death, the red and black death, the red and black death of the people, death of this city, this gray and yellow city of gray and yellow eyes, then red and black eyes, of yellow blossoms and red flowers here and there, on the corners and in the doorways, this gray and yellow, red and black city wherein men will take to their beds and leave them on stretchers, in coffins, in hearses, until there are no more stretchers, no more coffins and no more hearses.
ON YOUR HEAD ARE THESE DEAD!
Just the swellings and vomiting, the asphyxiation and death, the death of this city, death of this country, this (w)hole world.
ON YOUR HEAD!
For it is coming! It is coming! It is coming!
And I know I am to blame, too.
For I know it is my fault.
ON MY HEAD!
My mistake IN THE PLAGUED CITY, this city of public records and private erasures, of half-truths and whole-lies –
LIES! LIES! LIES!
Again and again, I come back to that incident, over and over, that incident on the Ginza with the old mouse on his bicycle.
For I can still feel his spit upon my face.
Still taste his spit in my mouth.
His spit in my blood.
In my blood.
My blood, infected and signed, Dr M. Thompson, Tokyo, 1948.
– Stamped, MISSION TERMINATED, 2/27/48 –
Beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, you are crawling, crawling again, crawling beneath the swinging shoes of a dead American, round and around, in the occult circle, in the light of its candles, round and around you crawl, beneath the swinging shoes of all the dead, the swinging shoes of all the dead upon your head, the dirty soles of their swinging shoes upon your head,
round and around, on your head,
round and around,
you crawl –
And now the ropes snap, and the shoes fall, and the bodies fall, on your head, another candle, on your head, extinguished,
on your head. Out –
Out. Out –
But in this occult circle, in the light of its now-eight candles, still you crawl on, in circles, on you crawl still,
in circles, circles of conspiracies, circles of agendas, conspiracies and agendas that form narratives and give meanings, narratives and meanings, fictions and lies –
For on your hands, you are still clothed in your despair, on your knees, still digging your own grave, still-born in your own tomb, this airless, artless tomb of ink and words, still enticed and entranced, still deceived and defeated,
in-snared and in–
prisoned –
In the flicker-light of these eight candles, where there are no keys and there are no doors, where there are only locks and only walls, but still you turn the yellow-pages of your notebooks, your ink and their words, still searching for clues and searching for maps, in their clippings and in your copies, in the ghosts of their stories,
your stories of their ghosts:
NEIGHBOURHOOD INVESTIGATIVE HQ
A local organization named Mejiro Chian Kyōkai Nagasaki Shibu
has founded a ‘Civil Investigative Headquarters’ because ‘the locals will be upset unless the [Teigin] case is solved quickly,’ said the Chief of the HQ, Mr Shimizu.
The HQ is located in the office of the Nagasaki Shrine, and their investigation is mostly focused on the killer’s tracks. They summon those who had been in the vicinity of the crime scene, and who had hurried to rescue the victims, as well as local children who may have also witnessed the crime. Shimizu and his team plan to gather up all these testimonies and give their reports to Mejiro Police Station.
Each member of the team runs a separate district of the neighbourhood and witnesses are summoned to the Nagasaki Shrine HQ, even in the night, to be questioned by these amateur cops. For now, Chief Shimizu ignores his own business and devotes himself entirely to the investigation, twenty-four hours a day. ‘I take 5 or 6 Hiropon injections per day but, what-the-heck, I’ll do beyond my best till we get him,’ said Mr Shimizu, and he will not disband the HQ until the killer is caught.
However, one local housewife complained, ‘I really wish the killer would be caught very soon, or he [Mr Shimizu] will be back to ask us for another donation to his association!’
In the flakes and in the flurries, in the night and in the snow, the medium stands before you now, in a cape and in a hat, and she says, ‘I am Shimizu Kogorō. I am the Occult-Tantei…’
Before you now, in his cape and his hat,
with his curses and his spells, stain–
tear-ed and stain-blood-ed, nailed
to the back of a door, IN