June 28, 2023 • 52 mins
A Japanese couple receives a letter about their impending death. The man who wrote it has an interesting story to tell.
Raiff Taranday is an emerging author and veteran elementary school teacher from Boston, MA. You can check out more of his work on ‘The Rumen’ and ‘A Thin Slice of Anxiety’ literary blogs. His stories will also appear in upcoming editions of ‘Penumbric’ and ‘Savage Planet’ magazines.
You can read "Narakat" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.
Click here to learn about the 2023 Kaidankai contest for writers.
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Raiff Taranday is an emerging author and veteran elementary school teacher from Boston, MA. You can check out more of his work on ‘The Rumen’ and ‘A Thin Slice of Anxiety’ literary blogs. His stories will also appear in upcoming editions of ‘Penumbric’ and ‘Savage Planet’ magazines.
You can read "Narakat" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.
Click here to learn about the 2023 Kaidankai contest for writers.
Website: kaidankaistories.com
Follow us on:
YouTube
Please donate any amount to the Kaidankai:
Donate $25 US and a podcast episode will be dedicated to you.
Donate $50US and get a t-shirt with the Kaidankai logo
Ko-Fi
PayPal
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
August is a big month for thekaidon Kai. The podcast started in August
of twenty twenty one when we reada hundred stories in one hundred days,
and then last year we had apodcast a day of stories about characters in
the fictional town of Unpleasantville, andI highly recommend going back and listening to
all of those. This year,August will feature four stories, maybe more,
(00:25):
all about haunted houses. The submissionsthat I've received so far, they're
just amazing and you are not goingto want to miss them. So please
subscribe today to the kaidon Kai podcaston your favorite platform. And now here
is today's kaidon Kai. Hello andwelcome to the Kai Don Kai, where
(01:00):
we read a story about the supernaturalevery week. I'm your host, Linda
Gould, and I'm so happy topresent today's story, Naraka by Rafe Taran
Day. I'll be honest, Ihave no idea what kind of intro to
give this story. It's first coupleof lines grab my attention, and then
(01:23):
as I read it, I hadno idea where it was going. The
story is in the form of aletter written to a sweet little Japanese couple,
but it's like no letter that youever want to read or receive.
The story is gruesome, sick,sick, and a little more sick,
(01:48):
and then it's just plain evil.Ravee Taran Day is an emerging author and
veteran elementary school teacher from Boston,Massachusetts. You can find more of his
work on The roomin and a Thingin Slas of Anxiety literary blogs. His
stories will also appear in upcoming editionsof Pinnumbric and Savage Planet magazines and now
(02:09):
Here is Naraka by Rafe Taranday Enjoy. Mister and missus Gisay. I am
writing to urge you both to maintaincomposure during this confusing time. My words
must seem ridiculous to you. Underthese circumstances. I would imagine that even
(02:32):
performing a task as mundane as readinga letter, no matter how polite and
gently worded it may be, mustappear nothing short of an impossible feat.
I am only an old man witha pen. Nonetheless, I implore you
both to remain calm and continue reading. Mister Guisay, please maintain a steady
(02:55):
hold on yourself. For the sakeof your wife. You must be her
strength. At a moment like this, she has no one to look to
save you. Missus Guisay, youare a woman, and though time has
rendered your womb as barren as Carthaginianearth, you are still your husband's bride.
(03:16):
You have a responsibility not to causehim further concern. Even now,
you must both bear in mind thatdeath is inseparable from life. Solace can
exist even in the absence of hope. And the only granted certainty is that
(03:36):
you will both die today, withinthis very hour. I will tell you
why, but first there must berules. This is a rule forget about
the gun currently trained on your heads. The gun will still be there regardless
of whether or not you think aboutit, and thinking about it will only
(03:57):
distract you from what is truly important, and that is the words in front
of you. I can certainly imaginehow surprised you must have been when a
uniformed courier appeared at your door solate at night. How absurd he must
have looked in that bell hop's outfitand that ridiculous little hat like an organ
grinder's monkey. So absurd that youdidn't notice the strange black object in his
(04:21):
hand. He must have been startledby the speed and precision with which he
subdued your struggles, bound your limbs, and affixed a ball gag in your
mouth. Do not let the outfitfool you. He is a professional.
If you have to think of himas something, think of him as mister
Hittory. This is also a ruleif either of you attempt to escape or
(04:46):
communicate with one another. If youshould do anything besides continue to read,
mister Hittory has instructions to shoot missusGisay in both of her knees. This
will be quite pain full, andof course it will ruin those lovely silk
pajama bottoms that she wore to bed. As a point of clarification, I
(05:08):
want you to know that mister Huttoriis not me. He cannot even read
this letter because he's an American bornKorean who does not speak more than a
few words of Japanese. There areother differences between us, but our chief
distinction is that while he will bethe one that will fire a bullet into
each of your brains, I amyour actual murderer and he is not.
(05:31):
Do not blame mister Hutory. Manymen would strangle their mothers for half the
amount that I'm paying him. Hisprimary task is to ensure that you both
read this letter. I apologize forany measures he has taken under his own
recognizance to compel you in this regard. If he is doing his job correctly,
(05:51):
he will have already told you togrunt each time you are both ready
for him to turn the page.His secondary task is to end both of
your lives at an appointed time.Know that when that time comes, there
will be a hollow pop and thennothing. It will seem strange to you.
(06:12):
But earlier today, photojournalists from ahost of international news organizations took my
picture as I stood in the companyof a dozen rescued Sudanese orphans. I
held them close to me while thecameras flashed, and all I could think
about was boone fragments and pulped brainmatter, yours specifically. But I digress.
(06:34):
Mister and missus guisay, know thatwhile I have provided you with enough
time to read my entire letter,there is not enough of it to waste
in useless struggle or speculation. Iwill not tell you how many or how
few minutes you have left, savethat it is a matter of minutes.
(06:57):
Their expiration is fixed and immune.I have measured the threads of your lives,
and soon I will close the shears. But if you read steadily,
if you do not overhurry, perhapsyou will understand what follows is not an
excuse. What I am doing toyou is inexcusable. While the lives you
(07:21):
have led were not perfect, theywere, in my opinion, honest,
mister Guisay. Your career at theShinjuku Pharmaceutical firm was well regarded by your
superiors. I have personally read severalof their consistently positive evaluations of your yearly
performance. You retired last year withthe genuine respect of your peers. In
(07:46):
two thousand and three, you successfullyovercame your addiction to xanax with the assistance
of your friends and family. It'sadmirable to struggle, fall and rise again.
You have financially supported your older brotherHideki since he lost everything in a
failed real estate venture. It isadmirable to take care of your family even
(08:07):
when they let you down. MissusGuisay, you broke off your engagement with
your college sweetheart in order to honorthe wishes of your family and marry.
Mister Guisay, you bore and raisedhis two sons, both of whom are
experiencing modest but genuine success in theirrespective fields. When your mother was diagnosed
(08:30):
with Alzheimer's, you brought her intoyour own home and personally tended to her
for the five years it took herto die. Though you have occasionally contacted
your ex fiancee, neither of youwere ever unfaithful to your spouses. It
is admirable to stay true to yourcommitments. In nineteen seventy nine, you
(08:52):
were pregnant with mister Guisay's third child. You arranged an abortion the day after
you found out. It is admirableto take control of your own life.
After the procedure, you went tothe Purple Cloud Temple and spent three days
asking for forgiveness from the life thathad been growing inside you. Though I
(09:13):
cannot be certain, I would imaginethat you cried. It is admirable to
take responsibility for your decisions. Iam telling you these things in order to
demonstrate that there is a purpose thatthe wheels which turn behind the visible world
are occasionally set in motion by thehands of man, or, in my
(09:35):
case, a malformed thing that wearsthe suit of a man. Mister and
missus guisay understand that I chose youto die, but I did so neither
for punishment nor revenge. I findthose notions absurd, sliding retributions back and
forth like abica speeds, as ifthere were such a thing as balance.
(09:56):
Your murders are not something that shouldhappen, are something that must happen.
I studied your lives before I sentmister Hittory to you with an envelope in
one immaculately gloved hand and a silencepistol in the other. There's something about
me that no living person knows,and I will share it with you.
Although the world at large believes Iam Japanese, although all my friends,
(10:22):
business partners, and even my childrenunquestioningly consider me to be Japanese, I
am not Japanese. I was bornin nineteen thirty two in China, five
weeks after the puppet state of Manchukuowas officially declared to exist in accordance with
the machinations of the Japanese Imperial Government. I am Chinese. While I am
(10:48):
no nationalist. These things matter.We should all be permitted the dignity of
knowing how our death originated, whatorgan the cancer began in what factory floor
the bullet shells were pressed on.I offer you that dignity. Now.
My father was a minister of theManchukuo government, a position which conferred no
(11:09):
real political power. It was hisvice minister, mister Takahashi, who would
make the actual administrative decisions. Myolder sister Ju and I were oblivious to
the larger events around us. Wehad no idea that outside the confines of
our mansion, thousands of people werebeing enslaved, exploited, murdered. My
(11:33):
memories of that time were of beauty, but jeweled statues and scrolls, of
intricate calligraphy, and all the finestart produced by centuries of Chinese history.
