‘It’s simple really. So this is my fourth reboot. Now, for some reason you didn’t turn up on my third – I guess they try mix it up a bit.’ I don’t think he can hear my speaking furniture. ‘Well, it’s made me believe in fate anyway. I always end up the same no matter what path I take.’
‘Can you time-travel, is that what you’re on about?’
‘Nope.’ He shakes his head.
I sit on the bed, drinking my tea.
‘And if you really think about it,’ Naoshi says to himself, ‘it’s not so bad.’
‘No thinking needed,’ quips CHAIR.
‘You know,’ I say, ‘I thought you’d be more introverted, a man of fewer words.’
‘I am, when I’m out there. And I’m pretty loaded right now, too.’
I get up and sit by his feet. ‘Hey, what exactly are these “reboots” all about?’
‘It’ll become clear, soon enough,’ he replies quietly, sounding a little weary.
‘Now then, look at this old scene,’ CHAIR begins, ‘you’re hoping to get him to say he likes you again, aren’t you? But you needn’t bother. He could say it a hundred times and you’d still never be satisfied. Not even a thousand times would work. And it’s because, child, you just don’t love him. Not one bit!’
The nerve of this chair, using a word like ‘love’? Has she no shame?
All the same, I get my sweet and coy act on (tilting my head to one side, etc.) and ask him, ‘What’s love?’
‘This, surely?’ He reaches out and places his hand on my shorts, on my crotch, before immediately taking it away again. He did it so casually I couldn’t even jump. ‘I’m a horribly direct guy, aren’t I?’
Oh, but if I showed some force, he’d bend to my will. You see, Naoshi had long ago disembarked from his life, had withdrawn and shut himself away in this pillowy narcosis. And now, he’s merely watching himself drift on – watching, wholly numbed, and without emotion. I doubt he could even muster the energy to try and understand anyone else. In that head of his, there probably isn’t much difference between me and his old guitar. And he isn’t trying to hurt anyone – no, not at all. He’s just… checked out.
But who cares if he objectifies us? It’s all fine with me.
‘Well, he’s not exactly “fine”,’ CHAIR says, in my head.
I want to make him mine.
‘And you reckon you’ll bring an end to your endless string of failures that way?’
I know, I know. But the reason I want him is something more urgent than love.
To me, you see, Naoshi is… a symbol of a certain time. And the voice in my head is no longer CHAIR’s. A make-believe time. I made it up, all by myself.
‘Mind if I stay here a bit longer?’ He seems more relaxed all of a sudden. And then I remember. He asked the same thing before. Back when I was twenty years old. An endless age had passed since then.
‘Why don’t you sleep in the bed?’
‘Okay.’ He begins taking off his clothes.
I open the curtains slightly to look outside. A new day – fresh, luminous – is already starting. I imagine I’ll head back to Earth eventually. Once I manage to let go completely. I no longer care about happiness or unhappiness. I just hope the scenery’s pretty, wherever I am.
‘Aren’t you going to lie down, too?’ Naoshi calls out to me from the bed. I lift up the covers and get in beside him.
He wraps his arms around my neck. And he speaks now, in a gentle voice, to no one in particular. ‘Don’t worry. The world won’t stop spinning. It’ll keep going, even if you don’t want it to. On and on, until you’re absolutely sick of it.’
The barman from the Seaside Club is staring into my eyes when I wake up.
‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Not too bad.’
He’s a doctor, and we’re on Earth.
‘You didn’t get what you were looking for, though.’
What a serious look on his face!
‘I’ve come to accept that it just might not be possible.’
I can see a dull-coloured sky through an open curtain. Weak sunlight is coming through the window.
‘That planet isn’t real, is it?’
‘That’s correct. Everything you experience there has been programmed and transmitted to your brain. We didn’t want to create a fantasy world, you know, where everything’s just as the patient wants it.’
‘What if they never want to come back?’
‘We forcefully wake them up, which can be quite painful, psychologically.’
‘And the travellers with silver bracelets were all patients, weren’t they? So everyone else must’ve been fabricated, imagined…’
‘Emi, who we discharged a little earlier – she left her contact details. Seems she wants to meet up with you.’
She must be thirty-six years old, in this world. Naoshi must be out of the facility too, then. He took off from that planet three days earlier.
I get up.
No need to look in a mirror. I already know the score: I’m a dejected housewife, in my thirties – impatient and frustrated, yet too limp and lethargic to do anything about it. And I live in one of those hideous, uniform, low-rent apartments I can see out the window.
The doctor has left.
I change into my clothes.
Waiting for me in the corridor is my husband.
Naoshi’s grown so shabby and unsightly, a goblin next to his past self. Silently, he steps towards me.
I take his hand, for the first time in forever. ‘Please, let’s not go to that planet anymore. Do you realize what these reboots are doing to us?’
He issues some vague sounds in response.
And outside, the day turns to a swampy night.
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
I was just killing time. After I had cleaned my room, cooked, and finished the dishes, I had nothing left to do. So I was hanging around at this arcade, you know? I was there by myself.
I became aware of someone approaching me from behind. It wasn’t like a shadow fell over my game, but I’m sensitive to these things. It seemed like the person was standing and watching me. I looked over my shoulder, wanting to know who it was.
I saw an older woman, probably a little over sixty. She was filthy, her hair in disarray. She was wearing a jacket that looked like a potato sack. Did she work here?
‘Are you winning?’ The old woman smiled and immediately her face turned into a topographical map of a mountain range. What? What does she want?
‘I’ll give you these.’ The old lady brought out a handful of tokens from her pocket.
‘Oh! That’s so kind of you.’ As usual, I went along with it. I’m very good at going along with people. When I was a kid, Gran would call me a sycophant.
‘But, are you sure?’ I asked drawlingly.
She didn’t say anything and smiled slightly. A very deep dimple appeared next to her lips. It was disturbingly erotic. I got goosebumps. I couldn’t tell if it was a pleasant or unpleasant feeling. What was going on here? This old woman’s dimple was far more affecting than a young girl’s. Was I actually a pervert? I knew this nineteen-year-old guy who said he was only interested in women younger than six or older than sixty – a sentiment I couldn’t understand. Was this how he felt? Anyway, I thought I’d seen her before.
‘We’ve met before, right?’ I asked carelessly.
‘Sure.’
The old lady was no longer smiling. Was she from my neigh-bourhood? The people who lived on my floor were mainly all single guys, and she probably wasn’t a friend of the old landlady. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t recall knowing any babies or old women. My mum was still in her forties, my gran is already dead and none of my other relatives is that age either.
I continued playing the game for a couple more minutes, trying to get these ideas out of my head and hoping she’d disappear. But the old lady didn’t make to leave, and I had to stop playing because I have a hard time ignoring people. I get too self-conscious.