out clunkers, but lacking Akashi’s talent would have steadily lost my footing in the circle, and by the autumn of my second year the two of us would surely have been thrown out together. I could imagine the tragic course of events in my mind as clearly as if they had actually happened, and because of this I couldn’t help but feel a great sense of sympathy for Akashi.

Akashi, you just keep on going your own way.

People must walk the path that they believe in. Compromise and submission are of no value at all.

“This film is going to be a masterpiece,” I declared.

Jōgasaki said nothing, so I lapsed into silence again as well and looked around the bathhouse. Besides us, there were only three other people here in the men’s bath. They were all sitting next to one another at the showers, their heads wrapped in towels as water splashed over them.

By and by Higuchi stood up and went to go wash himself off, and Ozu scampered off towards the electrotherapy bath. The electric current in that bath was so strong that it was infamously known as Ol’ Sparky, and seeing Ozu willingly surrender himself to that torture device reminded me once again just how twisted he was.

“Higuchiii! Jogasakiii!” crooned a sultry voice from over in the women’s bath.

“Hanuki?” answered Higuchi. “What a surprise.”

“I just thought I’d come here for a change of pace.” Hanuki’s carefree voice bounced around the room. “It’s so nice, isn’t it? Like, sophisticated.”

I looked up languidly at the ceiling. Clouds of steam coiled up in the rays of evening sun lancing in from the skylight. I was thinking of Akashi, standing there alone in the garden looking up at the sky. What an intriguing girl, I thought to myself.

I had first met Akashi in February of this year, the day after Setsubun. She had been walking along the snow-covered horse-riding grounds in the Tadasu Forest, as white powder drifted from the grey skies, falling on her red muffler and her little teddy bear plush.

I remember that day so vividly.

What had I been dawdling for these past six months? While I was here hemming and hawing, some other prowling suitor might be making a move on her at this very moment.

With these thoughts going through my mind I couldn’t sit still any longer.

“I’m going to head back. Got some things to take care of.”

“Leaving so soon?” Ozu called from his bath, twitching and spasming, as I headed for the exit. “You oughta take it a little easier, ya know?”

◯

I exited the bathhouse into the long August evening.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” I thumped my wash bucket, psyching myself up.

I had but one goal in mind: to ask Akashi out to see the Okuribi.

There is a hidden spot from which one can take in the Daimonji bonfire near Mt. Yoshida at one’s leisure. I discovered it on a walk last year, and had set my heart on showing it one day to someone very dear to me. It was my secret weapon, and if I didn’t use it now, then when?

While crossing the Takano River, I spied across the bridge on Mikage Street a slender figure. Amazement halted me in my tracks. It was Akashi. She didn’t seem to have noticed me, and continued on her way towards the Shimogamo Shrine, and the Tadasu Forest.

I recalled then that after filming had wrapped she had mentioned that she was going to the used book fair.

Imagine, if you will, how many books on the subject of the Gozan no Okuribi must line the shelves at the fair. How very logical then, that we should both be carrying such books, and natural that the conversation that follows should turn towards that subject. In such circumstances, surely it would be nothing less than my duty as a gentleman to extend an invitation to her to see the Okuribi.

“When am I going to have this chance again?”

And I pursued her into the Tadasu Forest.

Darkness had already crept into the trees. I turned aside from the path that leads to Shimogamo Shrine and entered the long horse-riding grounds that run north and south, where a vast multitude of white tents lined the sides of the field. The crowds had already thinned out, and a voice over a megaphone rang out announcing the impending close of the fair. As if spurred on by that announcement, Akashi darted from tent to tent like swift-footed Artemis.

Long story short, I never talked to her.

First of all, Akashi was so quick there was no way for me to casually approach and address her. Second of all, she was so single-minded in her hunt for books that I couldn’t bear to disturb her. And finally, as I wandered between the tents in pursuit of her, my wits finally caught up with me.

To Akashi I was nothing more than a friend of Ozu’s, or else Higuchi’s neighbor. Though I’d slaved away with Slayers of the Bakumatsu in hopes of being of use to her, that was but a single movie out of her lengthy filmography. Maybe I was just overvaluing my own contribution. Maybe I wasn’t as close to her as I had hoped I was, and to her I was nothing more than a pebble by the side of the road.

Let us imagine that I were to invite her.

“Would you like to go see the Gozan no Okuribi?”

“Why should I have to do that?” she might reply, her eyebrows furrowed.

The mere thought of that cool response sent a shiver through me. The more I thought about it the more leaden my feet became. Akashi and I were only growing further apart, and I doubted that I would ever catch up to her.