My father told us that he wasprotecting it, protecting what was left of
China from the Imperial government and itsgreedy bureaucrats. He told Ju and I
that we had to keep it secret, where it would all go away.
(11:58):
He let me hold a jade cranethat was over a thousand years old.
I did not know the kind ofdanger he was putting us in. I
did not know that he had spentyears secretly gathering every piece of ancient art
he could find, all while hidinghis activities from his Japanese masters. There
was a time when I was convincedhis only motives were practical, that he
(12:20):
must have known the art would beone of the few things that would retain
its value, no matter who controlledour country. However, I'm writing this
letter using an artifact from his collection, a fountain pen that was once held
by an emperor. Embossed on itssurface is an elaborate silver filigree depicting a
five towed dragon. I look atit and wonder if my father may truly
(12:45):
have been moved by the illusions ofbeauty and nation. No matter. I
passed my oblivious days beneath the careof my tutors. My sister and I
would sit before our mother while sheread us Buddhist sutras. The moment she
was finished with her sermonizing, youand I would steal away to our own
adventures. There was a system ofcaves that ran beneath our estate tunnels my
(13:09):
father had secretly excavated for his ownpurposes, and it was in those stone
hollows where my sister and I wouldplay. We would pretend that the caves
were Naraka, a place our motherhad warned us about in her endless lectures,
a realm deep beneath the earth,where people with bad karma are reborn
into lives of agony and punishment.She said there was a special place down
(13:31):
there for children who misbehaved. Butwe were not afraid. My father had
laughingly told us that children never needfear torment, so we would go into
those caves and play that we weredevils and chase one another through the darkness.
Naraka was just a game to us, who were only children, and
we did not know that hell couldbe real and encompassed entirely within the hearts
(13:56):
of men. My father, Ihave come to realize, was a shrewd
but not particularly cunning man. Itwas only a matter of time before the
Japanese began to suspect him. Misterand missus guisay, I'm sure that you're
beginning to appreciate how sudden and randomit seems when uncontrollable forces like men with
(14:20):
guns come to blow your life apart. Imagine how it felt when my mother
shook me awake and told me wehad to leave everything behind. My father
used dynamite charges to destroy the houseI had lived in. All ten years
of my life. I remember hearingthe explosion as we ran through the darkness.
(14:41):
Of course, no Chinese home wouldgrant refuge to a collaborator and his
family. My father bribed criminals tohide us, and once they had his
money, they immediately went to theJapanese to collect even more. My father
must have sensed them coming, becausenot long before they arrived, he went
(15:01):
into the toilet and opened his throatwith a straight razor. Men came for
us, smashing their way through therotten wood door. My mother was seated
like a desolate empress, one handholding my wrist and the other holding shoes.
One of the men told her tostand up. She said no,
that she obeyed no man but herhusband, and at the moment he was
(15:26):
occupied in the washroom. Even whenthe man drew his knife and waved it
in her face, she would notstand. He stabbed her through the heart,
and she made a tiny sigh,as if most of her spirit had
already left her body, and thetiny fraction that still remained was relieved to
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follow in its wake. Missus giesay, you know what it's like to watch
your mother die. Granted after yearsof changing her diapers, perhaps you even
entertained fantasies of stabbing her through theheart yourself. Regardless, it's a singularly
educational experience. I do not rememberwhat I thought or felt. The thing
(16:12):
that I am now does not havethe same heart as the child I was
then. Even as I write thesewords, I feel nothing but a sense
of practiced repetition, the distinct feelingthat I have had to teach myself that
these things happened to me. Perhapsthey never did. Though I do not
(16:34):
seek to philosophize about subjective reality oradd layers of metatextual ambiguity to your reading
experience. So much is obscured bydoubt, filtered through fragments of traumatized recollection
and my own obvious madness. Pleasekeep in mind that the only immutable reality
(16:56):
is that you will both die.At the conclusion of this letter, June
and I were separated. They putme on a crowded bus full of prisoners
dressed in stained rags. They broughtus to a huge concrete building. The
Japanese had told the local authorities thatit was a lumber mill, and so
the soldiers stationed there called us logs. I did not know what was going
(17:19):
to happen to me, and thatwas a blessing. I had been remanded
to the custody of Division two ofthe Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory, otherwise
known as Unit seven three one.I remember my cell. It was a
small, cold, dim place.Sometimes big men would come and take me
(17:41):
out of it. They would escortme through clean, electrically lit halls to
the room where the procedures were performed, and sometimes we would pass other prisoners.
I once saw a white man inthe hallways. He had an enormous
brombly beard and bulging eyes. Hisarms had been amputation hated and reattached to
(18:02):
the opposite sides of his body.They hung inanimate and already rotting, held
in place by perversely neat sutures.I would hear screaming all the time.
It was so constant that eventually Ibarely noticed it at all. The only
sounds that would surprise me were theoccasional explosions. Turned out the scientists were
(18:26):
testing grenades on living targets, anexperiment that seems to me like a foregone
conclusion. But I'm no scientist.I did not give much thought to the
other logs, there was too muchpain. It was another small electrically lit
room where the doctors did their workon me and my recollections of these men
(18:48):
in white coats. For some reason, they all have my father's face,
except for the one with the clipboard. He was old and bald. He
was in charge of the others.The guards would undress me, strap me
to a cold metal table, andhold me down while the doctors did their
work. I do not know howmany times it happened. Broad swaths of
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my skin became translucent. I rememberseeing the thin veins pulsing beneath it,
and wondering why I couldn't will themto stop, Why I couldn't still their
idiotic, repetitive motion. When Iwent to touch them, I found that
my skin stuck to my fingers andcame away in thin, painful strands.
(19:34):
There were injections, thick plastic gloves, peatrie dishes, swabs. Sometimes there
were knives, and the guard hadto strain to hold me down. The
procedures, in accordance with UNIT policy, were performed without anesthesia to avoid tainting
their data. I spoke some Japanese. My father had insisted I learn it.
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I tried to put it to use. Now. I cried out to
them in their own language, tostop, to please stop, help me
stop, help me please. Thesewere the words I would repeat to myself
constantly, ritualistically in the months thatfollowed, laying on the floor of my
cell while huge scabs formed all acrossmy body like a caterpillar's cocoon. Help
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me stop, help me please.I forgot the rest of language, forgot
that my mouth could be made toproduce any other sound. I never hated
the guards who held me down,or even the doctors who would bandage me
with the same professional care they hadtaken in mutilating me. All of my
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hatred was for the old bald doctor. He would not touch me. He
would watch me, writhe and scream, and then scribble little notes on his
clipboard. Even now, though Ihave been transmuted into something entirely from the
suffering boy, I remember that hatred. Why don't you see me? That's
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what I wanted to ask him.How can you look at me and not
see me? Perhaps this is whyI take the time and care to know
my own victims so well. Ihope you feel seen, mister guisay.
I hope you feel known. MissusGuisay, I might be a devil straight
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from the twisted, recursive hells ofNaraka, but at least I make no
pretensions of clinical detachment. I wouldlay shivering and immobile in my cell,
sometimes afraid that I would die,and sometimes afraid that I would go on
living. My entire body would itchintensely, and I would feebly tear at
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my scabs. They fed me athin, tasteless broth. Sometimes there were
pills half heartedly mashed into it,and I would drink it anyways, Missus
Guiesay, in this regard, humanbeings are no different than dogs or rats.
Whatever the state of mind or soul, nobody wants to give up the
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life inside it. Once in awhile, a medic would come to my
cell to reapply my bandages or takesamples of my scabs. I would say
those words, stop help me.He would ignore them. Gradually the scabs
fell away, revealing what was leftof my skin gray and scarred, unrecognizable.
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I would burn, I would freeze. It seemed endless until the day
the guard opened my cell and broughtme to the room where the doctors were
waiting. That was the day theygave me the injection that killed me.
I was strapped to the table.I was held down. This time,
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the note taker laid down his clipboardand administered the procedure himself. The other
doctors watched. He held a massivehypodermic needle that he fastidiously sterilized. Then
he shuffled to the edge of thetable, looked down at me as if
to say, this might pinch.Then he rammed the needle through my sternam.
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I couldn't breathe, I couldn't scream. I remembered my mother, the
soldier who killed her. The knife, help me, my father and the
jade crane. Please, my mother, my skin, the knife, please
stop. My mind flew out ofthat room, across monch cou O to
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the ruins of my father's house.Help me down into the caves, help
me, Naracca, deeper deeper thanever before. Help me, Naracca.
Please, it's waiting for me there, Help me, please, it's always
been waiting Naraka. I went downinto that cave and I never came back
(24:03):
again. And what was my lastthought as a human being, mister missus
geesay, I'll tell you. Iwondered why he had bothered to clean the
needle. But it is no ghostthat pens this letter or guides mister Huttory's
able hand. Yes. For atime I lay insensate in a realm beneath
(24:27):
the living world, but only apart of me stayed there. Something found
me in that place. It sawthat I had been hollowed out, and
it crawled inside. I felt itin the desperate gasp that filled my lungs
as I returned to my body.When my eyes flickered open upon a new
(24:49):
world, the sky was above meand twisted. All about me were pale
human limbs, frozen hands, frozenfaces. They were piled high, naked,
bald, twisted in rigor mortis.This was the altar of my rebirth.
