Dogra Magra – Yumeno Kyusaku

Beginning of Dogra Magra from

https://dogramagra.wordpress.com/category/dogra-magra/
*Note: this translation is not complete

Original Japanese Text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000096/files/2093_28841.html

Opening Poem

Unborn child!

Unborn child!

Why do you dance?

Have you read your mother’s heart,

And was it terrifying?

……..VUUU—NNN—NNNN……..

As I came out of sleep to dim consciousness, this sound, like a bee’s humming, was
pulled from the holes of my ears, but its profoundly elastic reverberation left behind a clear echo.

While I lay motionless listening to this, I had an intuition: Right now is exactly midnight.
And somewhere close by a clock must be striking…. With that I fell carelessly back into a doze,
while the echo so like a bee’s buzzing faded bit by bit until absolute silence reigned.

My eyes popped open.

From the rather high white-painted ceiling hung a single naked light bulb covered in pale
dust. On one side of the red-yellow glass sphere sat a single large fly, motionless as if dead. I lay
directly below on the cold artificial stone floor. My body stretched out to form an ‘X’.

…Strange…….

I lie still sprawled like this and opened my eyelids wide. I tried rotating my eyeballs up,
down, left and right.

The room was about 4 meters square, enclosed by bluish-black concrete walls.
 On three of the walls were installed tall windows of frosted glass covered by two layers, a
black metal grill and wire mesh, which gave the room a feeling of having been prepared against
an emergency.

At the base of the wall with no window was, unsurprisingly, a sturdy iron bed. On the end
facing the door was placed a pillow, and over that was spread snow-white bedding, so neatly that
it looked like no one had ever slept there.

…Really strange…….

I raised my head slightly and gave my body a quick once-over.

I had been dressed in a new starched white double layer kimono tied with a high belt
made of a short piece of gauze. Jutting out from this were four chubby limbs, dusky with the
grime that covered them… such an impression of filthiness….

…Stranger and stranger….

Timidly I raised my right hand and stroked my face.

…Pointed nose …sunken eyes ….thick disheveled hair …scraggly beard.

…I sprang up.

Once more I passed my hand across my face.

My gaze swept restlessly around the room.

…Who could it be… I don’t know this person….

My heart started pounding in my chest, like someone pounding frantically on an alarm

bell. My breath soon followed, becoming so ragged that at length I thought I must die. …or so I
thought, but then calmed back down.

…Are there things this strange…?

…I have completely forgotten myself….

…I racked my brains but could not remember who I was or where I was from. Of the
memories of my past only one thing remained: the “vuuunnnn” of the striking clock. Nothing
more.

…And yet, my mind was clear. I could feel distinctly the silence and darkness outside the
room, surrounding it and stretching out forever….

…This isn’t a dream. This certainly isn’t a dr….

 I sprang up.

…I ran up to the window and peaked through the pane of frosted glass. I looked at my
features reflected there and tried to call up some memory. But it was pointless. Nothing was
reflected there but my own shadow, which looked like a shaggy-haired demon.

I turned and threw my self back toward the door by the head of the bed. I brought my
face to brass fitting around the keyhole, which was the only opening. But the metal surface did
not show my face. It only reflected a dim yellow light.

…I searched around the legs of the bed. I turned over the bedding. I untied my gauze belt
and turned my clothes inside out but didn’t find so much as a stupid initial much less my name.

I was in a daze. I was an unknown person in an unknown world. I didn’t know who I was.

While I was thinking this, and pulling on the belt, I started to feel that I was falling
vertically through an infinite space. With a fear oozing from the bottom of my guts I let forth a
mindless scream.

The scream was in a voice tinged with a metallic quality, and astoundingly shrill… but…
before this voice of mine had time to remind me of anything from my past, it was sucked up into
the four concrete walls and disappeared.

I screamed again. …But of course it was pointless. For a while that voice undulated and
swirled and then disappeared, after which the solemn silence returned to the four walls, three
windows and the single door.

Again I tried to scream. …But before I could form the sound it turned back into my
throat. Every time I screamed the silent fear deepened….

My back teeth began audibly chattering. My knees started trembling spontaneously. Still,
the inability to remember what kind of person I was… was suffocating.