At last I came to a standstill, and watched Akashi dash away.

“That’s enough for today,” I muttered, turning back.

When I came to, I was by the bank of the Kamo River.

I sat on a bench in the shadow of an elm tree, and watched the lights glittering on the surface of the water for a while.

True, I hadn’t succeeded in asking Akashi out. But only an abject fool would call me such shallow epithets such as spineless, or unmanly, or indecisive, merely because I hesitated. It was precisely because I respected Akashi as an individual that I hesitated to thrust my feelings upon her unbidden. This tactical retreat was irrefutable proof that I was a gentleman with a grasp on the subtle niceties of human interaction. Hesitation is nothing more than gentlemanly etiquette, even if, objectively speaking, that hesitation is tinged with a certain unseemliness.

From the bank of the Kamo River I could see Mt. Daimonji, stained red in the glow of the setting sun.

“Asking her to the Okuribi would’ve been such a cliché anyways!”

The Aoi Festival and the Gion Festival, the Gozan no Okuribi and the Kurama Fire Festival: for the students of Kyoto, there is no shortage of events to which to invite one dear to you. I, too, once aspired to ask out someone dear to my heart to events like those. But a relationship between a man and a woman is a relationship of individuals, that must be built up delicately at a pace that is suitable to each. It is not something that ought to be dragged along at the breakneck pace of the year-round sightseeing schedule.

If today is no good, there is still tomorrow.

If tomorrow is no good, there is still the day after.

If the day after is no good, there is still the day after that.

If I return to Shimogamo Yūsuisō, there will I find the air conditioner. I have been bestowed with the wonderful gift of a room equipped with an AC. My plans will be scrupulous, my sleeping habits sound, my physical frame impeccable, my scholarly devotion profound. Day after bountiful day, I will become a man worthy of Akashi. In doing so, an intimate friendship between us will grow, and eventually, like a river flowing out into the sea, things will take their natural course.

I felt like I could see a glimmer of hope.

“All right!” I said encouragingly to myself, standing up with my bucket.

What awaited me when I returned from the Kamo River to Shimogamo Yūsuisō that evening was a truly deplorable state of affairs. But this accident was only the start of a chain of events that would eventually put not just my own fate at stake, but the fate of the entire universe.

◯

At the entrance of Shimogamo Yūsuisō I heard many voices coming from the second floor.

“Oh, where did he go?” Ozu’s particularly shrill voice rang out.

He seemed to have stuck around with Higuchi and the others after the bath.

I walked up the stairs and down the corridor, to find Higuchi and Ozu pacing around. Jōgasaki and Hanuki were there too. They were all peering around the balcony, or opening doors, or going through the rubbish, like they were looking for something. Feeling an unpleasantly chilly breeze, I realized that the door to room 209 had been left wide open, and they’d taken the liberty of turning on my AC for themselves. Just as I opened my mouth to shout at them, Akashi appeared at the balcony. While I’d been soothing my wounded heart at the Kamo River, she’d returned from the used book fair.

Seeing me there she gasped.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked.

Alerted by Akashi’s gasp, Higuchi, Ozu, Jōgasaki, and Hanuki all looked at me, letting out impressed oohs and aahs. Their gazes fell upon the bucket I was holding, and there was a sort of respect in their looks which I had never felt before.

“Wow, you really came prepared!” Hanuki purred. “That’s so hot!”

Even Jōgasaki was looking at me in a new light. “Dude, you’re an animal!”

The first thing I did was snatch the remote control from Higuchi’s hand and turn off the air conditioner. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use my air conditioner,” I said, setting the remote down on a minifridge next to a half-empty bottle of cola.

Akashi looked at me nervously. “So you’re really going to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Um…do the…you know, um…”

“Come on, start the show already!”

Ozu grabbed my arm and steered me to the middle of the hallway. Everyone else plopped down on the sofa or grabbed a stool, staring at me expectantly. I stared back at them, dumbstruck, while holding my bucket. What were they expecting me to do?

“Show? What show?”

“C’mon, we talked about this already!” Ozu shouted, smirking. “The striptease!”

“Striptease? But why?”

“Now, now, no need to put on airs,” said Higuchi, stroking his chin.

Jōgasaki scowled. “Don’t be a pussy, dude. You gonna do something, just man up and do it!”

“I wanna see the goods,” cooed Hanuki.

“L-look, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Glancing around in bewilderment, my eyes fell upon Akashi, who was trying to hide behind Higuchi. On her face was a strange, complicated mixture of embarrassment, resignation, and just a hint of intellectual curiosity.