I felt nothing as I descended it. I began to walk. Each
(25:12):
step carried me through the mists ofa gray fugue. Everything was vague and
nameless, save the few objects thatmade themselves real to me. There was
the blackened stump of a lightning splittree. There was an enormous iron wheel
sunk halfway into the earth. Theyappeared only for a moment in deference to
(25:33):
me, revealing the symbols of asecret alphabet that I now had the right
to know. I was no longerhuman. I had become something else,
darkness made manifest in the shambling ruinsof a human child. I wandered through
that still twilight without memory or purpose. I was not alarmed when I saw
(25:56):
the shapes of men in the distance, many men, and moving towards me.
Even when I saw their uniforms andrifles, I did not think to
fear. If I had known thenthat they were a platoon of Japanese soldiers
on patrol, they would have madeno difference. They saw me, and
that was enough to stop them intheir tracks. Mister and missus geesay,
(26:19):
please reflect on the strange wonder thateven in the midst of war, some
horrors are still magnificent enough to givemen pause. But then, neither of
you knew anything of true horror untilvery recently. Like you, those soldiers
learned a lesson that day. Theywere around me, whispering and arguing.
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Eventually one was pushed forward. Hiseyes were wet and shook in their sockets.
He raised the butt of his rifle, making ready to bring its mercy
down on my skull. But thenmy mouth began to make those uncontrollable sounds
again. They were the words Ihad repeated so often in my cell and
on the operating table, Japanese wordsstop, please help me. They all
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began to shout at one another.My mutilated skin meant I could have been
anything, could have been anyone's son, passed through a fire and left to
die. Anyone might be a casualtyby now, listen to it, speak,
Listen to what it's saying. Thenthe soldier who had been chosen to
bash my brains out, he sethis rifle down. He reached into his
(27:33):
pack, and from it he pulleda thick woolen blanket. He bundled it
around me, covering my nudity inmy scars. Then he effortlessly lifted me
into his arms. I must haveweighed next to nothing. He whispered something
to me that I'm sure was intendedas a kindness. He was a person
like the two of you, misterand missus. Guisay, a person who
(27:56):
gets to keep the trappings of humandecency, a person who guessed to stay,
a person. I would have bittenhis throat out if I had possessed
the strength, But my body wasdiminished past endurance, and as I lay
swaddled and pressed against that shoulder's chest, sleep flowed over me. I do
not know what infernal miracle preserved mywretched life. I only know enough to
(28:22):
guess. I have read the Japanesegovernment's classified files concerning much coup, files
that only I and a handful ofothers know to exist. Those meticulous records
taught me much about the details ofmy own life. In their pages,
I saw the official notes on theinvestigation of my father, along with the
(28:47):
order for his execution. I learnedhow my beautiful Zoo, the constant companion
of my childhood, was left torot in a comfort women camp, where
she eventually died of infection. Canyou guess what I felt when I read
this information, mister Guisay. Ifyour first thought was nothing, then congratulations
(29:08):
on paying attention. I even knowthe names and fates of the doctors who
experimented on me. The worst oneswere secretly given amnesty by the United States
government in exchange for their research data. I take a certain joy from that,
Missus Guisay, in part because itmeans the other logs and I made
(29:30):
a meaningful contribution to the advancement ofmedical science, mostly because it confirms,
shall we say, the pessimistic worldview that metastasized in me during my time
as a guest of Unit seven thirtyone. The files showed me all of
that, but I was never ableto find a record documenting the procedures that
(29:52):
were performed on me. The oldman scribbled all those notes, it seems
for nothing. Is it not ashame we have lost the data which proved
that a human soul can be extractedand murdered. My file must have been
lost in the panic that heralded theSoviet invasion in the months prior to Operation
(30:14):
August Storm. The staff of Unitseven thirty one did not have time to
dig graves deep enough to hide evena fraction of their crimes. They simply
drove the bodies into unpopulated areas anddumped them en mass. There must have
been too much confusion to tell thedifference between the dead and the nearly dead,
a bit of chaos, and theylost all sense of scientific procedure.
(30:40):
I'm sure both of you are nowwishing that they had done a better job
of maintaining their professionalism. But mistermissus Giesay, history took only one shape
this one, and it increasingly resemblesa corkscrew burrowing its way through a human
skull. I left China, mymind floating in a soot haze at the
(31:03):
edges of consciousness and sense. Ihave dim memories of a cramped refugee ship
and the ocean's low rumble. Iwas brought to a large port city in
q Shoe, where the soldier handedme off to some female relation of his.
She was a thin woman with coolhands, and she force fed me
until I was strong enough to walkagain. I still had no memory,
(31:26):
but I learned rudimentary Japanese quickly,and it was not long before I slipped
away from my would be caretaker beforeI did anything too terrible to her.
My disfigured flash often proved to bea surprising advantage for my life in Japan.
People saw my skin and assumed I'dbeen caught in an Allied fire bombing.
As a result, many of themextended hospitality to me, no matter
(31:49):
how badly off they themselves were.I wandered throughout southern Kshue, surviving on
that generosity, searching for something Icould not name but knew I needed to
find. I had such a longingin me. It was as if my
fingers were meant to be an inchlonger, and I could feel always the
(32:12):
phantasm of that absence. Mister andmissus gesay, it occurs to me now
that I should assure you both thatI derived no sexual pleasure from either your
current suffering or impending death. Byway of addressing that concern, I freely
admit that my time with Unit seventhirty one rendered me physically incapable of experiencing
(32:37):
sexual pleasure. My children are adopted. I required them for the sake of
appearance. They were raised by hiredcaretakers. I never married. I tell
you this because while you will neverbe able to understand exactly what my motives
are, that's not what this letteris for. Not really, I'm confident
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it's possible for you to understand whatthey are. Not Shall I describe my
rise to material power and wealth.It's a fairly predictable and prosaic affair.
There was the horde of Chinese arthidden in the caves beneath our former estate,
and I alone knew of its existence. There was my fortuitous partnership with
an American an officer with the OccupationalForce. He was an obtuse but useful
(33:22):
man who listened to Wagner incessantly.The great tragedy of his life, I
once heard him opine, was thathe had been stationed in Japan instead of
proud Germany. It was his instatiableneed for high quality opera LPs that first
brought him into contact with the postwar black market and into the circle of
my acquaintance. In the decade followinghirohitos surrender, we undertook the covert acquisition
(33:47):
of my father's collection and we soldit piece by piece. We made a
fortune, and I became acquainted withthe wider world. Our clientele was made
up of European aristocrats, ghosh Imams, no Vodici, Americans, and dozens
of very respectable museums. By thetime I was twenty four, the collection
(34:07):
was exhausted. My partner relocated toSouth America to live like a king with
opera blaring in every room of hispalace. For my part I stayed in
Japan and invested wisely. I establishedconstruction companies to rebuild the cities, channeled
funds into re establishing the infrastructure.I was a driving force behind a so
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called economic miracle that restored the nation, which, while not my actual native
land, had gone to such extraordinarylengths to make me what I am.
Nearly a quarter of all the buildingsin Tokyo still contained materials provided by my
companies. My wealth grew exponentially asJapan rose from the ashes of the war
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and into unheard of prosperity. Ina strange way, I became an icon
of the new Japan, the orscarred patriot who defied adversity, and,
like the very country he had sovaliantly championed, transformed defeat into opportunity.
I have funded most of Japan's majorpolitical figures. The LDP asks for my
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approval before it appoints a prime minister. I've shaken hands with three different American
presidents, although to be fair,one of them was Nixon. Dozens of
heads of state and internationally syndicated publicationshave hailed me as one of the generation's
greatest philanthropists. I've contributed billions tofight world hunger, fund waste management in
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Third world countries, and combat incurablediseases. I've even been described as a
living saint. Mister Gisay, evenin your desperate extremity, I hope you
can find it somewhere in yourself tothink this as funny as I do.
Doubt suspicions have begun to creep intoone or both of your minds. Has
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this letter been an elaborate fiction?Perhaps I am actually mister hutory, and
the true scope of your present situationis nothing more significant than three people in
a small room, one of whomhappens to be a dangerous lunatic. Rationally
speaking, why would I restore andexalt a country and people I have every
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reason to despise with all my being. Yes, you have good cause to
doubt the content of this letter andregard all that you have been forced to
read until this point as a cruelfarce. Mister and missus geesay in complete
and perfect candor. I am notwriting this extremely long letter for your benefit,
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nor are these words meant to soothemy conscience over having ended your small,
honest lives. I'm not seeking toabsolve my guilt by making you two
understand how painful and unusual my lifehas been. I don't feel guilt,
not over you or anything I've everdone. We are nothing more than circumstance,
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bound by the causal chains that dragus along our inviolable march to the
Abyss. This letter is not foreither of you. This letter is for
me. You are the only onesreading it at gunpoint. Thank you in
advance for your understanding. An hourago I concluded my daily longevity treatments.
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I dismissed my personal physician, aSwede whose skill is equaled only by his
discretion. I feel no fear whenhe and his machines touch me. My
body would have succumbed to its ownfrailty long ago if not for him.
