– Japanese Inspired Collection –
Ikigai (生き甲斐, “a reason for being”)
7 Works.
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Oita Ikebana Sakura: The Precious Slipper – An Ode to Mizuki (008172)
This work is accompanied by a story chapter from the book: Enclosure Fathom: Copyright by the artist: 2001
Enclosure Fathom – Chapter -The Seven Impure – Pure Slippers: 1
He was Japanese, slim, tall, and an exquisite dresser. He missed his garden. The 7 white lady slipper orchards were what kept him connected to purity. He was there to guard Helena and her husband for the remainder of the congress. He really felt for Jovan.
They knew he would be coming, but because of his excellent training and high intellect and the volatility of time travel, it was impossible to know where or when; and they had to stop him, getting to Helena, sharing the same space in time. Closer than 2 square meters would completely destroy her immunity system.
He saw Jovan first. He looked much shorter. He was approaching the huge concrete/grass plane. However, he felt so intrigued by the whole situation that he let Jovan continue observing Helena and her husband, instead of blocking him off. He in turn, was watching all of them.
He was born on Oita Island in Japan. His name was Tomoyoshi, or just Tomo to his closest friends. He wore a short leather jacket with a silver zipper in front and it had one zipper pocket over each breast. His black jeans and casual shirt both, fitted him like gloves. He wore biker boots, sunglasses and a stylish, long hair cut. His whole aura shouted Cherokee Chief, were it not for his ultra- pale face. The paleness of his skin would stand out in ANY society. It was chalky white. The oversized, almond – shaped eyes, were dark brown with brooms for eyelashes, thick and long. He stood out like an elegant, out worldly thumb in Turkey.
The autumn air mixed with the thread of the barely detected smell of his aftershave mixed with lemon water, in turn, mixed with cologne, the Turkish lavishly provided.
It was epic. Tomo took a snapshot in his spirit of the whole scene.
Helena started walking from the right footpath towards her husband. She was walking much slower, but utterly determined, with tentative steps. Every time she turned her legs or bottom; the deep thick scar tissue pulled away from the flesh and caused micro incisions which would lead to inflammation later. She could not bend down to fasten her one shoelace which was loosening itself as she walked. They were attached to thick, black, military style boots, that were high fashion.
She had another, deep thick scar, which ran from just between her breasts, straight through her navel area, and went almost completely into the area where her private parts hid themselves daintily from any onslaught, it stopped, barely short of it. The best surgeons in the field could not match her two halves up front properly again at the time, and the muscle groups sat there, attached to the meaningless. She could not bend forward without hurting herself in painful ways.
She had a red corduroy cap on her red hair, barely covering her short hair, which had other plans to escape. The Black Oakley glasses did not suit her at all, they looked like an exact copy of her husband’s pair. She walked with her one hand inside the left pocket of her ill- fitting jeans. She wore a longish dark red designer’s t shirt. Over her right shoulder hung a laptop bag which continued to slide down her shoulder; every 5 steps or so. She had arrived in the country with oxygen cylinders and on heavy pain meds injections daily, just to keep sane, she was in so much pain. The meds had her nauseous most of the time, and the loads of cortisone did the rest.
Since then, a lot had changed.
It was late afternoon. She was returning from her classes: coaching 6 masterclass students who were studying ecology, about using qualitative research techniques, and how to work out proper protocols, using animals like sea-turtles, otters, and the likes how to carry things into the sea and fields and to clear some garbage obstacles by themselves.
They first had to master advanced English terms to a specified level, in order, to coordinate properly with UN teams. They received a huge grant from the United Nations. After every class her husband would walk to go and meet her and to hang out afterwards at a modern coffee shop nearby.
Tomo had been informed of the broader scope of her bodily injuries, but he really knew truly little about her. He knew she had good manners when he greeted her and her fingers touched lightly under her elbow, when she passed objects to him.
The three people that were in his charge were a curiosity to him, something which seldomly happened to him.
It all started the first morning when they had gone out. He had walked behind them. Her husband and Co looked left, right and left again. She looked right, left, and right again. He had found it very odd. It entranced him so, that he lost concentration for a split second. When he looked up again, she was standing almost on top of him. “Whatever you are thinking now, is just inner dialogue bull and rumortel, by Whatever Source, in your mind. After this morning’s trip, you are gone. I thought you were the best. To THINK you were distracted by the likes of Daantjie Kat!”
He was clueless to what she had meant. She had already disappeared again. “Thank God I cannot yet speak Japanese”. Now THAT he heard, he was coldly furious towards her. But she merely meant; then at least she could not hear or understand what was on his mind – hopefully.
Helena’s husband was different. Tomo looked at the tall man making his way across. He was broad shouldered, and in top shape. Black straight long hair curled at the edges which blew freely in the wind around his head. He walked with, huge strides. He looked totally at ease, with the backpack slung over his shoulder. The jeans wasn’t a narrow fit and hung-over caterpillar boots, which left a semi casual impression. He was one of those men who could just never look at ease in jeans.
Tomo noticed the plastic bag in his hand. Inside he could easily make out what he knew as “diospyros kaki”, at home. They were wild persimmons called ‘’hurmas’’ in Turkey. It was absolutely tasteless on his own palate and unbeautiful. He never craved unbeautiful things. Strawberries, now those are beautiful, but only the ones he created in his spare time. He had a sudden craving for the beautiful white flesh tasting like blueberries. Their pits had smooth uneven sides denting the downy dark purplish hairs. The after taste was sweet, but with a minty backwash.