Before I realized it I had started gasping. Try as I might I couldn’t scream. Try as I might
I couldn’t leave. I stood upright in the middle of the room, wrapped in fear.

…Is this a prision? …Or a mental hospital…?

The more I thought about it the more I heard the rising sound of breathing echoing off of
the four walls in the middle of the night like a cold wintry wind.

Eventually I fainted. Everything in front of my eyes went black. And my body, standing
ramrod straight, drenched in sweat, with face upturned, seemed ready to fall, so I shut my eyes
which I could no longer feel… or so I thought… again, with a jerk like a machine my legs
regained their footing.
 From the other side of the wall I had heard a strange voice.

…I thought it must be a woman’s voice. But then, the tone was so hoarse that it couldn’t
have come from a human throat – nothing but the sad, pitiful echo that made it through the
concrete walls.

“…My dear. My dear. Mydearmydearmydearmydearmydear . …Let me hear your

voice… one more tiiiiime!…..”

I shrank back in terror. Without thinking I looked behind me. While I was certainly aware
that there was no other person in the room other than myself… I stared piercingly at the concrete
walls through which, once again, the woman’s voice came bleeding through.

“…Mydearmydearmydearmydearmydear…my darling in the room next door… it’s me.

It’s me. I was your fiancee… Your mistress and future wife… it’s me. It’s me. Please… Please
let me hear your voice once more now… Let me hear it please… Let me hear it… let me heaaar
iiit!… Mydearmydearmydearmydear… My daaaarliiiinngg!”

I opened both of my eyes so wide that my eyelids hurt. My mouth dropped open in
suprise. I had been swaying for two or three seconds as if attracted by that voice. I then pressed
down firmly on my abdomen. Posed like this I glared intently at the concrete walls.

Then was a scream so staggeringly pure as to hoist into the air the heart of anyone who
heard it. It was the voice of someone who is in such an unbearably desperate situation that their
guts inevitably freeze to the bottom. …I don’t know how long I had been calling out…and it was
a voice earnest and profoundly bitter enough to go on calling out for many thousands, many tens
of thousands of years. Is it me your calling in the middle of the night from the other side of the
concrete wall? is what I was yelling.

“…My dear…Mydearmydearmydear. Why… why don’t you answer me? It’s me, it’s me,
it’s me it’s me. Have you forgotten? It’s your lover! It’s me! I was your fiancee… Your lover…
Have you forgotten your lover? …The evening before we were to be together… in the dead of
night, the night before our wedding ceremony, I died by your hand. …I have come back to life
…I have risen from my grave am here. I am not a ghost or anything like that…
Mydearmydearmydearmydear. …Why don’t you answer me? …Have you forgotten what
happened then?”

I staggered backward. Once more with eyes round as plates I stared in the direction of
that voice.

…What strange words.

…The girl on the other side of the wall knows me. She says she’s my fiancee. …But that
on the night before our wedding, she was killed at my hand… and further, that she is that woman
returned to life. And then, it seems, she is calling to me this night or day or whatever it is, from
the opposite room where she is shut up and separated from me by a single wall. She seems to be
desperately continuing to strive to awaken my memory of the past by shouting about an
outrageous unimaginable event.

…She’s probably insane.

…Or could it be true?

No, no. She’s insane, she’s insane. …Such an idiotic… weird thing is… Ha ha ha ha….

I smiled involuntarily, and then my facial muscles were frozen into that smile so that I
couldn’t move them. Once again the voice came penetrating through the wall, all the more
sorrowful and serious. Although I was smiling, I couldn’t smile… I was brimming with
confidence that I certainly knew my own self, but that confidence, while …earnest, was also
…pathetic.

“…Mydearmydearmydear. Why don’t you give me the courtesy of a response? With your
fiancee suffering like this… just one word… just one word… in reply….”

“………”

“…Just one word…just one word…in answer…would be enough. …If you did that the
doctors at the hospital would know… that your fiancee is not crazy. And then… in return, my
dear, the doctors would hear your fiancee’s voice… and we could leave the hospital together…
my dear mydearmydear… why… why don’t you answer me…?”

