Untimely Endings- An Anthology (Story 2)

The Smell

He’s standing on the edge of the platform, deep underground, waiting for the next subway train to come along. A small puddle of sweat is gathering just below the nape of his neck, and soon spills over and runs down his back. It’s both uncomfortable and a relief; the salty sweat causes his business shirt to cling to his back, but at the same time the breeze from the approaching train brings with it a moment of cool relief.
Buzz can feel the subway train before he sees or hears it, as it forces a column of air out of the tunnel like toothpaste from a tube. Even though the air is damp and dirty, it still offers that tiny bit of relief as it strikes his sweaty skin.
It’s Tuesday evening and mid-summer in Tokyo. The seasons in this country run like the trains, they run like clockwork. Unlike his hometown of Manchester where a winter can slowly bleed into a fall, making the change of seasons almost unnoticeable, the seasons of this country seemingly change overnight. And summer is putridly hot and humid in Tokyo. Now he’s standing in the middle of it, three levels underground in one of Japan’s biggest train stations, Shinjuku Station.
They say you get used to the summers here, but after seven years, he still hates them. The dirty air sticks to your face the moment you walk out the front door in the morning.
He never imagined he would be here for this long, and it certainly wasn’t part of the plan. Just a year in a cushy teaching job, save a bit of money, and head back to good old England. But as it happens, he met a girl (now his ex-wife), had a baby (now his joint-custodial seven-year old daughter) and stayed on.
He boards the train and tries to tolerate the elbow in his ribcage. It belongs to a thirty-something businesswoman. He knows she can’t help it; the train is jammed beyond capacity, forcing people up against each other in ways that would be socially unacceptable (and perhaps illegal) in any other situation.
It’s just after 7pm and the clogged carriage smells like a mixture of sweated alcohol, electricity and perfume (probably the last from the one with her elbow in his ribs). His mind turns to Saturday night. He has plans to go to an all-night rave in Shibuya, arguably the place to be if you’re young and Japanese and cool. He isn’t any of those things, but he has loved raving since he was a teenager and still can dance for eight hours straight at the age of forty-one. Of course, a little chemical help goes a long way.
He feels his cell phone vibrate in his trouser pocket and knows the woman with the elbow can feel it too. If he reaches for it, he knows there’s a good chance she will holler CHIKAN! In Japan, there is a word for people who inappropriately touch others on trains. New words are only ever created if there’s a market for them, and he knows the danger of reaching into your pocket on such a crowded train.
The vibration stops after two cycles, so he knows it’s only an email and not a phone call. I’ll check it when I get off this fucken train, he thinks.

The train journey itself takes forty-two minutes and the walk from the station to his apartment takes another nine. He has walked it enough times to know which side of the road to walk on and when. He knows where to stand when caught at a red traffic signal. He knows which shops and houses offer the best protection. It’s all about avoiding the sun. He has walked this route many times he could find the pockets of shade offered by thick lampposts, shops with extended eaves, and the drooping trees if he was blindfolded. At this time of year, Tokyoites do everything they can to keep the heat down.
By the time he reaches his front door, his now semi-transparent shirt is wallpapered to his torso and sweat is running down his back and soaks the top of his trousers. His head is shaved so that only a small forest of blonde re-growth shows. It’s been like that for years and earned him his nickname, Buzz. No-one but his co-workers at the elementary school call him by his real name, Gary.
His face is flushed pink and tiny red spider web-like veins are starting to show. The years of all-night partying and drinking and doing chemicals are starting to ooze themselves out of his body.
He puts the key in the lock. First thing, get outta these stinkin clothes, second thing, throw on the air-con full blast, third thing, beer from the fridge, lastly, a shower.
He steps inside and his mind registers it instantly. Something faint, but something foreign. A strange smell.
Within seconds the air-con is running at full capacity, and he strips naked beneath it, leaving his sweat-soaked clothes in a pile on the floor. He can smell his own body odour. He gets a beer from the fridge and returns to stand beneath the air-con, with its vents adjusted so the cold snappy air hits him directly. The can feels like a tube of ice in his hand, and he relishes at the feeling of the cold draught rolling down his throat. His body temperature is starting to drop.
He wants to sit on the sofa and watch some TV, but his back is still too wet and he knows he’d only stick to the vinyl. So he grabs the remote from the coffee table and snaps on the television. It’s all in Japanese, of course, and he can only understand a fraction, but it’s company all the same.
It’s a newsbreak. He can’t catch what the reporter is saying, but judging by the footage he knows someone is dead. The black plastic covering a lump. The police line. Probably a suicide. He flicks stations. A cooking show. He flicks again. Another cooking show. One more change, and it’s a J-POP band on a cooking show.
With the air-con running at full power and the Japanese boy band declaring how delicious the tempura is, he heads for the shower.

