The following diary entries have been translated to English. They recount key insights made by Hiroshi Nakamura and his time spent on Operation Arashi. Note some entries contain blank dates.
Key-terms:
- log - commonly used by Imperial Japanese personnel to describe captured prisoners.
- Marutagana - a term used to define prototype yokai (colloquially known as supernatural spirits in Japanese), named after demigods in Vedic texts (the literature is written in Sanskrit originating from India). Translated as "storm children."
Date: August 24, 1939
When I look away, I see a field of foxglove-trees, but below, I see the hands and the ax. If there is no death, no life, only transformation— I will look for apricots atop the weeds.
When the clouds departed, the skies were warm and still and gray, shouldered above rural Nong'an. There was no breeze that came from the south sea. The rice stalk refused to grow fully. When I closed my eyes, the small irrigated lakes and the chittering cicada song felt like home.
I have grown used to cutting logs. Without participation, I imitate the hand movements, peering from the operating theater. Accidentally, I locked eyes with Chief Wakamatsu, who laughed and remarked on my rituals, nicknaming me a "polite woodpecker".
Chief looked back to the other researchers. For who else would be so eager and patient? Who else would open the windows beforehand? He then read the health and safety regulations; wrongly assuming I feared anthrax; directing me to a bin of facemasks. I nodded. I kept the image of something once trapped, now leaving, to myself.
My wizened colleague Eichi took me aside by my shoulder, jokingly showing me the closet where they kept the detergent, hoping to ease my nerves. I winced.
Date: August 25, 1939
From 6:30 AM to 11:40 PM, Eichi and I documented several ampules of heroin, anthrax, and red rust, forty-seven canisters of glanders, and a log inspector. The inspector's legs terminated at three-pronged nail-like copper drillbits, both curved and crude, making the whole appear like a centipede of pain. Eichi, upon examining seventy-two of its legs, described how the thing couldn't crawl up and in if it didn't have so many. The centipede's spinal columns were ringed with saucer ridges. Opposite of its forward head, its behind ended at a basin connected to hydraulic cylinders, which admitted water from repurposed windmills at a nearby power station.
At 12:00 PM, Eichi and I went to the bar. The place reeked of sweet sweat and thick smoke exhaled from Kiseru pipe. Young soldiers, inexperienced in the ways of drinking, were all inebriated, replacing air with sake. Some bantered about being paid too little, or at all, for hauling unwieldy logs from the trenches and the mainland; others howled and laughed, playing games of chance. Eichi and I sat on carved lacquer armchairs next to a folding table, which was situated underneath a dim, flickering light emitted from an orange-brown ceiling fan bulb. We reflected on Sōtō Zen. I questioned him on the teachings of śūnyatā and selflessness, pointing to a particular soldier passed out, drunk, belly exposed and shirt overhead.
He laughed. You're blaming a man for falling to his vices?
I told him no, and that I blamed a Buddhist for falling over piss drunk.
Date: August 26, 1939
At 12:00 PM, Eichi and I went to the bar.
Eichi continued from yesterday. Did you think Buddha never crossed paths with drunks, gamblers, and thieves while climbing up the path? They are lessons; nature is a lesson.
I scoffed. What's natural about this place? Indifference, aestheticism. It's meaningless here. All of it, everything we learned from the Academy. Meaningless. Everyone's too drunk to pray, much less meditate. I thought we were here to serve. To pacify and colonize our sister nations. So that they may know true Buddhism.
At that point, a teen in his army fatigues threw up near my dress shoes.
I kicked him. I can barely hear myself think. Why even have a society if young drunks don't respect old traditions, etiquette, and decency.
You're asking a lot for sixteen-to-twenty-year-old boys. I quite enjoy the noise, like birds chirping on a fountain for seeds. What was it those teachers from IGAMEA said? The prima facie?
I asked him, what does that have to do with Zen?