He could not wait to get back home. He was a microbiologist with a penchant for danger and a man who loved peace and loved creating peace equally as much as the destruction it sometimes took to reach sustainable peace. Abandoned houses, animated buildings and a deep love for architecture and anything you could fly or drive fixed to a wheel held irresistible appeal to him. He could watch the insane digital cars racing on skyscrapers in Tokyo as he flew in or stayed the night, for hours on end. He craved the real thing with an endless hunger. He wished for an enemy to grant him the chance for a parking garage road chase, instead of having to watch these three; boring people.
The woman immediately stopped in her tracks, as if she was about to walk head on into something. Even from where he was posted, he could see her blush cherry red, through his binoculars.
Wait. She put her bag down carefully, and laboriously crossed both arms and pretended to rub her left elbow. She pushed her fingers just far enough to be able to throw him a sign. He had to look twice. He gasped, as he looked her eyes, she was doing it on purpose. His heart started beating faster. He was manning a post. He was not doing anything wrong. He started to dislike her even more. Where he stood behind the green hedge and leaning against the lamppost nearest to the sign above him, Jovan was taking the utmost care to try and control himself. He held is hand in his mouth, he was shaking with laughter. He knew three things by then: whoever was supposed to cover Helena specifically, was somewhere to his right. Whoever it was had to be someone she did NOT respect.
So, whoever it was, did not meet her approval or and she had no direct hand in them being there…. That and the fact that she hated the words “bored” and “boring”, as she was never bored and thought nothing, or nobody was ever “boring”.
In that instant she became aware of Jovan. As he thought of her, so strongly, she did not have to look, Helena knew he was there. Angry wave, after wave, came towards him, in his mind.
“You CANNOT be HERE! If you come within 2 meters of me, you will destroy my immunity, BUT it will also destroy YOU. I am already very ill. I need your help. Both me and my son need the best medical treatment which money can buy, BUT I need a place to live out my life, documenting my work and to do it, while my memory still holds, and have it saved. I have either Parkinsons or Alzheimer’s, luckily it is a process slower than with most, but it is there. Wherever I go, it has to be in the “boendoes”. With age here, my abilities are becoming stronger. So, I download faster but there is constant overload.
I Will ALWAYS love you, whenever, wherever. Everything can be taken from me perhaps, but my spirit and that love, never will. Here is what you need to do…. He did not get in an extra thought sideways before he had to make a run for it.
Tomo was still trying to work out if it was just his imagination or if she really did what she had done to him a couple of minutes ago.
The protocol was that they were never supposed to stand around. She was standing still with her hands in her pockets. Taking out her one hand looking at the diamond ring in it. He suddenly saw she was crying, and she took off her cap and wiped her eyes with the top of it. For a moment he could see nothing. Just a wild red halo. Then she pushed back the lot and put it underneath her cap.
He thought her hair looked very untidy. He looked her up and down. She picked up the laptop bag laboriously and started walking slowly, laboriously again. He thought her to be the messiest woman he had ever met. Her hair for one, using her cap to wipe off snot and tears, not to mention that bad sign she threw him for no reason? He lost horizontal sight of her. As she walked away her hand came through the laptop handle and she folded her hand behind her bag and threw him a different international signal this time. Up Yours needed NO translation.
He started to shift feet and then he could not stand it. He had to smoke. He felt the rage building up inside him.
He turned away with such speed that Jovan made him, and he made Jovan. Tomo forgot any training he had and took out his silencer gun. They went on a violent chase across town. But Tomo held no candle to Jovan, who usually just seemed like a peaceful, intelligent, powerfully built man. He blended into the landscape, quickly and seamlessly.
Helena met her husband on the open plain in the meantime. He immediately helped her with her laptop bag, supporting her with his strong arm beneath her elbow.
“Close your eyes and hold your hands together.”
With a pale face she did that. He put the two pieces of persimmon in her hands. She smiled at him, it lit up his day. He slowly walked with her to the Cafe.
As Jovan turned away from the park next to the plain at Kocatepe, he heard the words, ‘close your eyes, open your hands.’ 40 Plus years into the future suddenly just fell away.
He realized then, she had just put the remainder of her life into his hands. He would not let anyone transfer her consciousness to a machine or do any crazy stuff to her. He was old school and chivalry had a strong place in a girls’ heart with a Barbara Cartland mentality.
He rang the bell incessantly. “Where were you? I was looking for you everywhere?” In that moment Tomo had forgotten his manners completely. The guest just said, ‘hallo to you too! Come in.’
He got invited to dinner. It was amazingly simple. Chicken chopped up, and lightly fried with green pepper and eggfruit, Jasmin rice, cucumber, tomato, and onion chopped into a separate bowl, white goat’s cheese, which made him shudder, and fresh green and black olives.
They sat down on huge, navy-blue velvet cushions, lightly sprinkled with golden stars and moons. The carpet was soft and cream. The couches and chairs were fashioned from puffy cream material. They were much too big and overwhelming for his elegant, neat, compact style. He could smell the oil or polish they’d used to keep the yellow wood tiles shiny. It reminded him of his family’s yacht. The family held shares in a major shipyard based in Ōita Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu in Japan.
Helena remarked; ‘they should have just varnished the lot with boat deck varnish and saved me a lot of trouble’.