The water temperature is preset to 35 degrees Celsius. It feels colder as he stands under the shower head, arms and legs spread and leaning up against the wall like a suspect being searched. It’s like sex, he sighs as the cool water rinses away the first layer of sweat and grime. He has a routine: rinse off and cool down, shampoo the hair and rinse out, massage in the conditioner and leave it in whilst lathering up on the body soap. This gives the conditioner time to do its work as he cleans his body. His hair is only millimeters long, but it’s a routine he’s been doing for years in Japan.
What to do about Saturday night. Now he sits on the little plastic stool and allows the water to rain down his back. The Japanese like to sit when washing, and the typical Japanese bathroom reflects this. The shower itself is one room, holding the shower, a small bath and a vanity basin. Rather than standing in a small, changing room-like glass cubicle as in the West, the entire bathroom is used as a shower in Japan. Odd at first, now he finds it convenient and comfortable.
What to do about Saturday night. He always goes to a club in Shibuya called The Emerald Forest, and this Saturday night there’s one of his favourite DJs playing. He has hundreds of favourite DJs. His mate Danny, another unplanned long-timer in Japan, has lined up the Ecstasy, speed and other drugs. Buzz isn’t a big fan of the others, but a couple of Ecstasy pills and a line or two of speed will wipe out his reality of teaching Japanese children Monday to Friday, the crowded trains, the heat, and the constant guilt of not spending more time with his daughter. All will be replaced with the thud and the pump and the lights and the love of fellow dancers on the dance floor. It’s when nameless faces become friends, friends become brothers and sisters, all sharing the same feeling that never can be expressed or explained with words. It’s the world of music and dancing and touching and loving and removing meself from this fucken teeth-grinding routine I’ve gotten meself caught up in.
He remembers the vibration on the train. Forgot to check me email. He shuts off the shower, pats his almost hairless body half dry, and tiptoes from the bathroom, through the kitchen and back into the living room, making sure not to slip on the smooth, artificial wood floorboards.
He flips open his phone with one hand and sips from the beer can with the other. The ex-missus. Buzz scrolls down and opens the mail from Hiroko. He sits on the sofa before starting to read.

Hi ya. Wot time r u coming to get Ai on Saturday? Shes really looking forward. Hiroko.

It’s Tuesday. Saturday’s four days away. Surely this’ll give her enough time to make other plans. I can have her next weekend and the weekend after to make up for it. Surely she’ll be fine with that. He calls his ex-wife. They are on good terms. The breakup was amicable; they both wanted the split. Three years ago when he first hesitantly broached the notion of separating, Hiroko’s reaction seemed one of almost relief. They are still very close and good friends, which they both agree is very important and healthy for their daughter.
“You are fucking asshole!”
“Wait…calm down. I said I’ll take her next weekend and the weekend after.”
“You’re supposed to have her every second weekend! Not when you feel like. She’s your daughter, you asshole!” Hiroko hangs up.
Shit! He scrolls to dialed numbers and hits enter. What’s the fucken difference? I’m still having her the same number of times.
“What?” Hiroko snaps.
“Listen Hiroko. I know I’m supposed to have her this weekend. But this DJ is coming from Manchester and I really wanna hear him play. He was my hero in Manchester.”
“And you’re our daughter’s hero!” She hangs up again.
Shit! Shit! She’s pissed. The phone connects again. “Listen, you said yourself you don’t have any plans for this Saturday, so what’s the big problem? I’ll take her next weekend. And I’ll even take her the weekend after, on the 28th. How about that?” His voice is pitching higher than he wanted.
“On the 28th?” Hiroko asks.
“Yes.” Is there to be light at the end of this tunnel?
“Of August?”
“That’s right. I’ll even take her on the 28th of this month for the weekend too.” I’m gonna get outta this one.
“The 28th of August is when you’re supposed to take her, fucken asshole!” She hangs up again.
Buzz turns to the calendar on the living room wall. There it is, circled in red ink: the 14th and the 28th.
Another connection. “Okay, okay. I know I’m already supposed to have her on the 28th. And the 14th. What I’m saying is, I will take her on the 21st instead of the 28th, and on the 28th too.” He pauses. “Er, okay?”
“What the fuck you talking about?” she levels at him. And hangs up.
Getting my fucken dates confused. That’s what she does to me. “Hello? Yeah, listen Hiroko, please. What I mean is, I will take Ai on the 21st and the 28th, instead of the 14th. That’s two weekends in a row. That’ll give you a nice break. Whaddya say?”
“A break?”
“Yeah, for two weekends in a row. How about it? Come on, be a love.”
“A break from what?”
“A break from Ai.” Shit. Came out wrong.
“I don’t need a break from my daughter. I need a break from fucken asshole you!!” Click.
What’s that fucken smell?