“You’ve got the prop already, don’t you?” Ozu pointed at my bucket. “All you gotta do is put it right here and do a little dance!”

He mimed putting an invisible bucket over his crotch and did a little wriggle.

The evil smile on Ozu’s face as he danced is etched indelibly into my brain. Truly, that must have been evil incarnate. That demonic two-step not only crushed my dreams for the future, it set the entire universe on the brink of annihilation.

Ozu’s right arm hit the minifridge, the impact knocking the cola bottle over. Dark liquid frothed out, flooding over the minifridge in an instant.

“The remote!” cried Akashi.

I rushed there, bowling Ozu over, but it was already too late.

The remote was drenched in cola, and it would never work again.

◯

This tragedy left me shellshocked, and categorically rejecting this ridiculous request for a striptease I shut myself up in room 209. After Akashi and the others had left, Higuchi suggested that we spend the night holding a wake for the air conditioner, as I have already described.

Now let us restore the hands to the clock to the afternoon of August 12th.

I leaned against the wall and gazed at Akashi.

Who was it that she was going to see the Okuribi with?

She glared at the laptop, her face pale but her expression focused. The editing must have had her tied up in knots. It didn’t exactly seem like the right time to ask who her date was.

“Do you have a second?” she said, her eyes not leaving the screen. Her voice was deadly serious, and I flinched, thinking for a second that she’d read my mind.

“Can you take a look right here? There’s something that’s bothering me.”

She seemed to be talking about the video. Letting myself breathe again I walked over and sat beside her on the sofa to peer at the laptop.

On the screen was the kappa statue in the landlady’s garden, where Iwakura Tomomi (a.k.a. Ozu) and the raggedy Shinsengumi were having their tussle. Not only was the action fairly lackluster, but you could also see the drying racks of the apartment in the background. There was certainly no shortage of flaws to point out, but Akashi let the video play on for a little while without comment before sharply exclaiming, “Here!”

“Where?”

“Here. Look at the drying racks.” She paused the video and pointed.

At the drying racks I could make out a thin, scrawny figure.

“It’s probably Ozu,” I said, before thinking to myself, huh? Then who was it that was flailing around with the Shinsengumi in the garden?

“There are two…Ozus?”

“I noticed it earlier when I was reviewing the footage,” Akashi said. “He doesn’t have a twin by any chance, does he?”

“Impossible! I’ve never heard him mention anything of the sort`!”

“He might have been keeping it from us.”

I was constantly amazed at the sheer number of extracurriculars Ozu kept himself busy with. He was a member of the Misogi Movie Circle, and also a disciple of Higuchi Seitarō. Yet those were but a few of the many masks that this gremlin wore. He was also a member in many other circles as well, in addition to being some sort of leader in a cultish softball circle and a shadowy student council. How was it that someone who was just as emaciated as I was managed to get around so much? It didn’t make sense, even if you supposed that he was slacking off on his studies. But if you held the Many Ozus theory to be true, all of the issues melted away.

I squinted once more at the laptop screen.

Ozu was leaning out over the balcony, a huge smile splitting his face in two. I almost fancied that I could hear his demonic laughter pealing out. As I stared at that wicked grin, in my head one squirming Ozu became two, two became four, four became eight, multiplying like bacteria. It reminded me of a race of wan-faced aliens come to invade the Earth.

Akashi and I looked at one another.

“What is going on?”

◯

“Whoo, look at you two lovebirds!”

I looked up to see Hanuki and Jōgasaki coming down the hallway.

Akashi swiftly closed the video and gave me a look. I assumed this meant she wanted to play Ozu’s dreadful secret close to the chest, for now.

“Sup,” said Jōgasaki curtly.

“It’s so hot!” Hanuki complained. “Is Higuchi around?”

“He and Ozu’ve gone to the landlady’s place,” I said, standing up. “They should be back soon.”

“I was just thinking it’s been so long since we’ve had dinner, the three of us. And like, we couldn’t go yesterday, since he was having the wake for the AC. You guys should come along too!” Hanuki sat down beside Akashi. “So? How’s the AC looking?”

“Still just as broken,” I replied.

“Well, I feel for you, I really do. Summer’s still got a long way to go.”

As I previously mentioned, Hanuki works as a dental hygienist at a clinic, and is friends with Jōgasaki and Higuchi. Nobody seems to know how they all met.

“How’s the movie looking? Everything coming together?”

“Yes,” said Akashi, patting the laptop.

