Occupied City

~ ~ ~

IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, you are a writer and you are running –

In the wintertime, papers in your arms, through this January night, down these Tokyo streets, you are running from the scene of the crime; from the snow and from the mud, from the bank and from the bodies; running from the scene of the crime and from the words of the book; words that first enticed and entranced you, then deceived and defeated you, and now have left you in-snared and in-prisoned –

Beneath a sky that threatens more than night, more than snow, now you huff and breath-puff, puff and breath-pant, pant and gasp –

For in your ears, you hear them coming, step by step, whispering and muttering. In your ears, you hear them gaining, step by step-step, drooling and growling, step by step-step by step –

A Night Parade of One Hundred Demons …

In the night-stagger, your spectacles fall from your nose. In the snow-stumble, your papers fall from your hand. In the night and in the snow, you scramble for your spectacles and for your papers, you search for your sight and for your work. But the ghost-laden wind is here now, again the be-specter-ed air is upon you. It steals your papers and it shatters your spectacles, it makes a sheaf-blizzard of the loose-leafs, a shard-storm of the slivered-lenses, as you claw through the laden wind, as you thrash through the haunted air –

But then the wind is dead and now the air is gone, the sheaves fall and the shards drop. You grab your spectacles, you grasp your papers, your manuscript; your manuscript of

the book-to-come;

this book that

will not

come–

This unfinished book of unsolved crime. This book of Winter, this book of Murder, book of Plague.

The blank sheets in your hands, the empty frames on your nose, now you see the Black Gate up ahead, and so you start to run again, through the January night, huffing and breath-puffing, down the Tokyo streets, puffing and breath –

Now you stop running.

Beneath the Black Gate, you seek shelter. In its damp shadows, you squat now. Under the eaves of the gate, here there is no one else, only the finger-night-tips, the foot-snow-steps. This gate once a treasure, this gate now a ruin, almost; but this gate still remains, this gate now a sanctuary, perhaps. No crows, no foxes, no thugs, no prostitutes tonight. Only night and only snow, their finger-cold-tips and their foot-dirty-steps. You breathe hard, your soaked-coat-through, you spit blood, your stained-papers-red. Your breath is bad and belly bloated, your eyes bloodshot and face swollen –

But here, under this Black Gate, in these damp shadows, here you will hide. Here inside, inside here –

Here you will hide –

Hide! Hide!

From this city, out of breath, from this city, out of time. This cursed city; city of riot and city of earthquake, city of assassination and city of coups, city of bombs and city of fire, city of disease and city of hunger, this city of defeat, defeat and surrender –

This damned city; city of robbery and

city of rape, city of murder,

of murder and plague –

These things you have witnessed, these things you have documented, in the ink you have spilt, on the papers you have spoiled. Inside here, here

inside –

‘… a ghost-story-telling game popularized during the Edo period. By the mid-seventeenth century its form was established among samurai as a playful test of courage, but by the early nineteenth century it had become a widespread entertainment for commoners. The game begins with a group of people gathering at twilight in the pale-blue light of one hundred lit candles, each covered with a pale-blue paper shade. Each person in turn then tells a tale of supernatural horror and at the end of each tale one wick is extinguished. As the evening and the tales progress the room becomes dimmer and gloomier until, after the one hundredth tale has been told and the last candle blown out, the room is in complete darkness. At this moment it is believed that real ghouls or monsters will appear in the dark, conjured up by the terrifying tale-telling…’

The blood-blots, the tear-traces, the dead letters and the death sentences. You look up from your papers, you snatch sight of a stairway, a broad stairway to an upper storey, an upper storey away from the city. You rush to gather your papers, you run to climb the steps, finger-light-tips follow you up, foot-soft-steps echo your own –

One step, two steps, three steps, four –

Half-way up, you stop, stair-still,

stair-bent, you crouch,

breath-held –

In the chamber of the upper storey, high on the under-hide of the roof, there is light above your head, here inside the Black Gate,

here you are not alone, here in-presence-d …

You climb again, you stop again, and now you see –

In the upstairs chamber, in an occult circle –

Twelve candles and twelve shadows –

In the Occupied City, beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in this occult circle of these twelve candles,

now you are on your knees.

Suddenly, the ceiling of the chamber is illuminated by a flash of lightning. You look, you listen. You hear a peal of thunder, the fall of rain hard upon the roof of the gate. You listen, you look –

In the light of the candles, you see and now you hear a hand-bell being shaken in the air; hear and see a bell and a hand –

The red bell and the white hand, the white arm and the red sleeve, the red robe and the white face of a woman –

The woman, a medium, before you –

In the centre of the circle of the candles,

in their gutter-ring, she stands –

Her hair and her robes now flailing within a sudden tempest, for the laden wind has found you here again, again the haunted air,

as the medium rattles the bell again and again, and again –

The bell, and now the sound of a drum beating slowly,

as the medium begins to dance, to spin and to turn –

Madly, the bell clattering and the wind howling,

the drum beating, on and on, over and over –

Feet moving through the splintered wood,

dancing, spinning and spinning, turning –

Suddenly she stops, suddenly still now,

frozen, the bell slips from her hand –

Abruptly, she faces you now, to say:

‘Let the story-telling game begin…’

Then she tears towards you,

in this Possessed City –

The medium falls to the floor before you, now she sits upright, taut and still, and now her mouth begins to open, to speak. In a disembodied drone, it speaks. It speaks the words of the dead –

‘We are here because of you,’ they whisper. ‘Because of you, our dear sweet, sweet writer dear, because of you …