He wants to call Danny as soon as he can stop putting it off. Dan will understand. He knows Danny has organised some goodies and he doesn’t want to let him down. Moreover, Buzz feels he could do with a heart-to-heart with a mate right now. Danny is always there for him.
“Shit mate, I’ve already lined up the fucken gear.”
Now Dan’s pissed. “I know, I know mate,” Buzz pleads. “But there’s nothin I can do about it. The ex went on the fucken rampage.”
“Jesus, man.”
“Don’t worry about it, Dan. I’ll still fix you up for the gear. How much do I owe you, by the way?”
“You owe me ten thousand yen and a fucken Satdy night.”

<> <> <>

It’s Wednesday evening and he enters his oven apartment.
Fucken rotten food or what?
He sorts out the air-con and strips naked and marches into the kitchen. First he checks everything in the fridge by reading the use-by-dates and then the sniff test. All ok. Then he opens every cupboard where he keeps food, and the pantry. There’s a jar of strawberry jam in the pantry. It has a suspicious streak of margarine in it from when he’s been too lazy to rinse the knife after buttering his toast. He unscrews the lid and peers inside. Very fucken dodgy. He sniffs. It smells a bit odd, but that’s not what he can smell. He rinses out the remaining jam nonetheless, and throws the jar into the recycling bin.
So it’s not the cupboards. Could be behind the stove. The stove is simply a two-burner bench-top apparatus. He lifts it easily and looks underneath. Holy shit! There’s a collection of oil-soaked food remnants that’s been sitting there for God only know how long. Balancing the stove on the kitchen sink, he grabs a scrunched-up handful of paper towels and scoops up the food. He wants to sniff it to compare it to the general smell in the apartment, but it looks too dangerous. Instead, he cuts a sheet of cling wrap from its box and secures the bundle before disposing of it in the paper bin. That oughta do it.

For the first time this summer, he leaves the air-con on all night, not so much to combat the heat, but to try to filter the air. The smell has crawled into his bedroom. He’s tired. Exhausted. The day time heat does that to a person, slowly sapping their energy as the brain diverts the body’s resources in an attempt to keep body temperature at a healthy level. His body is telling him to sleep. The fact he has to wake at 7am is also telling him to sleep. His brain, however, has registered the smell, and from the depths of his subconscious, he’s getting a primeval message to flee.
Buzz tussles with the sheet. Fucken summer in Tokyo. He turns to the bedside digital clock, its electric blue numbers antagonizing him. 2.58am. He covers his head with the sheet, breathes through his mouth a few times, then tries his nose. Fuck it! The smell is under the covers with him.
Again he tries breathing through his mouth only, but it’s unnatural and the effort pushes the edge of sleep further away. He has to use his nose, but again the smell slithers its way into his olfactory system, disturbing his brain and eliminating any chance of sleep. How can I fucken sleep like this?! After a couple of hours, he flings the sheet into the corner of the bedroom, storms into the living room and watches television until shower time.