“I can’t wait to see it. Higuchi was Sakamoto Ryoma, wasn’t he?”

“All he did was say the same line over and over,” groused Jōgasaki. “It was awful!”

“Ignore Jōgasaki, he has no idea what he’s talking about.”

Suddenly, the sound of something toppling over came from behind Jōgasaki. The mountains of garbage piled up in the hallway were precariously balanced, and even the slightest touch was sufficient to start a small landslide.

Hanuki turned around. “What are you doing, Jōgasaki?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I bet you were groping things again!”

“Dude, what is the deal with this apartment? Why is everything covered in trash!” Muttering under his breath, Jōgasaki dutifully began to clean up the mess. Whenever Hanuki was with him, his domineering macho attitude was always toned down a notch.

Hanuki laughed, then turned back to face us. “Ooh, I wish I could have been there to watch the filming!” she sighed, in a tone of regret.

Hearing this I frowned. “But weren’t you there at the shoot yesterday?”

“How could I have been? I worked until evening. Unlike you guys, I work hard at my job!”

“But you came to the bathhouse, right?”

“Bathhouse?” Hanuki looked confused.

“You called to us from the women’s bath.”

“Hold on. What are you talking about?”

“That’s funny. Jōgasaki, you heard her too, right?”

From somewhere behind the mountains of garbage I heard Jōgasaki reply crossly, “Yeah, I heard her. That was Hanuki all right.”

“You guys aren’t like having a heatstroke, right?” Hanuki said. “I only stopped by here on the way home. Then we started talking about the striptease, and then Ozu spilled cola all over the remote, and then it all broke up. Gosh, you guys, don’t scare me like that!”

We seemed to be talking past one another.

I thought back to the events of yesterday evening, when I returned from the used book fair to the apartment. Everyone had been gathered here in the hallway, demanding for some reason that I do a striptease.The Cola Catastrophe had thrown everything into confusion, but then, too, our conversation had felt strangely disjointed.

“Well, it’s summer, I guess everyone’s a little spaced out.” Hanuki let out a yawn. “Seriously though, what’s Jōgasaki up to back there?”

I looked over to see Jōgasaki crouched down at the end of the hallway.

As I approached, a strange object came into view. It was a dignified old tatami mat, black and shiny like it had been simmered in a stew for a long time. But it wasn’t just any ordinary tatami. It looked as if someone had ripped out one of the tatami from the apartment and modded it up; a red seat had been mounted in the center of the mat, and in front of that was a control panel, complete with lever and buttons.

“Dudes, what do you think it is?”

We all congregated around Jōgasaki.

Hanuki folded her arms. “Yeah, I have no idea.”

“It was just leaning on the wall right there.”

“It looks like some kind of vehicle,” I observed. “But I don’t see any wheels.”

“Perhaps the Master picked it up somewhere?” pondered Akashi.

“Wait, hold on. Yeah, I got it, this just goes like this,” Jōgasaki stood up what appeared to be a large desk lamp attached to the contraption.

No sooner had he done this than a thought crossed my mind: wait, I’ve seen this somewhere before.

There was no doubt that every single person standing there was thinking of a famous manga featuring a rotund blue robot cat who had come from the distant future in a contraption very much like this one. But it was so obvious that no one could bring themselves to point it out. For a while we just stared at each other in silence.

It was Akashi who finally said it, in a tiny, embarrassed voice.

“Isn’t this a time machine?”

The wind chime at the balcony tinkled. Summer was here.

◯

We gathered around the time machine, doubling over with laughter.

It really was very well made. On the control panel there was a place to input numbers for days and years, and turning the dial really made the numbers go up and down. The plus/minus switch seemed to determine whether you traveled into the future or the past. If you wanted to go ten years into the future, then you set it to +10; if you wanted to go into the past, then -10.

“Who made this thing?”

“Some DIYer with a lot of time, probably.”

As we discussed the matter, Higuchi and Ozu returned from the landlady’s house.

“Hello there, friends. What a lively discussion you all seem to be having,” said Higuchi, before pointing at Jōgasaki. “And you, Jōgasaki. Return my Vidal Sassoon at once!”

Higuchi had placed a call to the Oasis bathhouse, only to be told that no one had left any shampoo there. Higuchi’s reasoning, then, was that if it hadn’t been Ozu or me that had stolen it, it must have been Jōgasaki. His logic had all the subtlety of a falling tree trunk.

“I don’t know anything about your damn shampoo!”

“I shan’t give you another chance to apologize, Jōgasaki.”

