Exams, exams, exams

Exams exams exams. 

As soon as he entered junior high school, Tetsuya's life turned into a continuous stream of check boxes and multiple choice questions.  They sat in rows, wearing maroon blazers and German school ties as an interchangeable procession of over worked, over stressed, over dedicated teachers threw words and figures and formula at them.  The good students had soft hands, they knew to move with the trajectory of the information.  Tetsuya was one of the good ones.

One day a girl with swept back hair and a green enamel butterfly clip told Testsuya that some boy at a school down the road had been killed.  She said that he hadn't been achieving the grades his parents expected of him so one night his mother strangled him. According to the police the mother had always boasted in the neighbourhood that her son was going to Tokyo University or Waseda and was going to be a doctor or an engineer.  But it turned out that her son didn't have what it takes and she couldn't handle it.  She used her husband's belt to strangle him.  Then she called the police.  When they came she was carefully packing a small suitcase, which she asked to take with her. 

Apparently the boy had bitten most of the way through his tongue as he died.  His mother's indoor slippers were thick with blood, they left neat little patterns as she walked around the bedroom collecting her clothes.  Her feet were really quite small; it looked a little like a doll had been playing in red paint.  When asked for a comment the mother said: 'He wasn't trying hard enough.'

That wasn't the worst, said the girl with the butterfly clip.  Apparently one of the boys was being, you know, taken care of by his mother so that he could get on with his studies.  Like, make sure he wasn't being distracted by well, you know...right?  Gross!

Everyday brought a new mountain of nonsense to remember.  The teachers said they were on their side, that all they wanted in the world was for them to get that university place, to realise their dreams.  Tetsuya remembered an English lesson when he was 16, studying to get into high school.  It was summer but just before they were allowed to use the air conditioners, so the classroom was hot and humid like the inside of a swimming pool. Dark rings of sweat spreading under his armpits, the English teacher, a lank brown haired foreigner, asked them to write a short essay about their dreams for the future.  Tetsuya wrote that he wanted to be a game designer.  Liquid dripped from his forehead and pooled in his glasses, splashing on his text book when the frames could hold no more. 

The other people in his kumi group were all writing.  I want to be a doctor because I can help people who are sick.  I want to be a hairdresser so that I can make people beautiful.  I want to be a pro-baseball player so that I can make lots of money.  Tetsuya wrote: 'I like games very much so I want to make games'.  He wrote: 'games make many people happy in the world.  They help people to relax and have fun.  I want to make people happy and relaxed and funny.'  The teacher corrected him at the end and Tetsuya dutifully wrote the revisions.  What Tetsuya really wanted to say was that he wanted to make games because when he looked around him everyone looked beaten and beaten people need to escape.  But he didn't have the English.  And it was too hot to ask.

After the lesson his group got their tables together and lunch was served out.  Although it was sweltering in the room the menu for the day was pork and beans, thick winter food.  The lunch monitors ladled it out into bowls and gave out thick cut pieces of sweat brown bread.  Some people were off with summer colds so a few milk cartons were left over.  The six boys that vied for the left over milk stood at the front of the class and played a loud and heavily contested rock, scissors, paper until finally the spoils were correctly distributed.  That day they only had an hour to eat lunch before sports. 

There were six people in Tetsuya's kumi, three boys and three girls.  All of them had jobs: the cleaning monitor, the sports monitor, the food monitor and so on.  Katsumi was in Tetsuya's kumi group.  She had always been in his group.

It was quiet that lunch. Exams loomed on the horizon and everyone had their heads buried in textbooks, hands mechanically spooning congealed pork and beans into their mouths.  Tetsuya stared at the metal bowl in front of him as condensation tickled slowly towards his bread.  At that moment there was nothing more disgusting on the earth.

'Its gross isn't it.'

Katsumi had pushed her tray a few centimetres in front of her and was wiping her spoon with a tissue.

'I cant believe they give us this in summer.  Again!  I hate pork and beans.'

'Me too,' Tetsuya said, deciding to give up on the food as well.  Katsumi lent forward on her elbows and although she looked hot and bothered she still managed to put on an air of cheerfulness. Her mouth spread into a mischievous grin.

'Hey, do you remember back in primary school when we used to have competitions to see how fast we could eat lunch?'

She picked up her milk, pulled the straw off the side and deftly pushed it into the carton. 

'I bet you I can drink this faster than you.'