<> <> <>

In Japan, there is a system called COOL BIZ. In an attempt to reduce electricity consumption and the heat island effect in the summer months, the Government introduced the idea and recommended all businesses adopt it.
One of the first things a visitor to Japan will notice is the apartment buildings jutting up from the ground like concrete growths. With such a small land area and a population pushing one hundred and twenty million, they have no choice but to build up. The second thing a visitor to Japan will notice is the suits. The Japanese wear suits. Whether working in a law firm or at an elementary school, and whether it’s 5°C or 35°C, the Japanese wear suits. It is part of the salary man culture. Pants, jacket and tie. Needless to say, summer can be very sweaty and uncomfortable in a suit. Unpractical. But it’s part of the business culture. Hence, the summer months of years gone by have seen electricity demands nearing – and on occasions exceeding – supply. Office air-conditioning systems devour electricity like flies devour rotten meat, cooling the air inside and spewing hot air outside. In built-up areas like Tokyo, this contributes to the heat island effect. Enter COOL BIZ. The Government has given approval for salary men to wear short-sleeved shirts and to do away with the tie (when not meeting clients). The jacket must be worn when arriving at and departing from the office, however it can be abandoned whilst in the office. The Government led by example, with Prime Minister Joichi Koizumi appearing tie-less at a media conference to launch the COOL BIZ campaign. Train posters and television commercials further promoted the initiative, which included suggesting companies set their air-conditioning systems to 28°C in summer. The idea is that if salary men can wear short-sleeved shirts and no tie, then the office can be warmer, hence reducing the consumption of electricity.
Buzz’s company opted not to adopt the idea. In many cases, societal norms are stronger than government initiatives. He remembers this now just as the glass sliding doors of his elementary school hiss open. It’s Thursday morning and he hasn’t slept a minute. In his agitated state when getting ready for work this morning, he forgot his tie. For fuck’s sake! Are they gonna send me home again to get one? And fucken Wes is workin today, the yankee pain in the arse.
Wesley is a skinny, pale American co-worker of Buzz’s at the elementary school. He likes ties. His glasses are framed in traditional black plastic and his thin, wispy brown hair is parted and glued to one side. Buzz wonders how someone in their early thirties could look so nerdy without realizing it.
“You forgot your tie,” Wesley grins. He insists the “s” in his name be pronounced as a strong s-sound, not the usual z-sound. Last year when they first met, Buzz thought he sounded like a snake when he introduced himself. Or a queer.
“Yeah I did, Wez.”
“Asano-san is not going to be happy,” he sings. Wesley is always happy.
“I already explained to him. It’s alright, mate.” Buzz fixes himself a coffee. The teacher’s room always smells of coffee.
“Well it just so happens you are in luck, my friend.” Now Wesley is really beaming. “I have a spare one.” He fumbles in is pigeon hole, then pulls out the tie.
“She’ll be right, mate. It’s just for today.”
“No, no, no, my friend. Here, try this on for size.”
One size fits all, fuckwit. “It’s alright, mate. Just for today.” Buzz peers into his coffee. Eye-contact alone with Wesley irritates him.
“No, no, no. I insist. I always keep a spare. You never know when there is going to be an emergency.”
Emergency? “Well Wez, I don’t think the students are gonna start vomiting pea soup if I don’t wear a tie for a day.”
Wesley stretches his arm out towards Buzz. “But I have one, so you might as well use it.”
For Christ’s sake. “She’ll be right, mate.”
“Go on.” He stretches his arm further so the tie is almost under Buzz’s nose.
Buzz has no choice but to look up from his paper coffee cup at the tie. What the fuck? “It’s okay, but thanks anyway mate.”
“It has Mickey on it,” Wesley says proudly.
“Yeah I can see that.” He looks around the room for a newspaper to save him. “Seen the paper?”
“Everyone loves Mickey Mouse. Look.” He moves in closer to Buzz.
“I see it mate.” He feels sweat prickling on his back. The tie is lime-green with five or six figures of Mickey Mouse printed on it, each one a different pose. Fishing Mickey. Hunting Mickey. Baseball Mickey. And so on.
“Go on, everyone loves Mickey, do they not?”
Don’t you ever use fucken contractions? “Well I’m not a big fan myself,” Buzz laughs politely. It is painful.
“Oh, go on. Give it a try. It is Mickey!”
This cunt is doing my fucken head in and the first class hasn’t even fucken started. “It’s ok, really mate.” He walks out of the teacher’s room to the toilet he doesn’t need to use next door. Leaning over the vanity basin, he splashes his face with cold water and looks hard into the mirror. Keep it cool, Buzz.
Wesley appears behind him, dangling the tie out in front like a child showing his mother a dead reptile he found in the back yard. “The children will love it. I am sure they will get a real kick out of it. Try it on!”
Buzz looks at Wesley in the mirror. His heart is pounding and he feels a trickle of sweat run down his spine. “Wez, I appreciate your offer, but I’m not wearing a Mickey Mouse tie. It’s really hot today and I could do without…”
“Come on, old lad!” Wesley interrupts, now in a very poor British accent. For the children.”
Fuck the children. “You wear it, mate.” Buzz is trying. He is really trying. He splashes his face again and attempts to retrieve some paper towel from the metal holder by the basin. No paper.
“Look! Baseball Mickey. Golf Mickey. Swimming Mick…”
Buzz swings around. “I don’t want ya fucken tie, ya fucken pain in the arse! Ya think the fucken sky’s gonna fucken fall in if I don’t wear a fucken tie for one fucken cunt of a fucken day?! Fuck Mickey, fuck the students, fuck Asano-san, and fuck you! Now fuck off and get outta me face! Christ O’Mighty!” God, the cunt’s fucken broken me.
Wesley is pale.
A toilet flushes. A cubicle door opens. Out walks another man, deadpan face. He moves in between Buzz and Wesley and washes his hands in the basin. Buzz has to take a step back to make room for him. Controlled, the man retrieves a handkerchief from his back trouser pocket and dries his hands. He moves towards the door and opens it, hesitating momentarily. He turns back to Buzz and Wesley.
“My office, please, Mr. Gary,” Mr. Asano says.
Buzz is pale.