“Oh, who cares about that!” Hanuki interrupted. “Is this your time machine, Higuchi?”

Higuchi studied the contraption sitting in the middle of the hall with great interest. “Nay. It is not mine.”

“Then it’s gotta be one of Ozu’s pranks.”

At Jōgasaki’s accusation Ozu shook his head. “Perish the thought. If I was going to pull something it woulda been a lot more devious than this.”

A well-crafted time machine placed in a hallway was hardly likely to bring about someone’s misfortune. If anything it would probably just elicit heartwarming smiles all around. It was too wholesome for someone who sustained himself on other people’s misfortune like Ozu did.

I took a look at the control panel. The year was set to -25, and the day was set to 0. Just to see, I set the year to 0, and the day to -1. That meant it would take me to yesterday. There didn’t seem to be a way to set the time of day.

Higuchi suddenly drew himself up and thundered, “Ozu, I charge you thus: to explore the far reaches of time and space!”

“Upon my honor!”

Ozu pushed past me and boarded the time machine. The sight that presented itself was that of a gloomy imp squatting on the red seat. Hanuki, Akashi, and I immediately took a step back from the time machine and saluted him.

Ozu put his hand on the lever and looked around at us.

“Master, esteemed colleagues. It has been my honor to have served alongside you all. Though we be divided by vast expanses of time and space, humble Ozu will never forget this debt of gratitude!”

Higuchi nodded solemnly. “Indeed. Fare thee well.”

Ozu pulled the lever with great aplomb. “Farewell! Be well!”

The next instant, in front of our very eyes Ozu’s body began to twist and warp. No, perhaps I should say it was the actual space that he occupied which was warping. A dazzling flash of light filled the hallway, and a violent whirlwind blew up around us. I instinctively covered my head. The whirlwind jostled us around for a little while before abruptly vanishing, and the hallway became still once more. In the unnatural silence, the only thing I heard was the wind chime, still tinkling in the breeze.

I opened my eyes cautiously to find that both Ozu and the time machine had vanished.

“Um, okay,” said Hanuki. “What was that?”

We all looked at each other. Everyone was in a state of shock.

We looked everywhere—on the balcony, among the garbage, in the storeroom, inside Higuchi’s and my room, on the stairs to the first floor, even in the bathroom—but Ozu was nowhere to be found. It didn’t seem possible that he could have hidden both himself and that entire machine in such a short span of time.

“Maybe it was a real…” Akashi whispered, but Jōgasaki shook his head.

“Dude, there’s no way!”

“Then where did he go?” I asked. “There’s nowhere for him to hide.”

“There had to be some sort of trick. It’s Ozu we’re talking about here.”

Higuchi and Hanuki sat down on the sofa, seemingly having given up on trying to think it through and content to just let it all play out. It turned out that was the right attitude to take.

After a short while, that same dazzling light filled the hallway, and with a gust of howling wind Ozu and the time machine reappeared.

“Well now,” said Ozu, looking at us. “Ladies and gents, this is a big deal.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Yesterday,” he replied nonchalantly. “See, when I pulled the lever, everything around me went all wibbly wobbly. Next thing I knew the hallway was empty, and everyone was gone. I didn’t know what was happening, so I went out to the balcony, and then I heard a lot of kerfuffle coming from the landlady’s garden. When I looked over the railing, I saw it in the middle of filming, Slayers of the Bakumatsu! It was so cool, I kept watching for a little bit, but then I thought I oughta come back and offer my report, and so here I am. But man, this is one nifty gadget!”

“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you!”

I couldn’t blame Jōgasaki for being angry. You could only take this nonsense so far.

But Akashi gasped. “The video!”

“Video?”

“The Many Ozus theory!”

Immediately the strange still from the video I had seen earlier sprang into my mind.

Sitting on the floor, Akashi opened up the laptop, and we all peered at the screen.

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There was Iwakura Tomomi clinging to the kappa statue, and the raggedy Shinsengumi crowding around him. And in the background of the shot, visible standing at the balcony, was the other Ozu.

“Yup, that’s me. That’s the me from yesterday struggling as Iwakura Tomomi in the foreground, and then that’s the me from today watching from the balcony. See, what’d I tell ya?”

“You mean there were two Ozus yesterday?” asked Hanuki.

“That means…” gasped Akashi. We all looked at the time machine.

Here in the student apartments, on this midsummer’s day, an earth-shatteringly revolutionary new invention had just dropped out of the sky. No one dared breathe, until Higuchi Seitarō slowly rose up from the couch and gravely proclaimed, “That means that this is a bona fide time machine.”