And I've never forgotten that practiced artof passing into an impenetrable nullity where pain
(37:59):
and thought can not enter. Yes, even now, I do not want
to die. I once saw aprophecy written a mushroom cloud, and I
must live to witness its fulfillment.My skin was still moist from the treatments,
and to prepare myself for writing thisletter, I stood naked in front
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of a full length mirror. Thedeeper scars on my chest looked like toothless,
salivating mouths. This is the onlymirror I own. Under any other
circumstance, I vigilantly avoid my ownimage. I do this for the same
reason I have used my resources tosuppress all records of Unit seven thirty one
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and their activities, assuring that theJapanese government will continue to vigilantly deny any
acknowledgment of culpability for the crimes againstthe human spirit that took place in manch
Coupo, and to actively work towardsa time when these matters will never again
be discussed or even vaguely recollected.But sometimes I have no choice but to
(39:06):
unhouse my mirror and regard myself asI truly am. And it is then
I have no choice but to writea letter like this to people like you.
At this point, it should comeas no surprise that this is the
fourth time I have written an accountof my life to a captive audience.
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The recipients are always a married couple. I don't know exactly why. Perhaps
it has to do with my irrevocablevirginity, although I suspect that the truth
is it's just easier this way.Mister Giesay, if it were only your
life on the line, would youhave indulged me to this degree. But
the thought of your poor bride's kneesbeing shot out in front of you,
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ruining those indulgent pajama pants. Yeah, it's certainly easier this way. My
writing process, such as it is, always begins when, by whatever chance,
I happen to see a married couple, in this case you two with
my own eyes, and recognize inboth of them the mixture of simplicity,
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conventionality, and sincerity that some mightcall decency or even goodness, whatever one
might label that quality. It shinesout to me like a beacon when it's
truly present in people. Once myinstincts have been confirmed by an exhaustive background
check, I grant myself permission toset events in motion. The first time
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it was a German couple, misterand Missus Opfer in Frankfurt, and that
was twenty years ago. The originalmister Huttory, there's a new one each
time, but all of them werein the same uniform. He had such
trouble compelling them to stop struggling andread the damned letter that he did actually
shoot Missus Olpfer in the kneecap.Since then, I've been sure to stipulate
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the existence of that consequence as nearto the beginning of the letter, as
formalities of composition will allow. Theletter they read was significantly shorter than this
one, and far more of anincoherent ramble. I was obsessed with recapturing
the minute details of my childhood andtorture. I had not yet learned the
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importance of thoughtful editing. Still,there was something tremendously satisfying and irreproducible about
those first clumsy strokes. The secondcouple was Parisian mister and Missus Annon,
twelve years ago. Upon comparing thereports of each, Mister Hittory, it
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seems they read the most attentively,though it's possible you two will outdo them.
That letter was a mire of abstractionsand pontifications. In it, I
continually hinted at the false possibility thata correct interpretation of the text might reveal
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a hidden word or phrase that wouldcounsel mister hittor re orders. I no
longer feel the need to indulge inthat particular form of cruel pretense. The
third couple was American from New York, Mister and Missus Tribute. I had
business at the u N and Iglimpsed at two of them from the window
of my limousine. Working together torepair their son's bicycle. Missus Tribute actually
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attempted to throw her own head infront of the bullet intended for her husband.
She missed, although that mister Huttoryswore it was only by an instant,
and in any case, she didnot have much time and wish to
regret it. That was two yearsago, and the letter was very similar,
although I wasted too much of itattempting to articulate the historical and cultural
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intricacies of my dual identities. Youmay have noticed both that you two are
my only Japanese couple to date,and also that there obviously was a time
when I found this impulse easier tocontrol. I first marked you two for
death in Kyoto. I apologize forthe bluntness of that phrase marked for death,
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but any euphemism I might use inits place would only be more horrific.
You were in the audience at andno production of Dojoji. Normally I
find no theater unbearably tedious, butmy oldest son, a professional scholar of
Japanese history, had insisted that Iaccompany him to this production. Watching it
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from the vantage of my private box, I found that it excited something in
me, do you remember the legendof do Geoji Temple? Mister missus,
guisay you saw it yourself, butI suspect that, given your present circumstance
you might have some difficulty recollecting thespecifics. A handsome and virtuous monk is
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caught in a sudden rain and forcedto seek shelter. Unfortunately, the only
nearby enclosure is already occupied by abeautiful older woman, whom the monk wisely
recognizes as a sure source of temptation. But the lady is very kind in
her attempts to coax him out ofthe storm, and the monk eventually agrees
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to share the close quarters with her. What happens between them that night is
their business alone, varying from tellingto telling depending on the perversity of the
teller's imagination. The point is thatwith the dawning of the next day,
the monk is overcome with shame,either for the desires he acted upon or
for the desires he resisted. Heknows that the lady has fallen in love
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with him, and perhaps he lovesher as well, so he preserves himself
by fleeing while she sleeps. Whenshe finally wakes and finds herself quite abandoned.
The lady is seized by a torrentof rage and sorrow so intense she
transforms into a monstrous serpent. Sherelentlessly use the monk across oceans and mountains,
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finally catching up with him as hehides in the belle of Dojoji Temple.
Reunited, the serpent in the monkdied together, consumed by the flames
of her passion. As I watchedthis old legend played out once more on
stage, I could not help butthink, and with an unusual amount of
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intensity, how profoundly stupid it is. My heart actually began to beat noticeably
faster, something that had not happenedoutside of my physical therapy sessions for decades.
What deep and abiding idiocy to thinkthat intensity of feeling is what transforms
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a person into a monster, asif to feel beyond reason is not exactly
the quality that defines what it isto be human. Take the two of
you, for example, how muchand hard have you felt since mister Huttory
began his work. The sheer terror, obviously, but the anger as well,
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and perhaps even love had its ownplace in this nightmare. Feeling is
not what turns humans into serpents.That is what I came to as I
watched those masked actors caper to ridiculousmusic and felt the throbbing in my chest.
It is the absence of feeling thatallows a man to become a monster.
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And at the very moment in whichthat thought entered my mind, I
glanced down into the audience, andI saw you two, mister and Missus
Guisay. I saw mister Guisay placehis hand over yours, Missus Guisay,
and you looked at him, andwith your face and profile, I saw
a smile that told me everything Ineeded to know. I decided that instant
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that both of you would die togetheron the floor of the home you shared.
Then I felt my heart slow andit was very reassuring. Please understand,
I cannot let myself be seen byliving eyes. I will not allow
that to happen. Yet. Iacquired a vast fortune and took on the
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trappings of a saint, all toprevent people from seeing me until the time
was right to be seen. Buteventually I found that was not enough.
I needed to open the throat ofa lamb. I needed the blood to
spill down into Naraka. So aslong as I write a letter and send
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a mister Hittory, whenever I feelthat I might be near to giving myself
away, I can appease the thingthat mules and writhe this inside me.
Mister and missus Geesay, can youeven begin to comprehend why you died?
And you are dead already, aren'tyou? I always lie about provided enough
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time to read the entire letter.As I said, it's not for you.
I wonder how far you managed toget, Missus Giesay, before you
heard the hollow pop, saw yourhusband and knew that I had lied.
Pardon my presumptuousness, but I canpractically imagine the look on your face.
Mister and missus Agnio managed to getjust past my description of my American business
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partner, and they were the bestreaders of the three. Perhaps you two
managed to get farther. I sincerelyhope that you are the last couple I
write to. Not to spare futureinnocence, mind you, but because I
believe that the world is at lastturning into a place where I will no
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longer have to conceal what I reallyam. The mushroom cloud prophecy that emerged
from this little island nation suggests tome a future where monsters like myself can
shamble into plain view and do whateverwe want, whenever we want to do
it. The time of the Buddhisatvashas passed into so much dust. There
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will be no more hiding, nomore need for masks. Our urge to
annihilate ourselves in one another is ouronly destiny. Mister and missus gisay,
you are so lucky to be dead. Soon I will place the call to
summon mister Hittory in his ridiculous outfit. For now, I can lay down
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my father's pen and live as ifI were still a man. I will
continue on until I see the worldbecome naraka. I am eclipsed, untouched
in the dark. I am safe. No one can find me here.
Mister Hittory will destroy these pages utterly, and their words shall be commended to
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the eyes of the dead alone,to your eyes, yours, respectfully,
no one at all. Do yousee what I mean? Wasn't that just
a horrible story? I love itspremise. I think that's because in that
(50:17):
one story that highlights such varying degreesof evil, the evil, of the
war, of the doctor's experiments,of the community against individuals who are different,
of people who will kill for money, and of the individual psychopath.
And it doesn't try to explain thatmister and missus Genpay were connected in any
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way to the author's misery or history. It points out the pure randomness of
evil. And I see that inthe news sometimes about terrible things that happened
to people simply because they were inthe wrong place at the wrong time.
Okay, so that's not comforting.I want to believe that terrible things happen
to those who deserve it, andI think that's why so many stories do
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include some connection between the victim andthe perpetrator. And I think it's because
taren Day shows the randomness that thisstory leaves me so unsettled. It's not
tied up neatly. At the end. Justice did not come to those who
deserve it, an evil did happento those who didn't deserve it. That
makes me so uncomfortable, And nowI want to go read a romance sort
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of something where everything turns out wonderfulin the end. Thank you, Ray
Tarenday. The kaidon Kai Haunted horrorcontest ends on July fifteenth. To get
your stories into me today. Thetheme is the Haunted House. I'll choose
four stories to read during August andthose four will receive a cash prize.