As soon as he was escorted from the primary school, Buzz called Danny on his mobile phone. Danny works nights at an Irish bar in Shibuya, so he’s free during the day. It took Buzz twenty minutes to get to his friend’s apartment. He really needed to talk to a friend.
“You look like shit, mate.”
“Cheers, Dan.”
“What the fuck happened?”
Buzz recounts the morning’s conversation with Wesley, the Mickey Mouse tie, the blow-up, Asano-san in the toilet, the firing. Danny sits there packing the pipe, taking it all in.
“You shoulda knocked the cunt out,” Danny says evenly.
“Yeah and what, ended up in jail too?”
“I woulda flattened the little weasel.”
“Can I stay here tonight? There’s something wrong with my fucken place.”
“Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” Buzz starts, taking the packed pipe from Danny. “The joint fucken stinks.”
“Stinks?”
“Yeah, stinks.”
“Stinks of what?”
“I don’t fucken know!” He lights the pipe.
“Easy cowboy. Just asking. What’s it smell like?”
Buzz inhales and holds the smoke inside as he continues. “Smells like a rotten piece of steak left out in the sun.”
“Bad food in ya cupboards?”
“I checked. Everywhere. And the fridge. Nothin.”
“Something wrong with the pipes?”
Buzz hadn’t thought of that. “Could be. Dunno. Could be some kinda shit caught up in the pipes.”
“Ya wanna get yaself some Drain-O.”
“They sell that shit here?” He lays the pipe on the table. Danny instinctively picks it up and starts re-packing it.
“Well something like it, I’m sure. Why don’t ya ask Hiroko?”
“Oh Jesus man, I’m avoiding her like the fucken plague.”
“Ya still getting Ai on Satdy?” Danny asks.
“Yep.”
“So ya not coming out, then?”
“Mate, I already told ya. I fucken can’t.”
“Whao. Whao. Easy boy. Just askin.”
“Well don’t just fucken ask. I already told ya. I gotta have Ai.”
“How about next Satdy?”
“For fuck’s sake, Dan. I just lost me fucken job, me apartment fucken stinks, I’m tied down for the next three weekends with me daughter, and all you’re fucken worried about is goin out. Gimme a break, would ya?”
“Mate, calm down. I’m just worried about ya.”
A silence comes between them. Danny lights the pipe, inhaling dramatically. He passes it to Buzz.
“Thanks, bro,” Buzz sighs, taking the pipe. “Sorry, man. I’m just at the end of me tether now.”
“I know, bro. It’ll turn out all right. It always does for me mate Buzz, doesn’t it?” Danny says gleefully.
Buzz breaks down. He’s not sure if he’s ever cried in front of Danny before, and he feels embarrassed, but he can’t stop. “Jesus Christ, man,” he sobs. “What the fuck am I doin?”
Danny places a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Mate, it’ll be alright. You always land on ya feet. Like a fucken cat, that’s what I always say about ya. Like a cat.”
“It’s just that everything’s fucked up. Me marriage, me relationship with Ai. Now me job. It’s all fucked up.” He buries his face in his hands, sobbing.
“I tell ya what. Come with me to work tonight. I’m on seven to twelve. Have a few drinks at the bar. I’ll be able to lock the place up by twelve-thirty, then lets go out and get shit-faced. I’ll bring the goodies.”
“But ya wanna save the shit for Satdy night, don’t ya?”
“Bro, every night’s a Satdy night in Uncle Danny’s universe.”