“…Don’t you feel the same heartache that I do? …Every day… every night, doesn’t my
voice reach your ears? …Oh…Mydearmydearmydearmydear… so much, so much… my… my
voice… can no longer….”

It was at this time that I began to hear another sound from the other side of the wall. I
couldn’t tell if it was an open hand or a fist, but either way it was the soft “pap pap” sound of
flesh hitting concrete. It was the sound of a frail woman hitting the wall without ceasing, rather
with an eagerness that ignored torn skin or rent flesh. As I imagined the traces of blood that were
splattering the opposite wall I strained my widened eyes more intently and ground my back teeth.

“…Mydearmydearmydear…My dear, it is I, who died at your hand. Your fiancee who

then returned to life. Your pitiable beloved, the only person you can rely on. I’m here all alone…
have you forgotten me, my dear…?

“My dear, it’s the same with you. The two of us alone in all the world, are both right
here. But people thought we were crazy, and shut us up in this hospital, separated from each
other.”

“…………”
 “If you would answer me, my dear, my words will prove true. If you remember your
fiancee, they’ll realize that I…and you, both of us… are not mental patients… Just one word…
Just. One. Word… …If you would only answer me… …If you would call my name,
“Moyoko”… ah… Mydearmydearmydearmydearmydear…ah… I… My voice can no longer…
My eyes… My eyes are growing dark….”

Reflexively I jumped up on the bed. I clung to the spot on that bluish-black concrete
where I thought the voice was coming from. I wanted to answer right away… I wanted to relieve
the suffering of that girl… And I was spurred by an irresistible impulse to find out where and
who I really was. …But…once more with a gulp, swallowing my spit, I gave up.

Eventually I slid back off the bed. While staring at that point in the wall, drew back
slowly to as far away from that voice as I could, to the window that was exactly opposite.

…I wasn’t able to reply. Or rather… I felt I must not.

Here I was, somebody who didn’t even know whether this woman was his wife. I
couldn’t even conjure up a face to go with that serious, pitiful woman’s devoted cries. Wasn’t I
just an utterly bizarre mental patient who had no real memories of my past outside of waking up
just now to the “booonnggg” of a clock?

How then could I answer as her husband? Supposing that by answering I was able to
obtain my freedom, I still couldn’t be certain that I would then learn my real name and identity.
…I had no basis for judging whether she was completely sane, or a genuinely mentally ill
patient… But that wasn’t all.

If it turned out that she was genuinely mentally ill, mightn’t the person she was so
earnestly calling out to be nothing more than a hallucination of hers? Carelessly answering her
would be a serious mistake. Not to mention the possibility that she is calling out to a real person,
but that person is someone other than myself. I could through my rashness wind up stealing
another man’s wife. I would be desecrating another man’s lover… While I was assailed one after
another by these fears and anxieties, swallowing my own spit over and over and tightly clasping
my hands, her ceaseless yelling pierced through the wall and assaulted me head on.

“Mydearmydearmydearmydearmydear. It’s too much

it’stoomuchit’stoomuchit’stoomuchit’stoomuch.”

Such a frail… pitiful, ghostly, scream of limitless pure-hearted regret….

I pulled at my hair with both hands. My ten long-grown fingernails drew blood.

“…Mydearmydearmydear. I am yours. Yours. Hurry… hurry, hold me in your arms….”

I ground my face in my palms.

 …It can’t be it cant…It can’t be it can’t be. You’re remembering it wrong. You don’t
know me….

…I was just at the point of yelling that, but again I stopped and held my tongue… as I
was now I couldn’t assert that as a fact… I didn’t know my past at all… I had no basis for
denying her words… I didn’t know my parents, my siblings, or my birthplace… I couldn’t even
say if I had been born a pig rather than a human being….

I clenched my hands into fists and with a thunk, thunk rapped the bones behind my ears.
But no memory came floating up.

Still her voice did not stop. Her breath became ragged… to the point I almost couldn’t
hear it, as it reached a deathly climax of heartbreak.

“…My dear… my dear… please… please help… help me… aah….”

As if driven by that voice, I now looked once around at the four walls, the window, and
the door. At the point of sprining away, I stopped still.

…I wish I could run away to someplace where I couldn’t hear anything….