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Please go to Kaidu Kai Stories dotcom, Kai Da n Kai stories dot
com where you can find the detailsabout how to submit. Next week,
a psychic is hired to solve amystery. The solution is a big surprise.
You'll not want to miss next week'sstory or any in the coming months,
(52:12):
so please subscribe to the kaidon Kaioon your favorite podcast platform. As
always, please review the podcast,follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.
All the information is in the podcastand episode descriptions. Thank you for
listening today. I'll see you nextweek.
August is a big month for thekaidon Kai. The podcast started in August
of twenty twenty one when we reada hundred stories in one hundred days,
and then last year we had apodcast a day of stories about characters in
the fictional town of Unpleasantville, andI highly recommend going back and listening to
all of those. This year,August will feature four stories, maybe more,
(00:25):
all about haunted houses. The submissionsthat I've received so far, they're
just amazing and you are not goingto want to miss them. So please
subscribe today to the kaidon Kai podcaston your favorite platform. And now here
is today's kaidon Kai. Hello andwelcome to the Kai Don Kai, where
(01:00):
we read a story about the supernaturalevery week. I'm your host, Linda
Gould, and I'm so happy topresent today's story, Naraka by Rafe Taran
Day. I'll be honest, Ihave no idea what kind of intro to
give this story. It's first coupleof lines grab my attention, and then
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as I read it, I hadno idea where it was going. The
story is in the form of aletter written to a sweet little Japanese couple,
but it's like no letter that youever want to read or receive.
The story is gruesome, sick,sick, and a little more sick,
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and then it's just plain evil.Ravee Taran Day is an emerging author and
veteran elementary school teacher from Boston,Massachusetts. You can find more of his
work on The roomin and a Thingin Slas of Anxiety literary blogs. His
stories will also appear in upcoming editionsof Pinnumbric and Savage Planet magazines and now
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Here is Naraka by Rafe Taranday Enjoy. Mister and missus Gisay. I am
writing to urge you both to maintaincomposure during this confusing time. My words
must seem ridiculous to you. Underthese circumstances. I would imagine that even
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performing a task as mundane as readinga letter, no matter how polite and
gently worded it may be, mustappear nothing short of an impossible feat.
I am only an old man witha pen. Nonetheless, I implore you
both to remain calm and continue reading. Mister Guisay, please maintain a steady
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hold on yourself. For the sakeof your wife. You must be her
strength. At a moment like this, she has no one to look to
save you. Missus Guisay, youare a woman, and though time has
rendered your womb as barren as Carthaginianearth, you are still your husband's bride.
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You have a responsibility not to causehim further concern. Even now,
you must both bear in mind thatdeath is inseparable from life. Solace can
exist even in the absence of hope. And the only granted certainty is that
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you will both die today, withinthis very hour. I will tell you
why, but first there must berules. This is a rule forget about
the gun currently trained on your heads. The gun will still be there regardless
of whether or not you think aboutit, and thinking about it will only
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distract you from what is truly important, and that is the words in front
of you. I can certainly imaginehow surprised you must have been when a
uniformed courier appeared at your door solate at night. How absurd he must
have looked in that bell hop's outfitand that ridiculous little hat like an organ
grinder's monkey. So absurd that youdidn't notice the strange black object in his
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hand. He must have been startledby the speed and precision with which he
subdued your struggles, bound your limbs, and affixed a ball gag in your
mouth. Do not let the outfitfool you. He is a professional.
If you have to think of himas something, think of him as mister
Hittory. This is also a ruleif either of you attempt to escape or
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communicate with one another. If youshould do anything besides continue to read,
mister Hittory has instructions to shoot missusGisay in both of her knees. This
will be quite pain full, andof course it will ruin those lovely silk
pajama bottoms that she wore to bed. As a point of clarification, I
(05:08):
want you to know that mister Huttoriis not me. He cannot even read
this letter because he's an American bornKorean who does not speak more than a
few words of Japanese. There areother differences between us, but our chief
distinction is that while he will bethe one that will fire a bullet into
each of your brains, I amyour actual murderer and he is not.
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Do not blame mister Hutory. Manymen would strangle their mothers for half the
amount that I'm paying him. Hisprimary task is to ensure that you both
read this letter. I apologize forany measures he has taken under his own
recognizance to compel you in this regard. If he is doing his job correctly,
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he will have already told you togrunt each time you are both ready
for him to turn the page.His secondary task is to end both of
your lives at an appointed time.Know that when that time comes, there
will be a hollow pop and thennothing. It will seem strange to you.
(06:12):
But earlier today, photojournalists from ahost of international news organizations took my
picture as I stood in the companyof a dozen rescued Sudanese orphans. I
held them close to me while thecameras flashed, and all I could think
about was boone fragments and pulped brainmatter, yours specifically. But I digress.
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Mister and missus guisay, know thatwhile I have provided you with enough
time to read my entire letter,there is not enough of it to waste
in useless struggle or speculation. Iwill not tell you how many or how
few minutes you have left, savethat it is a matter of minutes.
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Their expiration is fixed and immune.I have measured the threads of your lives,
and soon I will close the shears. But if you read steadily,
if you do not overhurry, perhapsyou will understand what follows is not an
excuse. What I am doing toyou is inexcusable. While the lives you
(07:21):
have led were not perfect, theywere, in my opinion, honest,
mister Guisay. Your career at theShinjuku Pharmaceutical firm was well regarded by your
superiors. I have personally read severalof their consistently positive evaluations of your yearly
performance. You retired last year withthe genuine respect of your peers. In
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two thousand and three, you successfullyovercame your addiction to xanax with the assistance
of your friends and family. It'sadmirable to struggle, fall and rise again.
You have financially supported your older brotherHideki since he lost everything in a
failed real estate venture. It isadmirable to take care of your family even
(08:07):
when they let you down. MissusGuisay, you broke off your engagement with
your college sweetheart in order to honorthe wishes of your family and marry.
Mister Guisay, you bore and raisedhis two sons, both of whom are
experiencing modest but genuine success in theirrespective fields. When your mother was diagnosed
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with Alzheimer's, you brought her intoyour own home and personally tended to her
for the five years it took herto die. Though you have occasionally contacted
your ex fiancee, neither of youwere ever unfaithful to your spouses. It
is admirable to stay true to yourcommitments. In nineteen seventy nine, you
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were pregnant with mister Guisay's third child. You arranged an abortion the day after
you found out. It is admirableto take control of your own life.
After the procedure, you went tothe Purple Cloud Temple and spent three days
asking for forgiveness from the life thathad been growing inside you. Though I
(09:13):
cannot be certain, I would imaginethat you cried. It is admirable to
take responsibility for your decisions. Iam telling you these things in order to
demonstrate that there is a purpose thatthe wheels which turn behind the visible world
are occasionally set in motion by thehands of man, or, in my
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case, a malformed thing that wearsthe suit of a man. Mister and
missus guisay understand that I chose youto die, but I did so neither
for punishment nor revenge. I findthose notions absurd, sliding retributions back and
forth like abica speeds, as ifthere were such a thing as balance.
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Your murders are not something that shouldhappen, are something that must happen.
I studied your lives before I sentmister Hittory to you with an envelope in
one immaculately gloved hand and a silencepistol in the other. There's something about
me that no living person knows,and I will share it with you.
Although the world at large believes Iam Japanese, although all my friends,
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business partners, and even my childrenunquestioningly consider me to be Japanese, I
am not Japanese. I was bornin nineteen thirty two in China, five
weeks after the puppet state of Manchukuowas officially declared to exist in accordance with
the machinations of the Japanese Imperial Government. I am Chinese. While I am
(10:48):
no nationalist. These things matter.We should all be permitted the dignity of
knowing how our death originated, whatorgan the cancer began in what factory floor
the bullet shells were pressed on.I offer you that dignity. Now.
My father was a minister of theManchukuo government, a position which conferred no
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real political power. It was hisvice minister, mister Takahashi, who would
make the actual administrative decisions. Myolder sister Ju and I were oblivious to
the larger events around us. Wehad no idea that outside the confines of
our mansion, thousands of people werebeing enslaved, exploited, murdered. My
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memories of that time were of beauty, but jeweled statues and scrolls, of
intricate calligraphy, and all the finestart produced by centuries of Chinese history.
My father told us that he wasprotecting it, protecting what was left of
China from the Imperial government and itsgreedy bureaucrats. He told Ju and I
that we had to keep it secret, where it would all go away.
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He let me hold a jade cranethat was over a thousand years old.
I did not know the kind ofdanger he was putting us in. I
did not know that he had spentyears secretly gathering every piece of ancient art
he could find, all while hidinghis activities from his Japanese masters. There
was a time when I was convincedhis only motives were practical, that he
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must have known the art would beone of the few things that would retain
its value, no matter who controlledour country. However, I'm writing this
letter using an artifact from his collection, a fountain pen that was once held
by an emperor. Embossed on itssurface is an elaborate silver filigree depicting a
five towed dragon. I look atit and wonder if my father may truly
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have been moved by the illusions ofbeauty and nation. No matter. I
passed my oblivious days beneath the careof my tutors. My sister and I
would sit before our mother while sheread us Buddhist sutras. The moment she
was finished with her sermonizing, youand I would steal away to our own
adventures. There was a system ofcaves that ran beneath our estate tunnels my
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father had secretly excavated for his ownpurposes, and it was in those stone
hollows where my sister and I wouldplay. We would pretend that the caves
were Naraka, a place our motherhad warned us about in her endless lectures,
a realm deep beneath the earth,where people with bad karma are reborn
into lives of agony and punishment.She said there was a special place down
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there for children who misbehaved. Butwe were not afraid. My father had
laughingly told us that children never needfear torment, so we would go into
those caves and play that we weredevils and chase one another through the darkness.