<> <> <>

His ears are ringing. His mouth is so dry he doesn’t want to move it. He wants to get some water, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes, let alone get up from the bed. Who’s bed? The veins and arteries in his legs feel like rivers of aluminium and his jaw hurts. Been grinding me teeth in me sleep. He can see the reds of his eyelids. Must be day time. He can feel and hear his heart pumping. Probably smoked two packs last night. He doesn’t know what time it is, and he doesn’t care. He knows what’s coming. The come-down. The crash. The fight between body and mind as the drugs and alcohol and an out-of-the-ordinary amount of nicotine leave his body.
He plummets back into sleep.

Several hours later something falls on his face. He feels it and it rocks him from sleep. It’s small, like a pebble, and it didn’t hurt, but he wakes him nonetheless. Buzz opens his eyes. This is my fucken room. I thought I was staying at…
Something lands on his lips and he instinctively recoils and brushes it away. What the fuck?
Buzz is lying on his back in his own bedroom. It’s Friday, late afternoon, and the room has been baked by the August sun. The air-con is turned off, adding to the furnace-like feel to the apartment. He’s wet with sweat.
Last night he went to the bar where Danny works, had quite a number of drinks, then after lock-up time the pair went to The Emerald Forest. They had taken the usual mix of drugs, washed down with whiskey and dry ginger, all the while accompanied by cigarettes. They had danced. They had talked about the universe. They had embraced each other and hugged strangers. And evidently, he had left The Emerald Forest at some stage in the morning, changed his mind (or forgotten) about staying at Danny’s apartment, managed to find himself home, and passed out. The getting home part, he had absolutely no recollection of.
Buzz sits up to check what touched his face, but at that instant his head cracks and his stomach turns. He runs to the toilet and throws up. Specks of blood are in his vomit. Again.
He leans on the toilet seat with his head level to the opening of the toilet. He throws up again. Why do I do this to meself? His throat is course and burning. He heaves again, but his stomach is empty and the reflux action causes the pressure in his face to make his head thud even more. He flushes the toilet and gasps for breath. Then it hits him.
The smell is almost palpable. His brain registers at that moment that it is not only the nose that has the ability to detect odour. It seems he can smell it through his mouth and through his eyes as well. It’s a smell so powerful that it hurts. It physically causes him pain. He prepares to get to his feet, but the wiggling thing by the base of the toilet catches his eye. What the fucken hell?
He doesn’t want to believe it’s true. Not in his apartment. He squints to make sure, edging closer. It’s true, it’s definitely moving, wiggling, writhing. A fucken maggot! He heaves again. The stomach acids scorch his throat and taste like corrosive chemicals in his mouth.
He flushes the toilet and runs back to his bedroom, sliding the door hard behind him. Falling into the thin futon bed, he pulls the sheet up over his face and kicks the other end with his feet until his whole body his covered. It’s a natural, instinctive response. Flee. Escape. Self-protection.
Then he remembers the two things that touched his face earlier. Couldn’t fucken be. He lifts the sheet so he can peer out of a cave-like hole. His face is level with the tatami floor. A foot away, two pale yellow maggots twist and turn.
He hurls the sheet off and clambers to his feet. The smell is hovering around him like a ghost. He runs out of the bedroom, past the bathroom, into the kitchen and throws open the two wooden sliding doors that separate the kitchen and the living room.
The sight and the sound and the wretched stink throw him into a frozen panic. Opposite him, at the far end of the living room, are two glass sliding doors that lead to the small balcony where he usually hangs his washing. The curtains are open, yet there’s no sunlight, blocked by the carpet of moving black on the glass doors. Between that and him, a smoky black cloud is hovering in the open room like a vengeful poltergeist, humming and whirling and lunging for him. It sounds like a helicopter is in his living room.
They’re upon him in an instant. In his ears. At the edges of his lips. Crawling on his eyeballs. Buzz closes his mouth and covers his nostrils to prevent them from entering his body. Not breathing, he runs for the glass sliding doors and rams them open with such force than one derails and falls onto the balcony, smashing into large shards. The thousands of blue bottle flies that lined the glass doors react angrily; most escape into the outdoor light that they were drawn to on the glass doors, others swarm around him. At first the sudden sunlight blinds him, but he can soon see and feel and hear the cloud of flies that weren’t on the glass doors rush past him like a dirty dust storm, out into the open air. He yanks a curtain from it railing, snapping the plastic rings, and waves it wildly around to room, forcing as many flies as possible out through the open double doorway.
Sickened, Buzz opens every window in the apartment, and uses the fire extinguisher to hold open the front door. His headache and the heat are long forgotten. Most of the flies have gone, but thousands still remain, crawling on the walls and ceiling, others squashing beneath his feet. He remembers he has a can of insect spray under the sink. He fetches it and gives it a shake, and is relieved it seems almost full. He aimlessly sprays the can around the living room like a crazy man. The flies fight their impending death with savage, panic-stricken ferocity, and start falling to floor. On the tatami mat floor, hundreds of dying flies spin and buzz.
After a few minutes the can is dead. Many flies are still swarming around the room, but significantly less, giving him a chance to regain some composure and assess the situation. He surveys the room. The floor is littered with them, as are the sofa and coffee table. He looks down to his bare feet. Between his toes is black and yellow mush. He dare not look at the soles of his feet. He looks to the smashed sliding door. Then to the ceiling. He gasps.
Where the wooden slats of the ceiling meet the concrete walls of the living room, there are tiny little gaps. Gaps he didn’t see before, gaps he didn’t know existed. But now he knows, because he can see them: bottle blue flies and vomit-coloured maggots oozing their way from the gaps in the ceiling and swirling around the room and dropping to the floor respectively. That’s where the fuckers are comin from!
He turns to the bathroom and strips naked. He’s frantically showering without even waiting for the cold water to warm up. He needs to clean. He holds the hand-held showerhead to his feet and rinses off the squashed flies and maggots until they get caught in the whirlpool of the plughole and wash down the drain. The sight makes him vomit stomach acids again. He can’t fathom what’s happening.