Early mornings, she would sit down painfully and shine the floors and had a heavy metal comb and a broad scrubbing brush. Each morning she would lightly scrub all the dust off the carpet and afterwards remove the spun wool stuck in the metal comb, she had used to clean the scrub brush. Then carefully put it inside a plastic bag and chuck it in the rubbish bin. But lately she had a new routine. If there were only a few strands of silky hair stuck in the comb, she would hold it in the wind and watch it fly away.
Helena was in love with the wind.
He looked around with curiosity. She immediately glared at him. Her husband came across as not in the least bit territorial compared to Helena, but Tomo could not have been more wrong. He was simply an unreadable, extremely- territorial; alpha- male. Tomo’s pals simply called him Raven.
Tomo’s stomach churned when she handed him the note, straight after dinner, he felt irritated again. No after dinner relaxation or attempt at small talk.
She was a woman with no manners. He crossed his hands and breathed deeply; in and out.
“You must be the most boring person I have ever met. I am so bored; I just have to go and find my non – existing manners again.”
She was up and on the balcony before he could process in English, his fourth language, what had just transpired.
“Nevermore.”
He heard her say that crystal clearly from his spot on the floor.
Timelessness grabbed a hold of him.
An euphoric sensation swept through him as he started to taste the nectar gold dust, trailing down his throat. He knew the onset of the feelings, involving the crystal palace, but this was in another realm. He started feeling numb, intoxicated even. He felt instantaneously swept up in feelings unknown to him. Before her husband could stop her, she pushed two fingers into Tomo’s nostrils, and pressed firmly inwards, towards the middle of his nose. He felt a sense of shock when a beautiful bird song, noise and sound came from his mouth. It continued for about a minute.
Reverential fear came over him.
He saw both the people in front of him imbued with light.
She touched his upper wrist lightly. He felt his rational mind return with a sense of peace and clarity, like he had never known.
But she, she was rebuking something or another, unseen to him but he could sense immense evil. Her husband sat with his head and hands in a prayerful position. Then he felt a tremendous rush through the lounge, saw several lights flash and whatever evil it was, had left and soft tranquility flooded the room.
Helena immediately sat down on a cushion, almost chalk white now herself too.
“Please go home. We can talk again tomorrow.”
He had no clue what had happened to him. But since that day, he had known what some real peace felt like, or so he had thought. Every root entrapping him was about to get chopped and deleted from his life permanently.
His nickname was Raven, simply because he could never allow himself to admit to anyone about his failures. His university art and literature friends took potshots at him when life became unbearable. Because all he would say is ‘’Nevermore’’, so that is how his nickname came about.
Helena’s husband was upset with her.
“He doesn’t know what hit him. Why did you do it, without presenting him with some teaching first?” “He was in so much spiritual trouble, you have no idea, it would only have been a question of time before his screw ups really lead to death or injury to one or all of us. He had zero standing spiritually, he had zero cover.’’
“By the looks of what had left him, I’d say you are right then.”
For the next fortnight, his services were only utilized to watch Helena at the apartment as her husband went to a congress.
The guest staying with them was there as well. Every day, whole day. Polite but completely distant. There were many books to read, which Tomo did out of sheer boredom, but they were not his style.
She hardly ate anything, from what he could make out. He would sit in the lounge right in the front, left of her bedroom door on the couch. Sometimes she would just open the door and walk past to the kitchen or bathroom and greet him in a nice manner when she went back to her room.
She looked ridiculous on most occasions. Dark blue tracksuit and puffy bear slippers with huge leather nails and, hair like a mattress inner factory on her head. He did not know, if she washed or when she washed. She never smelled.
Then one day she got up and definitely washed and dressed and had her hair in a ponytail. He felt overjoyed not for her, for the sake of her husband and the guest and himself.
He felt very affronted when she asked him to help her to wash the carpet by hand. However much he tried to squirm or wiggle himself out of it, in the most, polite Japanese manner he was capable of. Tomo took the brush and the edge of his long sleeve shirt got wet, after three strokes of the carpet.
As they cleaned the carpet he started thinking of his love. Unrequited love. Mizuki had left him because, he dared to wear wires on his teeth.
That was all he needed to complete his powerful looks, fixing his teeth. If Tom Cruise could do it, why not him. He suddenly grabbed the bucket and threw it across the room; where it splattered the cream couch, with the burgundy loose prayer cushion on it.
“Because of #&%&$#@ Wires on my Teeth!!!’’ ‘’F….. Wires!!!” He swore in Japanese a couple of times and burst into tears. “I’m so tired of life.’’
‘’I hate my life… my family, my parents, my village, my town, my friends…”
His list was extremely long.
She went and sat on a cream chair just watching him. That was always her way, if what she could give or help with, was not accessed within an allotted time frame in her mind, she would get close enough to people, like with the pheromones experiment in France, at the university.
Helena had a strong truth vibration. Her spiritual vibration exposed simply what is the complete and real truth of people’s holographic memories across time.
Sitting close to them, speaking to them or being with them, started to peel away all hidden truth, blind truth, lies, time etc. until they get in touch with the zero point of their own spirit’s aka souls by some. She was on earth, merely to serve.
The young guest cleaned up the mess and the other couch.
Tomo wanted to leave and never return. He had never felt so ashamed in his life.
“Here….”
She handed him a napkin ring holder with colored paper napkins inside. “Unfortunately I am right out of tissues. I have cried enough for both or all of us, over the past two weeks. Here, please help yourself Raven.”
He felt weak. She did not give up. That day she made him help her clean the carpet.