It means the immediate truth is true until proven otherwise. It speaks to immediate responsibilities. To duty. True Zen comes from duality. Even though our old precepts conflict with what we must do. Precepts like compassion and mindfulness and ego-death. These must be rectified with duty.
Duty? Orders are easier to hear when you're sober.
He shook his head. Men who kill get thirsty! This is nature. Meditating on how the worldly passes into the saintly and the saintly passes into the worldly… these are not "new" problems, Hiroshi. I would ask you a similar question. One that is at the crux of yours. How can one be enlightened when the world is not? A world of sparrows; chirps breaking mind.
Usually, I would say introspection and reflection, focusing on sitting instead of the chirping. But these aren't birds. This place, this isn't nature. I don't know to be honest. What's your answer, old-timer?
Well, it might be the alcohol talking, but it is this humble scholar's opinion that one must forge a sword that carves itself. In layman's words, one must tell a good joke. A great joke even. For example, the samurai were never interested in compassion as much as the Buddhist. The Buddhists were never interested in killing as much as the Samurai. Yet they both studied under Sōtō Zen. Isn't the contradiction funny?
I pondered that for what seemed like ages before admitting defeat. I don't understand.
He took a swig of sake. Perhaps, you haven't gotten used to the world yet.
I said nothing. I stared at the pond nearby, stagnant and unclean, as pipelines churned out effluent waste. A gutted, unused fish decayed on the sidewalk.
Date: September 03, 1939
Retouched on my Latin since overseas at Warsaw University. Apparently, the "ex vivo" part in ex vivo normothermic meant "out of the living". Only discovered it after a discussion with peers on the meaning of another phrase outlined in several manuscripts under Operation Arashi; in sterquiliniis invenitur, or "in filth it will be found". They laughed, given we did sequester three pig farms, one of which acted as a sawmill.
Date: September 04, 1939
I learned what my colleagues have dubbed as "normal extraction", which by comparison, seemed tame compared to the manuals on centripetal implants.
Today, I tried my hand at it, but the log snapped and broke. I grew frustrated because I knew it wasn't my fault.
Reminder: need to tell the haulers to be more gentle with Imperial property.
I was about to end the letter. Signing off on a heuristic on indulgence in luxuries is our enemy, though Eichi persuaded me not to on an official report. He smiled. Told me they're already practicing Zen, Hiroshi, only at the brothel instead of a lab.
At 12:00 PM, Eichi and I went to the bar for sake. When I asked him if he still meditated, if he still felt both that sense of being a passive observer and selflessness, his laugh lines curved.
If you're afraid of hesitation, my friend, do not concern yourself with what time dulls. However, if you're afraid that you will never hesitate, that your scissors cut too swiftly before the chrysanthemum, then maybe look from elsewhere. I tried to pry more out of him, but the old-bastard was caught in an unfamiliar stillness and refused to say more.
Date: September 07, 1939
I did it. First time since deployment, I did it. Luckily, we spiked the rice with heroin beforehand and it slumped down without a struggle. Eichi was right. From afar— with manuals, chicken corpses, and voyeurism— I could only imitate. From up-close, it all made sense. I could finally put curiosity into practice.
Normal extraction obtained several silver filaments and one gold molar. Normal extraction obtained three normal livers, two irregular ones, and large portions of spine. The scanners picked up an irreversible change in the flora's digestive system, almost completely inverted internally from head to anus.
The centipede remained in there, performing its secondary function in the hollowed out log, removing stray layers of bark and gelatinous wood chips, emulating the naturally-occurring lumbar musculature and inverted spinal columns. Eichi, I, and several other physicians had to keep making live augmentations— perfectly mundane and routine operations mind you— otherwise the machine would get too clogged with fluid. We were basing half of our research on the blueprints provided from the other unit based on methods of proper harvesting. The other half we would need to engineer ourselves as biological compartmentalization had never been done before.
I was meticulous. Eichi was jovial. He said it reminded him of that time he learned how to pull out ganba innards— removing toxic tetrodotoxin laced organs for dishes at his family's restaurant. Washing the thing filled it like a balloon catching water.