Naraka was just a game to us, who were only children, and
we did not know that hell couldbe real and encompassed entirely within the hearts
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of men. My father, Ihave come to realize, was a shrewd
but not particularly cunning man. Itwas only a matter of time before the
Japanese began to suspect him. Misterand missus guisay, I'm sure that you're
beginning to appreciate how sudden and randomit seems when uncontrollable forces like men with
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guns come to blow your life apart. Imagine how it felt when my mother
shook me awake and told me wehad to leave everything behind. My father
used dynamite charges to destroy the houseI had lived in. All ten years
of my life. I remember hearingthe explosion as we ran through the darkness.
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Of course, no Chinese home wouldgrant refuge to a collaborator and his
family. My father bribed criminals tohide us, and once they had his
money, they immediately went to theJapanese to collect even more. My father
must have sensed them coming, becausenot long before they arrived, he went
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into the toilet and opened his throatwith a straight razor. Men came for
us, smashing their way through therotten wood door. My mother was seated
like a desolate empress, one handholding my wrist and the other holding shoes.
One of the men told her tostand up. She said no,
that she obeyed no man but herhusband, and at the moment he was
(15:26):
occupied in the washroom. Even whenthe man drew his knife and waved it
in her face, she would notstand. He stabbed her through the heart,
and she made a tiny sigh,as if most of her spirit had
already left her body, and thetiny fraction that still remained was relieved to
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follow in its wake. Missus giesay, you know what it's like to watch
your mother die. Granted after yearsof changing her diapers, perhaps you even
entertained fantasies of stabbing her through theheart yourself. Regardless, it's a singularly
educational experience. I do not rememberwhat I thought or felt. The thing
(16:12):
that I am now does not havethe same heart as the child I was
then. Even as I write thesewords, I feel nothing but a sense
of practiced repetition, the distinct feelingthat I have had to teach myself that
these things happened to me. Perhapsthey never did. Though I do not
(16:34):
seek to philosophize about subjective reality oradd layers of metatextual ambiguity to your reading
experience. So much is obscured bydoubt, filtered through fragments of traumatized recollection
and my own obvious madness. Pleasekeep in mind that the only immutable reality
(16:56):
is that you will both die.At the conclusion of this letter, June
and I were separated. They putme on a crowded bus full of prisoners
dressed in stained rags. They broughtus to a huge concrete building. The
Japanese had told the local authorities thatit was a lumber mill, and so
the soldiers stationed there called us logs. I did not know what was going
(17:19):
to happen to me, and thatwas a blessing. I had been remanded
to the custody of Division two ofthe Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory, otherwise
known as Unit seven three one.I remember my cell. It was a
small, cold, dim place.Sometimes big men would come and take me
(17:41):
out of it. They would escortme through clean, electrically lit halls to
the room where the procedures were performed, and sometimes we would pass other prisoners.
I once saw a white man inthe hallways. He had an enormous
brombly beard and bulging eyes. Hisarms had been amputation hated and reattached to
(18:02):
the opposite sides of his body.They hung inanimate and already rotting, held
in place by perversely neat sutures.I would hear screaming all the time.
It was so constant that eventually Ibarely noticed it at all. The only
sounds that would surprise me were theoccasional explosions. Turned out the scientists were
(18:26):
testing grenades on living targets, anexperiment that seems to me like a foregone
conclusion. But I'm no scientist.I did not give much thought to the
other logs, there was too muchpain. It was another small electrically lit
room where the doctors did their workon me and my recollections of these men
(18:48):
in white coats. For some reason, they all have my father's face,
except for the one with the clipboard. He was old and bald. He
was in charge of the others.The guards would undress me, strap me
to a cold metal table, andhold me down while the doctors did their
work. I do not know howmany times it happened. Broad swaths of
(19:12):
my skin became translucent. I rememberseeing the thin veins pulsing beneath it,
and wondering why I couldn't will themto stop, Why I couldn't still their
idiotic, repetitive motion. When Iwent to touch them, I found that
my skin stuck to my fingers andcame away in thin, painful strands.
(19:34):
There were injections, thick plastic gloves, peatrie dishes, swabs. Sometimes there
were knives, and the guard hadto strain to hold me down. The
procedures, in accordance with UNIT policy, were performed without anesthesia to avoid tainting
their data. I spoke some Japanese. My father had insisted I learn it.
(19:59):
I tried to put it to use. Now. I cried out to
them in their own language, tostop, to please stop, help me
stop, help me please. Thesewere the words I would repeat to myself
constantly, ritualistically in the months thatfollowed, laying on the floor of my
cell while huge scabs formed all acrossmy body like a caterpillar's cocoon. Help
(20:22):
me stop, help me please.I forgot the rest of language, forgot
that my mouth could be made toproduce any other sound. I never hated
the guards who held me down,or even the doctors who would bandage me
with the same professional care they hadtaken in mutilating me. All of my
(20:42):
hatred was for the old bald doctor. He would not touch me. He
would watch me, writhe and scream, and then scribble little notes on his
clipboard. Even now, though Ihave been transmuted into something entirely from the
suffering boy, I remember that hatred. Why don't you see me? That's
(21:06):
what I wanted to ask him.How can you look at me and not
see me? Perhaps this is whyI take the time and care to know
my own victims so well. Ihope you feel seen, mister guisay.
I hope you feel known. MissusGuisay, I might be a devil straight
(21:26):
from the twisted, recursive hells ofNaraka, but at least I make no
pretensions of clinical detachment. I wouldlay shivering and immobile in my cell,
sometimes afraid that I would die,and sometimes afraid that I would go on
living. My entire body would itchintensely, and I would feebly tear at
(21:47):
my scabs. They fed me athin, tasteless broth. Sometimes there were
pills half heartedly mashed into it,and I would drink it anyways, Missus
Guiesay, in this regard, humanbeings are no different than dogs or rats.
Whatever the state of mind or soul, nobody wants to give up the
(22:11):
life inside it. Once in awhile, a medic would come to my
cell to reapply my bandages or takesamples of my scabs. I would say
those words, stop help me.He would ignore them. Gradually the scabs
fell away, revealing what was leftof my skin gray and scarred, unrecognizable.
(22:33):
I would burn, I would freeze. It seemed endless until the day
the guard opened my cell and broughtme to the room where the doctors were
waiting. That was the day theygave me the injection that killed me.
I was strapped to the table.I was held down. This time,
(22:55):
the note taker laid down his clipboardand administered the procedure himself. The other
doctors watched. He held a massivehypodermic needle that he fastidiously sterilized. Then
he shuffled to the edge of thetable, looked down at me as if
to say, this might pinch.Then he rammed the needle through my sternam.
(23:18):
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't scream. I remembered my mother, the
soldier who killed her. The knife, help me, my father and the
jade crane. Please, my mother, my skin, the knife, please
stop. My mind flew out ofthat room, across monch cou O to
(23:38):
the ruins of my father's house.Help me down into the caves, help
me, Naracca, deeper deeper thanever before. Help me, Naracca.
Please, it's waiting for me there, Help me, please, it's always
been waiting Naraka. I went downinto that cave and I never came back
(24:03):
again. And what was my lastthought as a human being, mister missus
geesay, I'll tell you. Iwondered why he had bothered to clean the
needle. But it is no ghostthat pens this letter or guides mister Huttory's
able hand. Yes. For atime I lay insensate in a realm beneath
(24:27):
the living world, but only apart of me stayed there. Something found
me in that place. It sawthat I had been hollowed out, and
it crawled inside. I felt itin the desperate gasp that filled my lungs
as I returned to my body.When my eyes flickered open upon a new
(24:49):
world, the sky was above meand twisted. All about me were pale
human limbs, frozen hands, frozenfaces. They were piled high, naked,
bald, twisted in rigor mortis.This was the altar of my rebirth.
I felt nothing as I descended it. I began to walk. Each
(25:12):
step carried me through the mists ofa gray fugue. Everything was vague and
nameless, save the few objects thatmade themselves real to me. There was
the blackened stump of a lightning splittree. There was an enormous iron wheel
sunk halfway into the earth. Theyappeared only for a moment in deference to
(25:33):
me, revealing the symbols of asecret alphabet that I now had the right
to know. I was no longerhuman. I had become something else,
darkness made manifest in the shambling ruinsof a human child. I wandered through
that still twilight without memory or purpose. I was not alarmed when I saw
(25:56):
the shapes of men in the distance, many men, and moving towards me.
Even when I saw their uniforms andrifles, I did not think to
fear. If I had known thenthat they were a platoon of Japanese soldiers
on patrol, they would have madeno difference. They saw me, and
that was enough to stop them intheir tracks. Mister and missus geesay,
(26:19):
please reflect on the strange wonder thateven in the midst of war, some
horrors are still magnificent enough to givemen pause. But then, neither of
you knew anything of true horror untilvery recently. Like you, those soldiers
learned a lesson that day. Theywere around me, whispering and arguing.