He felt compelled to say something, she had never mentioned the previous incident or the bucket of water fiasco 15 minutes, earlier.
“I believe in Jainism. It is an ancient Santana dharma, a method of acquiring perfect knowledge of self and universe. In Japan we probably have about 1000 ethnic Japanese families who have converted.”
“Do you know the Dipawali festival?”
“Sure I do, Tomo.”
She had called him by his name, it felt strange as well as inappropriate.
My turn. “Do you know that the ‘Raven poem’ has 108 sentences?”
“No.”
“So, you liked to have the feelings of anger wash over you before when you read that poem and in the end your inner dialogue got stuck in a raven like position at Nevermore?”
“Liked? No, you are mistaken Mrs. Helena.”
“That’s what you’re hiding from yourself. There is a pay- off for you, feeling sorry for yourself and just dramatically saying “Nevermore” and getting peer attention.”
For the first time in his adult life, he completely lost it, during normal life, apart from earlier that morning. He shouted and screamed at her. He told her what he thought of her and how terrible it was, having to work for them, for anyone who kept him away from his experiments with fruit, in the greenhouse in the abandoned house on the island.
He grabbed her arm, as he lost control.
He got smacked so hard, his teeth rattled.
“Me having touched your nose was to help set you free, the other day, not trying to hurt you. You were a danger to yourself and to the three of us as well.”
“So, who was the lady you hate so much? You have been projecting loads of rubbish onto me, ever since you’ve arrived, last month. Who broke your heart Tomo?”
“Do you know Koseki?”
Then his memories started flooding her mind in the greatest of detail. She wanted to puke, but had to stay calm. Other people’s affairs were seldomly simple. He turned around stood with his back towards her. She felt tremendous power rush through her……
The Stolen Jewel of Innocense – An Ode to JANE SAID DON’TS (008173)
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
This work is accompanied by a story chapter from the book: Enclosure Fathom Copyright by the artist: 2001
She walked back across the street trying to control her giggles. She was laughing out loud until she crossed the same zebra crossing as earlier on. There were three fresh cracks at least 40 to 50 cm in height and approximately 3cm widespread diagonally across the footpath. By the time she stepped into the apartment she had laughed herself almost silly, about her mistake. She found the idea quite delightful. The French guy sat with his breakfast in his hand, at the table.
“Is that all you are going to have?” He had a tiny biscuit from France in his hand.
“Oui.”
She showed him her food. He looked at it curiously.
“Why?”
“Monsanto must have had a huge sale. You should see the fruit and veg department.”
“No?”
She started to giggle some more.
“Oui.”
The French man went out and Tomo returned. He was not in the mood for the outside world and was quite forthcoming and some would even say pleasant. He entered the apartment looking like his usual modern dressed self.
He brought her a gift bag. All across Japan you would find token machines with giftbags inside. Visits required gifts; it was as part of the fabric of Japan as the air that they had breathed. The bag was received gingerly.
She carefully opened it under the vigilance of his careful scrutiny.
It held a tiny silver engraved tray with 4 delicate hybrid strawberries nestling in a circle of truffles.
She looked up.
His mouth was half open, his tongue pushing at the bottom of his inner lip. He did not even notice her looking up, his eyelids were droopy. He stood with his hands inside his Chino pants’ pockets. He wore house slippers with his initials embroidered on the soft burgundy velvet. His socks were pitch black, embroidered with white strawberries. His thin tie had diagonal rows of embossed pitch-black strawberries on it as well. They were so tiny, few would recognize the motif as being that of strawberry, if at all. The charcoal dark grey shirt was of superb cut and as usual he wore cufflinks with his initials on it.
Tomo reminded her of a soul finding it so rough to interface with the world and was so unaccomplished at dealing with the necessary feedback that he had to stamp himself onto anything he could claim as his. His need was to create something he could permanently claim as his own, something to get past other people and their position in life.
As his sexual tension built looking at his gift, his voice became slurred around the consonants and he started leaving out the prepositions of place, that sensitive indiscretion marking Asian speech under pressure, that telltale of someone not being a native English speaker.
Helena purposefully bumped her water glass with her elbow. It shattered in thousands of splinters on the tiled floor.
Tomo looked up, got shocked right back into the trivial.
She apologized to him with cold, non-committal eyes.
He was flustered and angry. He had the whole moment worked out months before, how the apartment would look. How the lights would fall and reflect on his black leather couch. How the thick flokati carpet would fold around her ankles, as her slippers rested on the ground behind the table. How far the marble slider would flip open, and how he would show off his gold straw. The cocaine was inside a tiny, engraved silver box. He hated gold. Yellow was a cheap color. Anything gold, looked like mere silly trinkets to him, but his straw was pinkish gold. He loved it.
He immediately became aggressive. He took out his robot cleaner. It was a modern, custom made “beedy beedy beep” who spoke with a friendly voice and addressed him as “King Tomo” in Japanese. It had advanced capabilities and quickly and efficiently cleaned up the mess.
Tomo enjoyed her surprise and awe at the robot immensely. It sent thrills of excitement through his veins. He completely forgot where they were.
“Come with me.”
He grabbed her by her arm quite roughly and pulled her up.
She let him.
In no time he helped her get into her thick coat and all the time, did not speak at all. He took her two floors down and walked her into a small lab. Inside was state of the art equipment. He took out two things.