Tetsuya picked up his own milk carton and hefted it in his right hand. It felt heavy and gloriously cold.

'You bet me what?'

Katsumi rolled her eyes for a few moments.  It was as if she was rotating her brain until an idea fell out.  She did the same thing when she was trying to answer difficult questions in class.

'I got it!' she said, making her right hand into a gun shape and pointing it at Tetsuya.  'If you win, I have to make you something delicious that you can eat instead of this horrid food.  Like biscuits or something.  I am a good cook.'

'Okay,' said Tetsuya 'and if I lose?  I have to say I cannot cook one bit.'

Katsumi giggled and whispered: 'No, no you don't have to cook or anything.  There is a new film I want to see at the cinema.  A horror film.  REALLY scary.  No one will go with me and I really want to see it.  So, if I win, you have to go with me to the cinema.  You don't have to buy the tickets or anything just go with me.  I think there is something so sad about going to the cinema on your own.  Don't you?  The best bit about a film is talking about it afterwards.  So...'

Tetsuya held his hands up.  'Okay, okay.  Deal.  Lets do this thing.'

Tetsuya pulled out his straw and pierced the foil hole in the top of the milk carton.  Katsumi was ready, her straw hovering mere millimetres from her mouth.

She looked up from under her black fringe.

'On three.  One...two...three!'

And with that the race began. 

From the beginning Tetsuya knew he was doomed.  It had been a while since his last milk race, not an excuse of course, but he made the mistake of not clearing his windpipe with a thorough exhale before starting to suck.  The result was disastrous.  As Katsumi effortlessly destroyed the milk cartoon in strong confident gulps, Tetsuya found himself struggling to regulate the flow of air and coordinate his breathing.  In a blind effort to catch up he decided to rush forward to the end game, where the milk carton would be squeezed and then folded into a small square.  Panic rising, he began to fold, realising too late that the cartoon was at least one third full.  A powerful jet of milk forced its way past his windpipe and, ricocheting of the oesophagus, squirted out through his nose - now a diffuse mist of white liquid.  This coincided with Katsumi folding her own box victoriously, which gave the expulsion an air of incredulity rather than just pure ineptitude.  Thankfully, only the other three on their table had noticed, and they all studiously ignored Tetsuya's lamentable performance.

A wide grin spread across Katsumi's face as she passed Tetsuya a pink pokemon hanky.  The same one she’d had from primary school.

'Are you free this weekend?'

'Mmm,'

'Saturday?'

'Mmm,'

'Don't be such a sore loser!'

'I'm not!'
‘Saturday it is then.’

So on Saturday, at 3:30, Tetsuya found himself standing next to a UFO catcher machine full of stuffed elephant/pig hybrids outside a games arcade.  He was nervous and shuffled about uncomfortably.

But he had a plan.  He had already sunk 700 yen into the UFO catcher machine and carefully manoeuvred one of the ele-pigs so that after one or two more tries he would almost certainly be successful.  Then, when Katsumi turned up, he would suggest a quick game before the film, successfully snare the improbable beast and present it to her as a token of his manly ability to protect her from wild animals.  This would make up for the appalling performance with the milk race, and re-establish a more favourable, less emasculating, relationship.  He drifted off for a moment, imagined Katsumi clapping as he produced her prize, the way he would graciously accept her praise, while protesting that it was nothing, probably a fluke. 

Katsumi had tiny, perfectly formed fingernails.  He wondered what colour they would be today.

While Tetsuya was lost in his dream world, a couple of girls dressed in their school uniforms put 100 yen into the UFO machine.  It sprang to life.  Before Tetsuya could react, with great concentration and considerable strategic aptitude the girls had guided the robot arm over to the prone ele-pig – Katsumi’s ele-pig - and after a quick consultation pressed the grab button.  The arm lowered, skeletal prongs extending towards the prize.  Tetsuya’s heart began to race: please let them mess this up.  The prongs brushed against the underside of the ele-pig and then began to contract.  Tetsuya watched in slow motion as the arm began to lift and with it came the ele-pig.  It raised majestically, slowly, beautifully, the freak of nature in that moment taking on all the gravity of a monarch rising to sacrifice herself for her nation.  There was no tottering, no imbalance – just perfect elevation.