(26:45):
Eventually one was pushed forward. Hiseyes were wet and shook in their sockets.
He raised the butt of his rifle, making ready to bring its mercy
down on my skull. But thenmy mouth began to make those uncontrollable sounds
again. They were the words Ihad repeated so often in my cell and
on the operating table, Japanese wordsstop, please help me. They all
(27:10):
began to shout at one another.My mutilated skin meant I could have been
anything, could have been anyone's son, passed through a fire and left to
die. Anyone might be a casualtyby now, listen to it, speak,
Listen to what it's saying. Thenthe soldier who had been chosen to
bash my brains out, he sethis rifle down. He reached into his
(27:33):
pack, and from it he pulleda thick woolen blanket. He bundled it
around me, covering my nudity inmy scars. Then he effortlessly lifted me
into his arms. I must haveweighed next to nothing. He whispered something
to me that I'm sure was intendedas a kindness. He was a person
like the two of you, misterand missus. Guisay, a person who
(27:56):
gets to keep the trappings of humandecency, a person who guessed to stay,
a person. I would have bittenhis throat out if I had possessed
the strength, But my body wasdiminished past endurance, and as I lay
swaddled and pressed against that shoulder's chest, sleep flowed over me. I do
not know what infernal miracle preserved mywretched life. I only know enough to
(28:22):
guess. I have read the Japanesegovernment's classified files concerning much coup, files
that only I and a handful ofothers know to exist. Those meticulous records
taught me much about the details ofmy own life. In their pages,
I saw the official notes on theinvestigation of my father, along with the
(28:47):
order for his execution. I learnedhow my beautiful Zoo, the constant companion
of my childhood, was left torot in a comfort women camp, where
she eventually died of infection. Canyou guess what I felt when I read
this information, mister Guisay. Ifyour first thought was nothing, then congratulations
(29:08):
on paying attention. I even knowthe names and fates of the doctors who
experimented on me. The worst oneswere secretly given amnesty by the United States
government in exchange for their research data. I take a certain joy from that,
Missus Guisay, in part because itmeans the other logs and I made
(29:30):
a meaningful contribution to the advancement ofmedical science, mostly because it confirms,
shall we say, the pessimistic worldview that metastasized in me during my time
as a guest of Unit seven thirtyone. The files showed me all of
that, but I was never ableto find a record documenting the procedures that
(29:52):
were performed on me. The oldman scribbled all those notes, it seems
for nothing. Is it not ashame we have lost the data which proved
that a human soul can be extractedand murdered. My file must have been
lost in the panic that heralded theSoviet invasion in the months prior to Operation
(30:14):
August Storm. The staff of Unitseven thirty one did not have time to
dig graves deep enough to hide evena fraction of their crimes. They simply
drove the bodies into unpopulated areas anddumped them en mass. There must have
been too much confusion to tell thedifference between the dead and the nearly dead,
a bit of chaos, and theylost all sense of scientific procedure.
(30:40):
I'm sure both of you are nowwishing that they had done a better job
of maintaining their professionalism. But mistermissus Giesay, history took only one shape
this one, and it increasingly resemblesa corkscrew burrowing its way through a human
skull. I left China, mymind floating in a soot haze at the
(31:03):
edges of consciousness and sense. Ihave dim memories of a cramped refugee ship
and the ocean's low rumble. Iwas brought to a large port city in
q Shoe, where the soldier handedme off to some female relation of his.
She was a thin woman with coolhands, and she force fed me
until I was strong enough to walkagain. I still had no memory,
(31:26):
but I learned rudimentary Japanese quickly,and it was not long before I slipped
away from my would be caretaker beforeI did anything too terrible to her.
My disfigured flash often proved to bea surprising advantage for my life in Japan.
People saw my skin and assumed I'dbeen caught in an Allied fire bombing.
As a result, many of themextended hospitality to me, no matter
(31:49):
how badly off they themselves were.I wandered throughout southern Kshue, surviving on
that generosity, searching for something Icould not name but knew I needed to
find. I had such a longingin me. It was as if my
fingers were meant to be an inchlonger, and I could feel always the
(32:12):
phantasm of that absence. Mister andmissus gesay, it occurs to me now
that I should assure you both thatI derived no sexual pleasure from either your
current suffering or impending death. Byway of addressing that concern, I freely
admit that my time with Unit seventhirty one rendered me physically incapable of experiencing
(32:37):
sexual pleasure. My children are adopted. I required them for the sake of
appearance. They were raised by hiredcaretakers. I never married. I tell
you this because while you will neverbe able to understand exactly what my motives
are, that's not what this letteris for. Not really, I'm confident
(32:58):
it's possible for you to understand whatthey are. Not Shall I describe my
rise to material power and wealth.It's a fairly predictable and prosaic affair.
There was the horde of Chinese arthidden in the caves beneath our former estate,
and I alone knew of its existence. There was my fortuitous partnership with
an American an officer with the OccupationalForce. He was an obtuse but useful
(33:22):
man who listened to Wagner incessantly.The great tragedy of his life, I
once heard him opine, was thathe had been stationed in Japan instead of
proud Germany. It was his instatiableneed for high quality opera LPs that first
brought him into contact with the postwar black market and into the circle of
my acquaintance. In the decade followinghirohitos surrender, we undertook the covert acquisition
(33:47):
of my father's collection and we soldit piece by piece. We made a
fortune, and I became acquainted withthe wider world. Our clientele was made
up of European aristocrats, ghosh Imams, no Vodici, Americans, and dozens
of very respectable museums. By thetime I was twenty four, the collection
(34:07):
was exhausted. My partner relocated toSouth America to live like a king with
opera blaring in every room of hispalace. For my part I stayed in
Japan and invested wisely. I establishedconstruction companies to rebuild the cities, channeled
funds into re establishing the infrastructure.I was a driving force behind a so
(34:30):
called economic miracle that restored the nation, which, while not my actual native
land, had gone to such extraordinarylengths to make me what I am.
Nearly a quarter of all the buildingsin Tokyo still contained materials provided by my
companies. My wealth grew exponentially asJapan rose from the ashes of the war
(34:52):
and into unheard of prosperity. Ina strange way, I became an icon
of the new Japan, the orscarred patriot who defied adversity, and,
like the very country he had sovaliantly championed, transformed defeat into opportunity.
I have funded most of Japan's majorpolitical figures. The LDP asks for my
(35:15):
approval before it appoints a prime minister. I've shaken hands with three different American
presidents, although to be fair,one of them was Nixon. Dozens of
heads of state and internationally syndicated publicationshave hailed me as one of the generation's
greatest philanthropists. I've contributed billions tofight world hunger, fund waste management in
(35:40):
Third world countries, and combat incurablediseases. I've even been described as a
living saint. Mister Gisay, evenin your desperate extremity, I hope you
can find it somewhere in yourself tothink this as funny as I do.
Doubt suspicions have begun to creep intoone or both of your minds. Has
(36:04):
this letter been an elaborate fiction?Perhaps I am actually mister hutory, and
the true scope of your present situationis nothing more significant than three people in
a small room, one of whomhappens to be a dangerous lunatic. Rationally
speaking, why would I restore andexalt a country and people I have every
(36:28):
reason to despise with all my being. Yes, you have good cause to
doubt the content of this letter andregard all that you have been forced to
read until this point as a cruelfarce. Mister and missus geesay in complete
and perfect candor. I am notwriting this extremely long letter for your benefit,
(36:52):
nor are these words meant to soothemy conscience over having ended your small,
honest lives. I'm not seeking toabsolve my guilt by making you two
understand how painful and unusual my lifehas been. I don't feel guilt,
not over you or anything I've everdone. We are nothing more than circumstance,
(37:15):
bound by the causal chains that dragus along our inviolable march to the
Abyss. This letter is not foreither of you. This letter is for
me. You are the only onesreading it at gunpoint. Thank you in
advance for your understanding. An hourago I concluded my daily longevity treatments.
(37:38):
I dismissed my personal physician, aSwede whose skill is equaled only by his
discretion. I feel no fear whenhe and his machines touch me. My
body would have succumbed to its ownfrailty long ago if not for him.
And I've never forgotten that practiced artof passing into an impenetrable nullity where pain
(37:59):
and thought can not enter. Yes, even now, I do not want
to die. I once saw aprophecy written a mushroom cloud, and I
must live to witness its fulfillment.My skin was still moist from the treatments,
and to prepare myself for writing thisletter, I stood naked in front
(38:19):
of a full length mirror. Thedeeper scars on my chest looked like toothless,
salivating mouths. This is the onlymirror I own. Under any other
circumstance, I vigilantly avoid my ownimage. I do this for the same
reason I have used my resources tosuppress all records of Unit seven thirty one
(38:42):
and their activities, assuring that theJapanese government will continue to vigilantly deny any
acknowledgment of culpability for the crimes againstthe human spirit that took place in manch
Coupo, and to actively work towardsa time when these matters will never again
be discussed or even vaguely recollected.But sometimes I have no choice but to
(39:06):
unhouse my mirror and regard myself asI truly am. And it is then
I have no choice but to writea letter like this to people like you.
At this point, it should comeas no surprise that this is the
fourth time I have written an accountof my life to a captive audience.