The first was the girl. It was a laboriously designed mechanical girl. He named her Sakura. She was pure metal and red and silver wires. He went to a cupboard. He showed her the daintiest red glass slippers he had fashioned for Sakura in Venice. He took her by the hand. ”Here come try them on.” He took her to the small lounge set inside the lab. He took out a foot stool and pushed it beneath her feet.
She took off her shoes.
When he looked down, he could see she had long nimble toes. He found the urge to touch her feet irresistible.
She unceremoniously took the shoe from him, but it was so long and narrow, though it was her size she would only ever have been able to put in her toes sideways.
She saw his face darken.
“Oh my. I would like to see you fit it on her. Have you finished sculpturing her feet yet? I think they must look surreal. They are so dainty.”
It was in that moment that she knew he was a born killer. He gravitated towards many lofty things, but his raw instincts were those of a predator with highly developed tastes, pleasures, and methods.
She could feel her heart pounding in her ears.
” May I hold the shoe?”
She prayed as she took the glass shoe from him carefully.
She held the heavy glass shoe and turned to him and went and almost stood on top of him. She looked directly into his eyes.
He was completely flustered by her uncommon behavior.
He noticed for the first time that her eyes were not completely alike. They differed in color remarkably if she stood with her head turned just in an exact way.
Helena detected the moment his scan turned predatory.
She felt sickened at length. As she picked up on his holographic memory, she became nauseous. She stepped even closer to him.
‘’Tomo was she your first kill or the girl who rejected you or both?’’
Something in her gaze held him fixed to the spot.
He could not speak. His throat suddenly closed up with tears.
“Did you lose her other shoe dear?”
Tomo burst into tears and leaned into her shoulder as she brought the glass shoe down on his head.
He was out for the count, but even in his unconscious state he heaved with great sobs.
She bound him to the same spot that he had used to deflower and kill his victims.
When he woke up and saw the row of shoes he started shouting hysterically.
Each of the seven shoes only had one of the pair – neatly stacked in a row- just within his peripheral vision.
It all started with his first love. When she rejected him about him trying to have his teeth fixed.
(生き甲斐, “a reason for being.
The word consists of ‘Iki’ (“to live”) and ‘gai’ (“reason”). The term ‘ikigai’ compounds two Japanese words: ‘iki’ (生き, meaning “life;alive”) and ‘kai’ (甲斐, meaning “(an) effect; (a) result; (a) fruit; (a) worth; (a) use; (a) benefit; (no, little) avail”) (sequentially voiced as gai), to arrive at “a reason for living [being alive]; a meaning for [to] life; what [something that] makes life worth living; a raison d’être”.
“You know there are therapies which try to change people. Then there is logo therapy to transfer feelings and have the original negative ones translate and reform to something new and better: also known as bleeding the parasite or monster riding you dry.
It is what saved you tonight Tomo.
That and only that. I saw that book on your bookshelf by Victor Frankl called Man’s Search for Meaning.
I am going to give you a psychotherapy rundown of what went on here.
He started shaking himself from side to side like a dog trying to shake a fiend off. He could not move much. He was properly bound and stuck.
This stuff you got yourself into, will go down as a complete shitshow in any society, planet, except perhaps the totally cannibalistic and depraved. At the bottom of the pyramid, it will even show up as sick and twisted at best. With the exception of the words “gotten yourself into”. People do not merely get themselves into this kind of puke, – by – themselves.
He stopped shaking himself. He grinded his teeth and after sobs and giving a great shudder first, he calmed down.
He started speaking in staccato detached notes.
“I could not put the book down. I read a preview of the book and I could not leave it alone.”
She later wrote in her report that she had never before had such an inkling to kill someone herself as she had, when she saw the emotions play out over Timo’s face the moment that he had opened his eyes and saw the silhouettes of the row with single, ladies’ shoes, each only one of a pair, neatly staring at him.
He gave a grotesque smile. As he looked at the sorry tainted group his eyes lowered, and his voice dropped to a seductive tone.
Helena witnessed how the excitement left him to spill over into tears of remorse and the madness of looking at himself.
His excitement only became tainted when Helena punched him in the face, shouting at him…. “they are leftovers, do you hear me. LEFTOVERS like rotten goods. They are NOT trophies.”
It was the face of an utter maniac. His eyes turned glazed like a lover after his seed sowing deed.
“Trophies are medals. You get those for doing the right things.
He could not touch his ears, but he desperately tried to muffle out her words from his psyche.
“Tell me about her.”
She walked towards the doll. She picked up an axe and pretended to destroy it.
He pleaded with her to stop. If she touched a part of the robot, he screamed in agony. He had accomplished a new vagus nerve state. He projected all of his centers of fight or flight onto the doll. In that moment Helena was quite sure that if she were to cause him bodily, extreme pain he would not register pain at all.
“How did you lose her shoe? Why?”
She made it personal.
Helena stuck up her hand and started praying in Tongues and then stood up.
She stood right in front of him and so started an almost life and death battle in the heart of Tokyo.
Tomo just held his head and then slowly started to realize why it was that she had bound him up with pillows and strong rope like a Mummy.
The entity that used his body as a hiding place at some point could not stand Helena’s words anymore.
It took him from the concrete pillar in 2 minutes flat, where she had double chained him to the pillar and his heavy bike. Luckily, the bike’s tank was full.
It eventually also took and attacked the metallic doll. It was a mess.
Suddenly Tomo saw a cloud full of enormous light starting to lift Helena off the ground. Lots of figures appeared next to her. He saw something resembling a heavenly court in session. All the girls he had murdered were there. Including his love, he killed by accident. He saw a being of light scrolling down a book.