But Tetsuya knew that elevation alone wasn’t enough.  He was a veteran of these machines, and he knew the sick tricks they would play at the last moment.  He hoped this machine was vindictive, that when the arm reached its apex it would judder and shake the ele-pig loose, which would then fall into exactly the same place it had been.  And then the girls, because they had to save money to pay for the bus, would walk away deflated.  Actually, thought Tetsuya as the arm came closer and closer to the decisive moment, it would be better for the girls if they did lose the ele-pig.  The fun of the game is in the suspense, the knowledge that it probably would fall, but that there was a tiny chance that it wouldn’t and you would beat the system.  That was the moment of excitement.  If they actually did win the game would cease to be fun, the achievement would ruin everything.  They would never know what it was like to covet the offspring of an elephant and a pig ever again.  And that was intensely sad.  So for their sake –

The arm hit the top.  It juddered.  Violently.  But the ele-pig stayed stuck fast.  It was over.  The girls knew it too.  They were every bit as seasoned as Tetsuya, they knew they had won.  The arm glided over to the drop-box and let go.  The girls pulled it out through the letterbox at the bottom of the machine.  They were laughing, clapping, happy, congratulating each other. 

‘Look!  It has a little heart on its nose!’

‘That’s soooo cute!’

‘Who is going to take it home?’

‘Ah, well… you got the last one, remember?’

‘Yeah but, you have loads more than me, so can I have it?’

‘Come on, that’s a little…’

This continued as they walked away.  I hope that little stuffed animal rips you apart, thought Tetsuya.  It had a little heart on its nose.  Katsumi would have loved that.

A few moments later she appeared.

Katsumi was a short bundle of nervous energy.  She never strolled, always skipped or bounded or walked with purpose. She wore thick rimmed glasses and read a lot. Once, at school cleaning time, one of the more officious boys had shouted at her in front of everyone for not wringing out her cloth properly after cleaning the floor.  She responded by poring a bucket of dirty water over his head.  This would not have been such an amazing feat in of itself, but the fact that she went to one of the toilets to get the water from a friend cleaning there and then came back with it was nothing short of genius. Her mother had been called to the school, her Dad had died of cancer when she was six, and apparently it was touch and go whether she would be allowed to stay.  A deal was struck in the end though, and Katsumi kept her head down ever since.  But after that people didn’t order her around; to half the class she was a social pariah, the other half a mysterious hero.

She was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt.  Tetsuya could make out the smooth curve of her bra underneath.

‘Hey!  Sorry I’m late.’

She bowed deeply.

‘Don’t worry about it.  When does the film start?’

‘We don’t have long, do you want to get going?’

Tetsuya glanced at the UFO machine.  There was always the possibility…

‘How about a go on this?  I reckon I can get that one over there,’ he said pointing in the vague direction of a cluster of stuffed animals.

Katsumi grimaced.

‘Why would you want on of those?  They’re really weird!’

And with that she grabbed Tetsuya’s arm and started running towards the cinema screen.  By the time they arrived they
were both panting and red faced.  At the counter Katsumi asked for two tickets.  The man sat behind the counter looked at them suspiciously.

‘You need to be accompanied by an adult to watch this film.  I’m afraid that I can’t sell you a ticket without an adult present.’
Katsumi turned to Tetsuya.

‘I told you this would happen.  I said I didn’t want to go on the UFO catcher!  I told you mum wouldn’t wait for us.  Now what are we going to do!’

Tetsuya stared back blankly.  This was probably the right move.Katsumi looked around, peering past the barrier.  Suddenly she started bellowing:

‘Mum!  Muuuuuuuuuuum!  We’re here! MUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMM!’

The people behind the barrier did their best to ignore her, but one middle aged woman, wearing a floaty summer dress, was caught in Katsumi’s trap.  She looked up, at which point Katsumi started waving energetically.  She turned back to the ticket seller.

‘You see, there she is.  I am really sorry to have caused so much trouble,’ she turned back to the woman behind the barrier, who was still standing and staring.

‘Muuuuuuuuuumm!  WAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTT!  We will be through in a minute!!!!!’

At this the ticket seller gave in, either convinced that the lady in the floaty dress was the mother of these two panting 14 year olds, or simply engaging in an exercise in damage limitation. In either case the outcome was as Katsumi had (obviously) intended.

‘Thank you sir,’ said Katsumi, bowing deeply.

After they walked through the ticket style, Katsumi lent over and whispered:

‘I should have told I was going to do that.  Sorry.’

Tetsuya stared back in awe.