(39:27):
The recipients are always a married couple. I don't know exactly why. Perhaps
it has to do with my irrevocablevirginity, although I suspect that the truth
is it's just easier this way.Mister Giesay, if it were only your
life on the line, would youhave indulged me to this degree. But
the thought of your poor bride's kneesbeing shot out in front of you,
(39:50):
ruining those indulgent pajama pants. Yeah, it's certainly easier this way. My
writing process, such as it is, always begins when, by whatever chance,
I happen to see a married couple, in this case you two with
my own eyes, and recognize inboth of them the mixture of simplicity,
(40:13):
conventionality, and sincerity that some mightcall decency or even goodness, whatever one
might label that quality. It shinesout to me like a beacon when it's
truly present in people. Once myinstincts have been confirmed by an exhaustive background
check, I grant myself permission toset events in motion. The first time
(40:35):
it was a German couple, misterand Missus Opfer in Frankfurt, and that
was twenty years ago. The originalmister Huttory, there's a new one each
time, but all of them werein the same uniform. He had such
trouble compelling them to stop struggling andread the damned letter that he did actually
shoot Missus Olpfer in the kneecap.Since then, I've been sure to stipulate
(40:55):
the existence of that consequence as nearto the beginning of the letter, as
formalities of composition will allow. Theletter they read was significantly shorter than this
one, and far more of anincoherent ramble. I was obsessed with recapturing
the minute details of my childhood andtorture. I had not yet learned the
(41:16):
importance of thoughtful editing. Still,there was something tremendously satisfying and irreproducible about
those first clumsy strokes. The secondcouple was Parisian mister and Missus Annon,
twelve years ago. Upon comparing thereports of each, Mister Hittory, it
(41:37):
seems they read the most attentively,though it's possible you two will outdo them.
That letter was a mire of abstractionsand pontifications. In it, I
continually hinted at the false possibility thata correct interpretation of the text might reveal
(41:57):
a hidden word or phrase that wouldcounsel mister hittor re orders. I no
longer feel the need to indulge inthat particular form of cruel pretense. The
third couple was American from New York, Mister and Missus Tribute. I had
business at the u N and Iglimpsed at two of them from the window
of my limousine. Working together torepair their son's bicycle. Missus Tribute actually
(42:21):
attempted to throw her own head infront of the bullet intended for her husband.
She missed, although that mister Huttoryswore it was only by an instant,
and in any case, she didnot have much time and wish to
regret it. That was two yearsago, and the letter was very similar,
although I wasted too much of itattempting to articulate the historical and cultural
(42:44):
intricacies of my dual identities. Youmay have noticed both that you two are
my only Japanese couple to date,and also that there obviously was a time
when I found this impulse easier tocontrol. I first marked you two for
death in Kyoto. I apologize forthe bluntness of that phrase marked for death,
(43:07):
but any euphemism I might use inits place would only be more horrific.
You were in the audience at andno production of Dojoji. Normally I
find no theater unbearably tedious, butmy oldest son, a professional scholar of
Japanese history, had insisted that Iaccompany him to this production. Watching it
(43:28):
from the vantage of my private box, I found that it excited something in
me, do you remember the legendof do Geoji Temple? Mister missus,
guisay you saw it yourself, butI suspect that, given your present circumstance
you might have some difficulty recollecting thespecifics. A handsome and virtuous monk is
(43:52):
caught in a sudden rain and forcedto seek shelter. Unfortunately, the only
nearby enclosure is already occupied by abeautiful older woman, whom the monk wisely
recognizes as a sure source of temptation. But the lady is very kind in
her attempts to coax him out ofthe storm, and the monk eventually agrees
(44:12):
to share the close quarters with her. What happens between them that night is
their business alone, varying from tellingto telling depending on the perversity of the
teller's imagination. The point is thatwith the dawning of the next day,
the monk is overcome with shame,either for the desires he acted upon or
for the desires he resisted. Heknows that the lady has fallen in love
(44:37):
with him, and perhaps he lovesher as well, so he preserves himself
by fleeing while she sleeps. Whenshe finally wakes and finds herself quite abandoned.
The lady is seized by a torrentof rage and sorrow so intense she
transforms into a monstrous serpent. Sherelentlessly use the monk across oceans and mountains,
(45:02):
finally catching up with him as hehides in the belle of Dojoji Temple.
Reunited, the serpent in the monkdied together, consumed by the flames
of her passion. As I watchedthis old legend played out once more on
stage, I could not help butthink, and with an unusual amount of
(45:24):
intensity, how profoundly stupid it is. My heart actually began to beat noticeably
faster, something that had not happenedoutside of my physical therapy sessions for decades.
What deep and abiding idiocy to thinkthat intensity of feeling is what transforms
(45:45):
a person into a monster, asif to feel beyond reason is not exactly
the quality that defines what it isto be human. Take the two of
you, for example, how muchand hard have you felt since mister Huttory
began his work. The sheer terror, obviously, but the anger as well,
(46:07):
and perhaps even love had its ownplace in this nightmare. Feeling is
not what turns humans into serpents.That is what I came to as I
watched those masked actors caper to ridiculousmusic and felt the throbbing in my chest.
It is the absence of feeling thatallows a man to become a monster.
(46:30):
And at the very moment in whichthat thought entered my mind, I
glanced down into the audience, andI saw you two, mister and Missus
Guisay. I saw mister Guisay placehis hand over yours, Missus Guisay,
and you looked at him, andwith your face and profile, I saw
a smile that told me everything Ineeded to know. I decided that instant
(46:57):
that both of you would die togetheron the floor of the home you shared.
Then I felt my heart slow andit was very reassuring. Please understand,
I cannot let myself be seen byliving eyes. I will not allow
that to happen. Yet. Iacquired a vast fortune and took on the
(47:17):
trappings of a saint, all toprevent people from seeing me until the time
was right to be seen. Buteventually I found that was not enough.
I needed to open the throat ofa lamb. I needed the blood to
spill down into Naraka. So aslong as I write a letter and send
(47:38):
a mister Hittory, whenever I feelthat I might be near to giving myself
away, I can appease the thingthat mules and writhe this inside me.
Mister and missus Geesay, can youeven begin to comprehend why you died?
And you are dead already, aren'tyou? I always lie about provided enough
(48:00):
time to read the entire letter.As I said, it's not for you.
I wonder how far you managed toget, Missus Giesay, before you
heard the hollow pop, saw yourhusband and knew that I had lied.
Pardon my presumptuousness, but I canpractically imagine the look on your face.
Mister and missus Agnio managed to getjust past my description of my American business
(48:23):
partner, and they were the bestreaders of the three. Perhaps you two
managed to get farther. I sincerelyhope that you are the last couple I
write to. Not to spare futureinnocence, mind you, but because I
believe that the world is at lastturning into a place where I will no
(48:45):
longer have to conceal what I reallyam. The mushroom cloud prophecy that emerged
from this little island nation suggests tome a future where monsters like myself can
shamble into plain view and do whateverwe want, whenever we want to do
it. The time of the Buddhisatvashas passed into so much dust. There
(49:08):
will be no more hiding, nomore need for masks. Our urge to
annihilate ourselves in one another is ouronly destiny. Mister and missus gisay,
you are so lucky to be dead. Soon I will place the call to
summon mister Hittory in his ridiculous outfit. For now, I can lay down
(49:30):
my father's pen and live as ifI were still a man. I will
continue on until I see the worldbecome naraka. I am eclipsed, untouched
in the dark. I am safe. No one can find me here.
Mister Hittory will destroy these pages utterly, and their words shall be commended to
(49:53):
the eyes of the dead alone,to your eyes, yours, respectfully,
no one at all. Do yousee what I mean? Wasn't that just
a horrible story? I love itspremise. I think that's because in that
(50:17):
one story that highlights such varying degreesof evil, the evil, of the
war, of the doctor's experiments,of the community against individuals who are different,
of people who will kill for money, and of the individual psychopath.
And it doesn't try to explain thatmister and missus Genpay were connected in any
(50:40):
way to the author's misery or history. It points out the pure randomness of
evil. And I see that inthe news sometimes about terrible things that happened
to people simply because they were inthe wrong place at the wrong time.
Okay, so that's not comforting.I want to believe that terrible things happen
to those who deserve it, andI think that's why so many stories do
(51:06):
include some connection between the victim andthe perpetrator. And I think it's because
taren Day shows the randomness that thisstory leaves me so unsettled. It's not
tied up neatly. At the end. Justice did not come to those who
deserve it, an evil did happento those who didn't deserve it. That
makes me so uncomfortable, And nowI want to go read a romance sort
(51:30):
of something where everything turns out wonderfulin the end. Thank you, Ray
Tarenday. The kaidon Kai Haunted horrorcontest ends on July fifteenth. To get
your stories into me today. Thetheme is the Haunted House. I'll choose
four stories to read during August andthose four will receive a cash prize.
(51:52):
Please go to Kaidu Kai Stories dotcom, Kai Da n Kai stories dot
com where you can find the detailsabout how to submit. Next week,
a psychic is hired to solve amystery. The solution is a big surprise.
You'll not want to miss next week'sstory or any in the coming months,
(52:12):
so please subscribe to the kaidon Kaioon your favorite podcast platform. As
always, please review the podcast,follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.
All the information is in the podcastand episode descriptions. Thank you for
listening today. I'll see you nextweek.
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