The destructive force tried entering the light but got thrown violently against another pillar itself, enough to tear a huge chunk out the other pillar. After two hours there were concrete chips, scattered, throughout that floor.
Something now held the destructive force in place. It could not flee, from the place itself, as well. It too now was trapped. It could now neither leave the place nor enter Tomo again!
Tomo just felt quiet but had broken and cracked bones.
Heavenly court was in session. Helena floated just there in the spot with the light. He saw everything from eyes barely open.
The destructive force was plucking every single part out of the mechanical doll.
Then he saw something. Angels of light handed the Spirit full of light on the heavenly floor, a list. It was marked in Japanese: witnesses.
There was also a being which he could only think could be the devil or the destructive force’s boss, trapped in his building floor.
He entered with a small book, but his minions were not allowed. This book was handed to one particular figure brilliant with white light, on the opposite side with the angels of light, that entered it into the heavenly court scroll on the tip of his sword.
As the light figure appearing in front of the Judgement Chair started to compare the scroll Tomo started to cringe.
He saw pop ups. Evil ones, words, and people’s faces.
Then right at the end, the spirits of the 7 girls killed were called. Each presented an oral plea. He watched scenes of their deaths, angels and devils fighting each other and then he saw Helena stick up her hand.
The scenes of his remorse came to life in a cloud.
It always started with him either in an open field or church foyer or monastery prostrated on the floor, crying hysterically. Then he saw thousands of cheques, school uniforms, cars, hospitals, and houses.
Each of the 7 girls had received perks from an anonymous donor after their deaths. So much so, that whole families were now amongst the richest in his old village, which is not a small accomplishment.
They each believed that their daughters disappeared, were still alive and probably got hold of dirty money somehow or did unthinkable things to get a hold of such perks.
Then their perfect faultless destinies were shown.
Tomo cried hysterically, his heart broke, bit by bit.
Then he looked up. He saw his own birth and his father. He saw portions of his father’s life. Slowly recognition dawned on him. His father stopped killing after his birth. BUT the force which made him do it, was transferred to Tomo.
He now knew where a lot of his father’s money went too. His earthly father had him trailed many a time, but he never had his own workers interfere with the killing of a girl.
He pleaded on his broken body prostrated, almost smothering himself for mercy again. Helena lifted her hand, a huge light tipped him upright.
He was sitting suddenly.
Huge light went back and forth, a bright light suddenly whirled and the papers with all evidence were gone. The heavenly courtroom suddenly cleared and where his case file was, now only a tiny light shown, scarcely noticeable.
A cloud came rolling towards him. He was struck with blinding light which hurt him in unbelievable ways. He never knew such pain before. Then suddenly he felt it.
A substance like honey started flowing over his head. She stood in front of him. Light streamed from her. The globes in the apartment complex burst. Then she and the mass of angels surrounding her were at it, with the destructive force. He could not count to 5, as it was all over so fast. He just remembered one, small, tiny face.
It was golden. If you could weave a beautiful, golden figure with ancient slippers of light with a musical instrument, that is what you will see.
The other angel was so huge he could never explain it to anyone, if he could even try.
But he saw him full face on. It changed his whole life. He felt something extreme and just peace. Lasting peace.
He saw the destructive force collected at once, propelled into something made of light. It spun and spun and disappeared into the cloud. Then the most beautiful fragrance started penetrating the room.
His ropes flew off into the air and shoes, anything to do with his sorrow and anguish went onto something like a flag, rolled into a ball and the ball pinned to it, then rolled up and was gone into the cloud.
She had made a call. Directly after that she passed out. She was lying on the floor on her side. Black coat open. Dressed in a pair of black slacks. Black shortened boots, resembling old worldly shoes.
A crispy white shirt with a collar, now blemished peaked over the knitted dark maroon pullover.
The shirt had just one button open.
It was tucked into the slacks.
For all that had happened the only thing evident on her clothes, were dust. Her hair was full of dust.
He looked at the perfectly polished nails.
None of his previous instincts started up. Instead, he felt pity and deep remorse. He could see she was probably in shock.
The door burst open.
Cedric could not believe his eyes.
Tomo the Japanese guy was lying there, both legs obviously broken and probably his arms too.
Next to him, was Helena about 40cm away from him.
The guy looked unnatural. His pasty, white face suddenly had color.
He could not understand what he was looking at. The apartment lab was completely empty, messed up and with no garbage lying around.
The apartment was soundproof.
He called up his boss. He was told to stay put.
He felt overly aggressive. “What did you do to her?”
Through his tears Tomo just smiled. It aggravated Cedric even more. When Helena’s boss arrived, things happened fast.
Helena was taken away.
They were each on a flight on IV fluids flying out of Tokyo by special permission. Tomo needed surgery.
He only saw her a month later.
She was her usual politely, impolite self.
The department did a thorough forensic investigation on Tomo’s financial affairs.
He was literally looking after about 101 different individuals across the world personally at a cost of more or less 1000 dollars per month. The money was all earned legit via his group of companies.
“Restitution for your sins does not come cheap, that’s for sure.”
Helena gave Tomo a sardonic look.
He was a totally different man.
“You know, you can’t be prosecuted.”
“There is the statute of limitations, and the fact that you have destroyed all of the original evidence.”
“I don’t know how to answer. It is as if all of that has happened to somebody else.”