Buzz lives on the second floor of a three-storey apartment complex. It’s a relatively small complex with only twelve apartments; four apartments on each level. Directly above his apartment is room 304. His mind turns to the tenant, a forty-something Japanese woman who lives alone. They have never socialized more than ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ in Japanese when they occasionally pass each other on the stairwell. She is always polite, yet like most Japanese people in Tokyo, she keeps to herself. He wonders if her apartment is the same as his. Knowing she lives alone, he wants to check on her to see if she needs any help, if there is a crazy swarm of flies infesting her apartment too. But he knows the Japanese, and is concerned she would be too startled by this foreigner suddenly knocking on her door after five years of living beneath her. He decides to call the owner instead and explains everything.

He’s been cleaning for four hours. After his shower he walked to the local supermarket and bought a new bucket, mop, broom, vacuum cleaner bags, rags, bottles of disinfectant, cans of insecticide and room deodorizer. Now, after hours of cleaning, the apartment looks almost normal, except for the heads of dead flies caught in the gaps of the ceiling. And the smell. It envelopes him. I can’t stay here tonight.
He calls Danny and recounts the afternoon’s horror.
“Mate, get over here, quick smart. There’s something not fucken right over there.”
He could bark at Danny for stating the painfully obvious, but he’s too exhausted. “Thanks mate. I’ll just pack me bag and get over there. I should be there in…..”
The door bell chimes.
“Mate, gotta go. I think the owner’s here.”
Buzz throws on a t-shirt and opens the front door. He’s ready to verbally attack the owner. How could something like this fucken happen? What the fuck is going on? This place is a fucken disgrace! I’m gonna sue you bastards for what ya got!
He is confused to see a policeman at the door. The officer looks to be in his mid-fifties and is in full uniform. He removes his police cap.
“Gary-san?” the officer asks.
Buzz is always apprehensive about police officers. With such strict drug laws in Japan, they tend to make him nervous. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Japanese okay?” the officer asks. Something strikes Buzz about the man’s demeanor. He seems sad. Almost solemn.
“Gomenesai. Nihongo choto dake,” Buzz replies, explaining he can only speak a little Japanese.
“Ok,” the officer sighs. “I will try English.” He looks down at his cap which he is fiddling with in his hands. “You have problem with your room?”
“Yeah, I certainly do,” Buzz starts. “Flies, flies, many, many flies,” he explains as he waves his arms around to represent the flying action of the insects.
“Now okay?”
“Well, I been cleaning for four hours. But smell, smell, very bad smell.” He screws up his face and waves a hand under his nose.
“I know,” the officer says. “Very bad smell everywhere.” He looks up above Buzz’s head. Instinctively, Buzz looks up too. What’s he fucken lookin at?
“So, where’s the owner? Owner?”
The officer ignores this. “You know lady upstairs?”
“Upstairs?”
“Yes. Apato 304. You know this lady?”
“Well, just to say hello to sometimes, on her way to work, that’s all. Why? Is her room okay? Many flies?”
“She dead.”
The smell. “Dead?” Buzz exclaims.
“Yes, long time. Six weeks. Maybe more.”
Oh Jesus. The rotten fucken smell. Buzz pushes past the officer and vomits over the stairwell. The officer moves beside him and dry-reaches once. Perhaps it’s the years of experience that enables him to keep his stomach contents down.
Buzz wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “What happened?” he cries.
“Sorry. I cannot say to you. But she in bath. Bath above your living room. But no body in bath.” The officer looks down to his cap again. “Just black jelly. And many flies.”
Six weeks? Six fucken weeks? How could no-one not know for……

