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I remember Napoleon's troops marching into Russia in the summer of 1812. They must have swatted away their share of mosquitoes, too, on that long road to Moscow. Of course mosquitoes weren't the only problem. They had to struggle to survive all kinds of other things-hunger, thirst, muddy roads, infectious disease, sweltering heat, Cossack commandos attacking their thin supply lines, lack of medical supplies, not to mention huge battles with the regular Russian army. When the French forces finally straggled into a deserted Moscow, their number had been reduced from 500,000 to a mere 100,000.
I stop and take a swig of water from my canteen. My watch shows exactly eleven o'clock. The library is just opening up. Oshima's unlocking the door, taking his usual seat behind the counter, a stack of long, neatly sharpened pencils on the desk. He picks one up and twirls it, gently pushing the eraser end against his temple. I can see it all clearly. But that place is so far away.
I've never had periods, says Oshima. I do anal sex and have never used my vagina for sex. My clitoris is sensitive but my breasts aren't.
I remember Oshima asleep in the bed in the cabin, his face to the wall. And the signs he/she left behind. Cloaked in those signs, I went to sleep in the same bed.
I give up thinking about it anymore. Instead I think about war. The Napoleonic Wars, the war the Japanese soldiers had to go off and fight. I feel the heft of the hatchet in my hands. That pale, sharp blade glints and I have to turn my eyes away from it. Why do people wage war? Why do hundreds of thousands, even millions of people group together and try to a
I hack another notch in a tree with my hatchet. The tree cries out silently, bleeding invisible blood. I keep on trudging. Coltrane picks up his soprano sax again. Once more the repetition breaks apart the real, rearranging the pieces.
Before long my mind wanders into the realm of dreams. They come back so quietly. I'm holding Sakura. She's in my arms, and I'm inside her. I don't want to be at the mercy of things outside me anymore, thrown into confusion by things I can't control. I've already murdered my father and violated my mother-and now here I am inside my sister. If there's a curse in all this, I mean to grab it by the horns and fulfill the program that's been laid out for me. Lift the burden from my shoulders and live-not caught up in someone else's schemes, but as me. That's what I really want. And I come inside her.
"Even if it's in a dream, you shouldn't have done that," the boy named Crow calls out. He's right behind me, walking in the forest. "I tried my best to stop you. I wanted you to understand. You heard, but you didn't listen. You just forged on ahead."
I don't respond or turn around, just silently keep on trudging.
"You thought that's how you could overcome the curse, right? But was it?" Crow asks.
But was it? You killed the person who's your father, violated your mother, and now your sister. You thought that would put an end to the curse your father laid on you, so you did everything that was prophesied about you. But nothing's really over. You didn't overcome anything. That curse is branded on your soul even deeper than before. You should realize that by now. That curse is part of your DNA. You breathe out the curse, the wind carries it to the four corners of the Earth, but the dark confusion inside you remains. Your fear, anger, unease-nothing's disappeared. They're all still inside you, still torturing you.
"Listen up-there's no war that will end all wars," Crow tells me. "War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that."
"Sakura-my sister," I say. I shouldn't have raped her. Even if it was in a dream. "What should I do?" I ask, staring at the ground in front of me.
"You have to overcome the fear and anger inside you," the boy named Crow says. "Let a bright light shine in and melt the coldness in your heart. That's what being tough is all about. Do that and you really will be the toughest fifteen-year-old on the planet. You following me? There's still time. You can still get your self back. Use your head. Think about what you've got to do. You're no dunce. You should be able to figure it out."
"Did I really murder my father?" I ask.
No reply. I swing around, but the boy named Crow is gone and the silence swallows my question.
Alone in such a deep forest, the person called me feels empty, horribly empty. Oshima once used the term hollow men. Well, that's exactly what I've become. There's a void inside me, a blank that's slowly expanding, devouring what's left of who I am. I can hear it happening. I'm totally lost, my identity dying. There's no direction where I am, no sky, no ground. I think of Miss Saeki, of Sakura, of Oshima. But I'm light-years away from them. It's like I'm looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, and no matter how far I stretch out my hand, I can't touch them. I'm all alone in the middle of a dim maze. Listen to the wind, Oshima told me. I listen, but no wind's blowing. Even the boy named Crow has vanished.
Use your head. Think about what you've got to do.
But I can't think anymore. No matter how much I try, I wind up at a dead end in the maze. What is it inside me that makes up me? Is this what's supposed to stand up to the void?
If only I could wipe out this me who's here, right here and right now. I seriously consider it. In this thick wall of trees, on this path that's not a path, if I stopped breathing, my consciousness would silently be buried in the darkness, every last drop of my dark violent blood dripping out, my DNA rotting among the weeds. Then my battle would be over. Otherwise, I'll eternally be murdering my father, violating my mother, violating my sister, lashing out at the world forever. I close my eyes and try to find my center. The darkness that covers it is rough and jagged. There's a break in the dark clouds, like looking out the window to see the leaves of the dogwood gleaming like a thousand blades in the moonlight.
I feel something rearranging itself under my skin, and there's a tinkling sound in my head. I open my eyes and take a deep breath. I throw away the can of spray paint, the hatchet, the compass. From far away I hear them all clatter to the ground. I feel lighter. I slip the daypack off my shoulders and toss it aside. My sense of touch seems suddenly acute. The air around me's grown more transparent. My sense of the forest has grown more intense. Coltrane's labyrinthine solo plays on in my ears, never ending.
Thinking it over, I reach into the daypack and take out the hunting knife and stuff it in my pocket. The razor-sharp knife I stole from my father's desk. If need be, I could use it to slash my wrists and let every drop of blood inside me gush out onto the ground. That would destroy the device.
I head off into the heart of the forest, a hollow man, a void that devours all that's substantial. There is nothing left to fear. Not a thing.
And I head off into the heart of the forest.