“Are you prepared to look after all these 101 people after you’ve passed away, one day?”
“You have made them dependent on your restitution money. If it is taken away now, their lives will collapse on a multiple level scale”.
“I have brought these documents for you to sign please to that effect.”
“I also wish to ask your permission to visit each of the parents and explain to them. If they continue to take your money, it has to be by free choice only.’’
“What about my father?”
“I have to go and see him Tomo. He is in a similar position.”
She had to wait for 2 months for him to complete the 7 letters, to the 7 parents.
He knew all the parents and families intimately, better than they themselves. He had followed their lives for decades.
When she went to visit him at the home, she had made sure of a couple of things.
“You understand now that you have to run your company remotely forever from here. Also, that you will stay here in your quarters for the remainder of your life.”
Tomo looked at her quietly and peacefully.
Her hair was made into a French looking chignon.
She tried to keep her face as blank as possible while there. Her hair was blonde, and her face was barely touched by light make up.
She wore a black coat and a long maxi dress with a small v-neck with white, blue, and green fine patterns criss- crossing to the floor.
“I meant to tell you Ms. Helena after you pressed my nose back in Ankara, many years ago – I had never killed again. I think you got rid of 50% of the problem then.”
Her eyes flickered when he got personal.
“You know it always tries to get back inside you? You have to carefully Pantser your mind, body, and spirit against it. I am glad to hear it from you directly.”
“Your mind and memories had me physically sick, way back in Turkey.”
“May I ask you something more. Can you read minds. Are you able mam?”
She was shocked at his question. She changed position.
“And if you have ever killed anybody mam?”
She crossed her legs.
He suddenly saw her feet. She wore sandals with strange slopy heels. The heel looked like a piece of cheesecake to him. The top was fashioned in thin folded leather strings attached to a round copper ring structure. The dark blue leather around her ankle was thinnish and the back the bottom part could open with a zip.
Her toenails just had a natural sheen to it. She just wore colorless nail polish on her toenails. He found it impossibly sexy.
She immediately paled. But he just laughed.
It is the purest, most normal feeling I have had in ages.
“I met a girl after the Turkey incident. I felt free, clean.”
“I courted her in the purest way.”
“I married her you know.”
Helena gasped.
“We had our first bath together as married people. Then she went to visit her mom’s house. It was a freak accident. I buried her the next day. The white shoe belonged to her.”
“So that is why she witnessed in heaven in her bridal holographic dress?”
“I think so. When we bathed together that day, I looked at her eyes and body and it made me believe in God again.”
Tears flowed over Helen’s face.
“They annulled the marriage?”
“Yes.”
“Yes I can read minds Tomo. But just what our Creator allows.”
“So that day in the park….”
”Yes.”
”I have a reputation for NOT killing people.”
”I only ever as a child frightened a parrot, who fell over and died.”
That made him laugh from deep within himself.
She blushed and had a deep husky laugh.
“You know we share a set of memories now. It will never go away again.”
“You will be training and working on your vagus nerve interaction from here on out and prayers.”
He looked at her with question marks in his eyes.
“People no, one by proxy which haunts me daily.”
“I was extremely ill and looked like Kojak.”
He giggled, ‘that gives away your age.’
“No, I learned about him in Criminology class at university.”
“When I was so ill, two dogs had entered our house yard and each of them had attacked one of my dogs.”
“I killed one and hurt the other one enough for him to let go of my little dog.”
“When I was 18 I went to deliver a pet from our family home to a young guy at his family apartment.”
“I thought he was a decent guy. I had heard him, and his wife were separated, but it meant nothing to me. She was expecting their first child, a boy.”
“To me he was just someone whom I had to deliver something to. I never gave it a second thought.”
“When I got there, he did not want the pet, he said he had changed his mind. My Dad was extremely strict. He was allergic to cats and I got not one but a couple as a present from a friend.”
“That was just one of them, I wanted to get a home for.”
“He was supposed to just go home during his lunchtime, take the pet, check the cat food and basket and we would both leave.”
Tomo listened alertly to her story.
“Well, I will spare you the details. He forced me to make him a meal. Drank out 2 bottles of Southern Comfort alcohol and only after a lot of pleading, only at 8pm that night he let me phone my family and decided to take me home.”
“I never once let go of the cat.”
“He repeatedly played a record by Mick Jagger.”
“So, he drove me home at about 250km an hour.”
“So, he would fight for control of his car. It was a bright yellow car.”
“I did not say a word to my parents. Just that I could not give the cat away, which angered my Dad anyway.”
Tomo listened not as a killer but as a normal human being in abnormal circumstances.
“I saw at church a week later that there was a burial. There were lots of cars, but as I looked up I saw that there was a young woman with long hair who wore a beautiful long dress, probably about 8 months pregnant. She walked behind a dark burgundy casket towards the crowd. One of the guys outside had a funeral parlor pamphlet. The obituary was dedicated to the guy who had held me hostage for hour
“My face started having involuntary muscle movement. I was shivering all the time.”
“Then that Friday the local newspaper reported his death. I was the last to see him alive. After he had dropped me off, he went home. Drove the distance back at 250km/h and drunk, got cops on his tail. He tried to shake them off and died in a collision with a wall, after losing control.”
Tomo started crying and so did Helena.
“To me at 18, coming from my conservative background, I thought he was ancient. When I did find out his age, I could not believe it. He was only 26 years old at the time.”