After buying the requisite coca-cola and M&Ms, they went through to the cinema screen and found their seats.  The screen was mostly empty.  Not many people watched horror movies on a Saturday afternoon, thought Tetsuya.  After a few minutes Katsumi stood up and led Tetsuya over to two seats in the middle of the screen, slightly towards the projector.

‘These are the holy grail of cinema seats,’ she explained.

‘What if someone comes in late?’

‘Then we’ll move.’

Nobody came in late, and they were very good seats.

The movie started slowly at first, laboriously building up a picture of a fragile young woman and a paternalistic older man who took it upon himself to look after her.  They went on dates together, and the man made bad jokes. 

‘A Japanese man checks into a hotel wearing seven pairs of underwear.  The clerk asks: why are you wearing seven pairs of underwear?  The Japanese man says: are you stupid? One for everyday of the week of course.  Then later a North Korean man walks in to the hotel wearing twelve pairs of underwear, and the clerk asks: why are you wearing twelve pairs of underwear?  The North Korean man says: are you stupid? One for each month of the year!’

The fragile young woman always laughed behind her hand, before correcting herself.  Inch by inch the man made roads into her psyche, helping her to come out from behind the barrier she had constructed.  She became more confident, made jokes of her own, even started playing the piano.  But, as the man became closer to her, physically closer to her, things started to go wrong.

About two thirds of the way through the film the older man asked her to stay at his house.  They got into bed together and, while kissing tentatively, he pulled off her blouse.  (At this point Katsumi had nudged Tetsuya as if to say, finally some action!)  He ran his hands over her skin and then jerked back in shock.  The camera pulled out to show her covered in scars, crisscrossing her body.  The fragile young woman then burst into tears, explaining that her father had whipped her as a child and she had always been too scared to show anyone her body.  The older man took her in his arms and tried to comfort her, stroking her hair and telling her she was beautiful. 

But he had already failed her test.

With that, the last twenty or so minutes spiralled out of control.  The shocking banality of the last hour evaporated into scene after scene of shocking sadism.  The fragile girl, now remarkably sturdy, began to knock of the older man’s family one by one, employing the most fantastical means at her disposal.  His sister was thrown into a bath of acid and held there until her skin dissolved.  His nephew was castrated and forced to shoot himself.  His brother was skinned alive.

But the most hideous death was reserved for the older man himself.  The now sturdy and patently psychotic girl, having shot him in both legs and tied his arms so he couldn’t escape, took a long fishing knife and slowly, deliberately, sliced off his fingers.  Then, she began to open up his stomach and carefully take out his insides, laying them on a plastic sheet attached like a bib to the older man’s chest.  She commented on the state of the organs as she did so – oh you have been eating too much meat! Oh I see you like to drink! Its not good for you, you know?  Try to eat more fish and drink green tea.  I want you to live for ever, so you can protect me.

Tetsuya could barely watch the screen, and kept looking over at Katsumi to see if she was in as much discomfort as he was.  But her eyes didn’t flinch – she seemed enthralled by the carnage.

For the coup de grace, the sturdy psychotic monster took the same fishing knife and began to make tight, deep incisions into the older man’s skull.  While she was doing this she muttered to herself, too low to catch anything, her words rising and falling like a staccato musical phrase.  Then, she stood up and placed a stiletto heel on the centre of the old man’s forehead.

‘I will never let you do that to me again, papa’

And with that she pushed down.  The incisions were placed in such a way that the pressure caused by the heel split the older man’s head into a collection of cascading pieces.

‘Never again.’

Roll credits.  The lights went up.  Tetsuya felt sick.  Katsumi look round at him and beamed.

‘Wow! I wonder how they made it look so real!’

‘I ah, don’t, ah, shall we go?’

Katsumi shook her head.

‘No. I always stay right to the end to see the names of everyone who made the film.  It’s only polite right?  They put in so much effort to make something to entertain us.’

‘Sure, of course.  It’s only polite.’

They sat there until the credits had finished.  Katsumi seemed to recognise a number of the names on the screen, and when it came to the principle makeup artist she nodded her head in a knowing fashion.  Tetsuya was beginning to regain his composure, and by the end of the credits had managed to convince himself that what he’d just seen was just a collection of animal parts bound together with red corn syrup.

As they walked out Katsumi bowed deeply to the man behind the counter.  Outside the cinema Katsumi stopped and turned round.  She grabbed Tetsuya’s hands.

‘Thanks for coming with me.’

Her fingernails were a multitude of colours, each one tiny and perfect.