At 12:00 PM, Eichi invited me to the bar, but I told him I was tired. Dismayed, he let me backtrack the narrow hallway to the sterile "Welcome" sign outside my dorm. I went in and opened the windows. Haven't slept well. I resign myself to whispering; first time since deployment.
Date: September 09, 1939
Couldn't make it to the sawmill. Faked illness; diarrhea.
Date:
I reflected on Eichi's lesson. I interpreted as so: without practice, there is no awakening; without awakening, there is no practice.
Had around two-or-so food-related illnesses in mind before abandoning them all and heading to the sawmill.
Date: September 21, 1939
Today was grueling. Seems for every singular test, ten documents manifest to take their place on my front-desk; their columns demand date, sex, age, medications, pathogens, extractions, and now in the newer forms, anomalies and optimizations.
Normal extraction obtained red pulsing lymph nodes— sacks deflated. Added it to the containers labeled under "body water homeostasis." Normal extraction obtained several cerebellums with psionic and aetheric resonance frequencies; an amalgam of morphogenic, sound enhancing, dermal plates coalesced into a patchwork "helmet" atop the foetal figures. Normal extraction obtained plague-resistant epidermal sheaths coaxed in cultures of tuberculosis, typhoid, and anthrax. Placed them in jars destined for the Bacteriology Wing.
The centipede was turned on and again, it did the rest.
At 12:00 PM, I was too busy for Eichi. He gave me this look, was it a look? Told him, I didn't fear hesitating, and, the pond's not leaving anytime soon, whether or not him and I drink, ending on, next time.
When I dream, I see a stack of logs that looked like fish.
Date: November 14, 1939
Taken to the habit of consuming opium tablets, two a day, to get to sleep.
I don't know the exact causes for today's events at the laboratory. Either the opiate tolerance was too high or the insect metals we applied on it triggered some psychic backlash. It took fifteen guards to pacify the situation. 67% of the log disolved, rendering autopsy impossible.
At lunch, over some slices of salmon and tuna, Eichi and I contemplated on the exact colors of purple and blue— still pulpy with undigested rice— that leaked out during vivisection.
Blockage, he said, the horsehair worms we populated in its stomach finally came of age.
A river that flows is healthy; a river that is clogged suffocates, dies then, as if in a joint-suicide, takes the withering field adjacent to it, Hiroshi.
Date: November 17, 1939
Switched to morphine.
Date: January 01, 1940
I refused Eichi's offer for drinks despite his insistence.
Truth is, alcohol doesn't knock me out like it used to. My current routine's been enough, however, I run out of tablets fast. Tomorrow, I'll request more opium— maybe they'll have spare heroin or morphine or anesthetic.
Date:
On morphine at the moment. Still, keep having dreams. Nightmares, daymares. Always find myself lathered in a thick coat of cold sweat, as if leaking. When asleep, it's the same dream. I'm a beetle; bisected and twitching. Keep staring below me, grabbing at this soft sinew, then, flailing with my hands, which do a poor job shoving my intestines back inside the cavity.
There's this pulling sensation. Worms, these foreign hydras, drag my half-abdomen like a snail with its shell. Dragging me towards a great sea of brown and face, which bubbled below a line of infantry. Axes at the ready. Faceless. Welcoming.
Date: January 05, 1940
Normal extraction, as always. However, my proposal to switch out shigella dysentriae for an anomalous microbiota found yesterday off a matured log worked. It allowed for the rapid deconstruction of food product into toxins.
Date:
They found Eichi hanging from a noose. He had been absent for the last five days. It was devastating. He might've fancied himself a poor man's bodhisattva, sitting under a bonsai instead of a bodhi tree, but I saw him as a fatherly figure. I regret hearing of it second-hand over an intercom. I regret not being there for him.