As I thought that, a shiver went down my spine and my skin started to crawl.

I ran up to the door and tried throwing myself with all my strength against its blue-coated
surface, which was so solid I thought it must have been iron. I tried looking through the dark
keyhole. I could still hear the sound of a voice crying out, continuing tenaciously as it grew
fainter and fainter, still intimidating me to the point of numbness… I gripped the lattice on the
window with both hands and shook it with everything I had. Finally I was able to bend one
bottom corner, but it appeared that was all that could be done with human strength.

Disappointed, I returned to the middle of the room. Trembling like a leaf, I once more
surveyed every corner of the room.

Am I even in the world of human beings?… Or have I just now come to the netherworld,
to be subjected to the torments of hell?

As soon as I regained consciousness in this room, before I had time to breathe a sigh of
relief, I was set upon by the torments of the lowest level of hell, the complete forgetting of
oneself… with no echo… except the famous sound of the clock….

…As soon as had finished that thought, I was assailed by an unknown woman’s scream
coming from I knew not where, driving me to a new more desperate living hell…an unrequited
love so deep as to be unthinkable in this world, an eternal torment impossible to be saved from,
impossible to escape….
 I stamped my feet until my heels ached… I plopped down on my bottom… I lay face
up… I got up again and looked around the room. …The sound coming from the next room,
scraps of sobbing on the edge of audibility, pulled my attention… then called on me to recall my
own past as much as I could……. to save my self from this hardship… and to give her a clear
reply.

I have no idea how many minutes or hours I spent in that room in this confused state. But
my head was empty. I could dredge up no memories concerning myself much less of anything
related to her. In the middle of these empty memories was living an empty self. I was merely
writhing blindly while being chased around by this shameless woman’s cries.

Eventually the woman’s screaming on the other side of the wall weakened. It grew
gradually more shrill, like a thread, until it finally collapsed into gasping sobs, and the midnight
stillness of before returned to settle over the four walls.

At the same time I was also exhausted. I was tired of the confusion, tired of thinking.
Outside the door, at what I thought must be the end of a hallway, I could hear a load clanking
like the workings of a giant clock, and was I standing upright, or sitting… when.. something… I
don’t know what happened but I fainted away into the same unconscious state I started from.

…Plop…something made a sound

When I came to my body was leaning against a corner of the wall opposite the entrance,
my limbs were thrown out in front of me, my neck bent so that my head was resting on my chest,
and I was staring a point above the artificial stone floor right in front of my nose.

I looked, and saw… the floor, window, and walls, at some point had become bright,
shining a bluish white.

…Chu-chu…chon-chon…chon..chi-chi-chon….

Like the quiet voice of a sparrow… or the sound of a train gliding into the distance… the
electric light on the other side of the ceiling went out without my noticing.

…Dawn has broken….

So I thought vaguely as with both hands I vigorously rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I
must have slept soundly. In the morning light I forgot completely all of the mysterious and
frightening things that had happened in the dark. I was sore all over, so I reached out to give
myself a good stretch and was in the middle of sucking in a corresponding breath with a loud
yawn when I closed my mouth with a gasp.

A small gap opened just above the floor in the door opposite me, and a plain wooden tray
with a silver plate and some white tableware came through.
 Seeing this startled me out of my reverie. Many questions had begun to turn over in my
head since waking up that morning. …Forgetting all of these I stood up. I ran on tiptoe over to
the gap in the door and grabbed at the red, chubby woman’s arm that had inserted the wooden
tray. …and the toast, vegetable salad, and bottle of milk all fell clattering to the floor.

I managed to croak out a question in a husky voice.

“…Please…please tell me. My… my name, what is it?”

“…………”

She didn’t move a muscle. The red radish-like upper arm extending out of white cuffs
turned instantly purple under my hands.

“I… my name… what is it? …I’m not crazy or… anything like that….”

“…Aaaahh!….”

I heard the young woman scream from outside the open slot. The purple arm in my grasp
began to wriggle feebly.