<> <> <>

It’s just after eight on Saturday morning and Buzz wakes on Danny’s sofa. Gotta call Ai.
“Can I use the phone, Dan?” he hollers out to the next room. He doesn’t know where his phone is. Must’ve left it at home.
“Knock yaself out, mate.”
Hiroko answers. “Hiroko desu.”
“Hiroko, it’s me.”
“Why you not calling on your phone?” she asks suspiciously.
“I left it at home. I’m at Danny’s house now.”
“Hmph,” she grunts. She never liked Danny.
“Is Ai there?”
“What you doing at Danny’s house? You supposed to have Ai today, remember?”
“I know. That’s what I’m calling for.” He could explain the situation about his dead neighbor, but he can’t be bothered. She just wouldn’t get it. “Can you put her on, please?”
“You better not cancel!”
“I’m not cancelling,” he says calmly. “I’m calling to make plans.”

Moments later, Ai is on the phone. “Hi daddy.”
“Hey sweetheart,” he beams. “How’re you doing?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“We’re gonna hang out today.”
“I know,” she replies flatly.
“What you wanna do?”
“Aren’t we just going to you apartment, like usual?”
“That’s a bit boring, isn’t it?” he teases.
“Yeah I know. But that’s what we always do.”
That’s what we always do. Geez, that is what we always do. She’s seven years old and the best I can do is rent DVDs.
“Well, how about we do something different today?”
“Like what?” He can hear a flicker of sparkle in her voice.
“I don’t know,” he plays. “What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know. What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know,” he sings. “What do you wanna do?”
She giggles. “Daddy! “
“What?”
“Tell me!”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what we’re gonna do today?”
“Okay sweetheart, I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do today.” He pauses, imagining her pushing the receiver close against her ear. “We’re gonna do whatever you want to do. Anything at all.”
“Anything?” she beams.
“Anything. So tell me, sweet-chops, what do you wanna do?”
There’s a moment of silence. Then she declares, “I wanna go to Disneyland!”
“Disneyland!”
“Yeah! Disneyland!” The glee in her voice fills his heart.
“I don’t know about that.”
“But you said anything,” she sighs.
“But Disneyland?”
“Yeah, daddy. You said anything.”
“But there’s one problem with that.”
“What?” Ai moans.
“If we go to Tokyo Disneyland, we also gotta go to Tokyo DisneySea.”
“What?”
“Well, they’re right next door to each other. Have you ever been to DisneySea?”
“No, daddy. Never!”
“Well, sweetheart, there’s a first time for everything. Pack your bag and tell your mum I’ll be there to pick you up in forty-five minutes.”
“Okay! See you daddy!” She’s about to hang up.
“Wait, honey. You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Ai, do you know what your name means in English?”
“Yeah,” she says shyly.
“What?”
“No,” she giggles.
“Oh, come on. What does it mean?”
“You already know, daddy. You chose it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mummy, a long time ago.”
Buzz is pleasantly surprised and smiles. “Well tell me what it means anyway. Come on.”
She hesitates, a little embarrassed at this unusual affection expressed by the father she sees once every two weeks. “It means LOVE.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. It means LOVE. And do you know why I chose it?”
“No.”
His eyes sparkle with tears and he makes an effort to keep his voice level. “Because I love you, Ai. Now go pack your bag and I’ll see you soon.”