“Once I had a huge operation. I almost did not make it. They gave me bio packed blood cells as a transfusion. The next morning, I turned it over. The blood had become sluggish, and they had to remove the IV immediately.
When the nurse turned the bag over, his name and donators ID was on there. It came all the way from the small town where I had met him, to the city where I had the operation and skipped all of the checks and balances. It was old blood, so to speak.”
“You won’t be amiss in thinking it scared me…
“I felt my conduct was blameless, faultless even, and could not understand what was happening to me.”
“It is what propelled me to study criminology etc.”
Tomo sat and just looked at her. He told her about Mizuki.
“She had wanted to be an Olympic swimmer you know. In the beginning I loved her cheek. We both came from abusive homes. Only………..”
he paused for a long time.
“we did not know it.”
He told her about his girlfriend and how her verbal abuse started escalating and then that of his father and friends, until the day she laughed at his teeth braces. He knocked her with a hockey stick and broke her ankle.
He could not stop himself. By the time he came to his senses, she was dead. He carried her to a grassy meadow but lost her one shoe.
He could never bring himself to stop thinking about the shoe. So, he bought shoes and chucked one away and stalked women with her built and type of persona and who wore the same kind of shoes. Somewhere evil crept in and the thoughts started. That he was sexually incompetent and then they were. So, he ended up fashioning fruit to perfect the feel or look of genitalia of both males and females.
The last likeness he tried to build was of his girlfriend but with a birdlike nose, to mimic his new founded freedom way back after the Turkey incident.
He wanted to remake her into something grand. A woman of exceptional style and manner, with a soft, tender tenderness incapable of evil.
She read his thoughts and asked him: how would you like me to honor their memories in a befitting manner showing them the correct respect?
It struck a nerve. Everything noble and grand of being Japanese returned to him.
His body language changed. He was the scholar again.
He wrote her a short list.
“For you when you go to chamber again.”
She looked at his list: “Oh my God. That’s NOT what I mean.”
“You have to know there are rules/ PROTOCOLS.”
He grabbed both her hands.
“Promise me.”
What she saw, as he grabbed her hands; had her ash grey within seconds.
“Tomo?”
“I shall wait in reception. Please write a letter to your mom.”
She mentioned lots of names. First made sure she knew all his businesses were really taken care of, in case of death.
He knew at that moment; he was going to die. Not just die, that no earthly person could stop it.
“How long?”
She started sobbing.
She shook her head.
“Hours”
She shook her head again.
When she eventually got news, and collected the letters, he just stood there.
She carefully put down the letters.
She simply opened her arms.
He sobbed like a child. Held onto her for dear life.
She took him and sat down on the couch. He rested his head on a pillow on her lap.
He sobbed inexhaustibly while she stroked his hair, like a mother.
Later he fell asleep. She took out the miniature Bible from inside her bra and read Psalms to his sleeping face and interceded for his soul once more.
When it got to 9pm she sounded the buzzer.
The night nurse was a thick set burly guy. He helped her put Tomo to bed. She put the tiny Bible in his right hand and closed it up.
Tomo had taken a sleeping tablet, earlier during the evening.
She had zero to do with his death.
She looked back once more at the chalk white handsome Cherokee face and closed the door softly behind her.
She got in the huge SUV. Took her contacts from a container. Put it in drive and sped off.
She made it 4 blocks before she cried so hard she could not see the road anymore.
She drove to a street which looked deserted and friendly. She turned with headlights off and stopped in front of a random house. She sobbed for two hours. Helena took in her environment and prayed for the people at the random house.
She was just about to take off when the front porch’s light went on. A man came running out still in his pajamas. The garage door opened.
His car was not starting, his wife was shouting at him… “just go, just go, she will die!!”
Helena got out and said to the man ‘come on let me take you, what is your emergency?’
She looked a mess. But they did not care.
They reached the station just before the train took off.
Helena took the weapon from the young teenage thug swiftly. The girl ran into her dad and mom’s arms.
The young man had tried to force her to elope with him by force and partly by the drugs in his system.
The station master found them all to be suspicious, not least of all the blonde. The police arrived and questioned her.
By 6 am she stopped in front of the hotel.
“Where the heck have you been?”
“Case …. expired barely 10 minutes after you’d left.”
“They have no idea how it happened.”
Two days later the report came: aneurysm due to old injury – where Tomo’s dad hit him many years ago, repeatedly and where there had been long term soft tissue damage.
It took her months to return to Japan to visit Tomo’s family and the parents of 7 girls. It would be a trip of absolutes, and unforgettable too.
False Crowns – A bridge Too Far: The Navel of Corsets and Slippers (008174)
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
The Tale of – The Manga Lover – Chakra – An Ode to J. D. (008175)
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
The Tale of The Manga Lover Chakra – An Ode to J. D. (008175)
Aftermath The Horror of Stolen Innocence – An Ode to The Deflowered (008176)
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
Snow DON’T Forget JANE D – An Ode to The Brave ”Snow Flakes” (008177) i
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
JANE DON’T – (008177) ii
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
JANE DON’T – (008177) iii
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
JANE DON’T – Just an Ordinary Girl (008177) iv
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
JANE DON’T – Beyond A Shadow of A Doubt (008177) v
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
Pulsing Seeds – of Destruction (008178) i
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
Forbidden Fruit – Road (008178) ii
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
The Roads – Taken(008178) iii
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
True North (008178) iv
エンクロージャー ファントム Fantomu – Enkurōjā