The day after I went to his funeral. It seemed strange, frustratingly so, that no one attended. An empty room full of empty seats. Might as well ditch the coffin, haul the man off in a garbage bag and shove him into a disposal bin like so many bones of fish. I peered into his coffin as if to check for life-signs, only to see a white nothing stare back. I closed the lid.
I kept the photo of him inside of my jacket pocket, more out of fear than to preserve his memory, desperately clinging to this small voice.
Date:
I see a great vehicle in the shape of a windmill's wheel. Fidgeting and stuck in mire.
Date: June 25, 1943
I stepped on spring leaves. The janitors swept them into marked black bags, hauled them, and then dumped them into the incinerator next to the trash disposals. The countryside smelled crisp against the formaldehyde and soap.
Date:
Today, we successfully passed the first prototype: Marutagana I, which we kept in a large, see-through vivarium in the basement below the sawmill. The bubonic bio-weapon held a high-rate of effectiveness against non-anomalous and anomalous disease prevention. It could burrow underneath the ground and embed itself for ages, gaining sustenance from the roots, soil, granite. It was destined for Lake Khasan.
Chief beamed confidently over us. Told us that our relentless dedication and service to the Emperor's goals would reward us greatly when we returned to Japan. He threw a celebration at the bar for all research staff involved, but I told him I couldn't attend, had to reaffirm finalizing tests.
I had this nagging instinct. Walking through the dim, lamp-lit streets, that anxiety seemingly grew, matching murky alleys and corridors, which grew like inky, black flesh beyond my periphery. The concrete sidewalks, signs, buildings, and rooftops began a spin, rolling around and around in my vision as my sight fluxed; I glided into a sinkhole on a pond.
In the basement where our magnum opus sat, it awoke. It awoke with all the sheer disgust, irritation, and fear it could muster at its new form. A whale, still conscious, viewing its viscera. It did not recognize itself. The pieces of it did not recognize themselves. Nothing was recognizable to them beyond primal emotion.
I could hear them. Previously, their language was restricted to ghosts and air, impervious to men. Now, as my waking dreams conquer all thought… I knew. There was a window that needed opening, the ghosts and air needed to be let out.
I reached the sawmill; opened the door to the basement; descended the stairs; ran into the room; turned on the lights; fumbled my hand into my jacket pocket; produced Eichi's…
I gazed straight at the vivarium. Marutagana floated. I smelled a pungent odor; not feces, more akin to pesticides and ammonia . Marutagana was a collective, after all: fifteen and ten, young and married, elderly and leftover.
I looked back below me to where Eichi was in the photo. Gone. In disbelief I stared at the glass, then the photo, then the glass. The faces had switched between them. In my hands, was a duality. Faces from beyond the water replaced my dear old friend. Like a half-burnt bulb, they blinked, vanishing and leaving only whitespace, this large hole, until they blinked again and drew themselves on the hole. Endlessly writhing— moving, like long coils of chitinous legs, which animated a featureless expression— my work, my dreams, my mentor, all bubbled out from the photo.
They cried until I saw red and tasted copper.
I tossed the photo on the floor, jerking my head away from the madness below to stare at the glass.
Still there. The void, the flesh. It gazed meaningfully at me, expecting me to snicker. Laugh. Laugh at this uncomfortable and unsettling amalgam of my efforts and my complacency. Howl at the tower of containers devoted to Operation Arashi. Sob at the ceiling lights flickering faces.
I opened the windows, doors, vents, everything that connected to this room.
The refuge of light shattered past glass jars, containers, flasks. I went to the sea of flesh. It flowed into my veins. I felt segments of me— this greasy iceberg of adipose fats and compressed muscle— break apart in a pipeline.
Date:
When I look away, I see a field of foxglove-trees, but below, I see the hands and the ax. If there is no death, no life, only transformation— I will look for apricots atop the weeds.
When the clouds departed, the skies were twisting and storming and laughing, rolling down into Unit 100.
At 6:30 AM, I will rise from the ground and go out to the pond. I will sit with my sword and look out at the sun.
Thank you, Eichi. I finally understand the joke; I was drunk.