“…Somebody… Somebody help! Patient number 7 is… Aah! Somebody he-lp!…”

“…Shh, shh. Quiet, quiet… please, be quiet. Who am I? Where are we… what is the
date… what is this place? …Please… this place is… tell me and I’ll let you go…”

…Waaaahh!… her scream rang out. At that instant the power of my hands seemed to
slacken, the woman’s arm slipped completely through the slot, the screaming came to a sudden
stop, and I could hear footsteps hurrying down the hallway.

When the arm that I had been clinging to so desperately was pulled away, the recoil sent
me hard on my backside onto the artificial stone floor. I managed to stop my fall with my hands
before I hurt myself, and then looked around dejectedly.

And then… once again, something strange happened.

Up until now the feeling of straining with all my might, right when I fell on my backside,
suddenly slackened and with it, a strange feeling that I had not known before started billowing
up from the bottom of my gut, a feeling I was helpless to stop. It was strange to an almost
unbearable degree, quite eerie… so strange I could feel the hairs on my head begin to rustle one
by one. This strangeness provoked an unstoppable laugh, a laugh that rose gradually from the
very bottom of my soul to shake every part of my body one after another without a pause, boiling
up until it shook apart my flesh and bones.

…Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! How idiotic! What does it matter what my name is? Forgetting it was
not a handicap at all. I was myself, of that there was no doubt. Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah-ha…!
 Once I came to this realization, I turned over and over on the floor. I clutched at my head,
pounded my chest, I pounded my legs and laughed. I laughed.. and laughed… and laughed. I was
choking on my tears as my laughter twisted and convulsed my body.

…A-ha-ha-ha-ha. Will there ever again be anything this ridiculous?

…Did he fall from heaven, or rise up from the earth? Here is a man who doesn’t know
his own nature. How can I know such a man. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….

…Where has this person been up to now, and what has he been doing? And for that
matter, what does he intend to do from here? I couldn’t begin to guess. Having just been born, I
have only just now made this person’s acquaintance. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….

…How did this state of affairs come about? Isn’t it mysterious, isn’t it absurd! Ah-ha…
Ah-ha… Strange, strange… Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah-ha….

…Aahh how agonizing. How intolerable. Why is it I am so strange? Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-

ha….

I laughed like this without a pause, rolling around on the artificial stone floor, until
eventually my ability to laugh was exhausted and eventually things suddenly didn’t seem funny,
and I abruptly got up. I rubbed my eyes and saw rolling around just in front my toes were the
remains of my recent struggle: three pieces of bread, a plate of vegetables, one fork, and a bottle
of milk with its cork stopper still in place.

When these things struck my eyes, for some reason I blushed, even though I was
completely alone. At that moment I realized that I was assailed by an intolerable hunger. I redid
my belt, reached out with my right hand and grasped the lukewarm bottle of milk, and with my
left hand I grabbed the buttered toast and began chomping greedily. Then I stuck some salad
onto the fork and, discovering it flavor to be irresistibly delicious, I stuffed my cheeks with it,
and washed it down with a few gulps of milk. Having stuffed my belly, I crawled onto the bed
behind me, pulled out the new sheets, wrapped myself up, stretched out, and closed my eyes.

I must have dozed for about 15 or 20 minutes after that. Perhaps because of my full belly,
or that my body was entirely drained of energy, the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet
grew pleasantly warm, and the inside of my head gradually turned into a dark and deserted
cave… within which various morning sounds flitted near and far, then died away… leaving a
languid dreariness….

…The bustle of traffic. The sound of hurrying shoes. The sound of clog sandals being
dragged slowly. A bicycle’s bell… From some distant house, the slap of a duster on a futon….

…Somewhere high in the distance a crow was crying, Caw, caw… In a nearby kitchen,
glasses broke with a clatter… so I thought, and right outside the window suddenly was a shrill
woman’s voice….
 “…DISGSUSTIN…FUHRILL…IZESOSUHPRIZE…CANTBUHLEEV…GOTTABEU
HJOKE…EEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE….”

…After that, as if in pursuit, my stomach rumbled contentedly within my belly… These

things one by one melted together, gradually fading into a distant world, and I was transported
into a trance, a dreamy ecstasy… such a pleasant feeling… blessedness….

And then eventually one distinct, strange sound began to be audible from someplace very
far-off. It was certain to be a car siren, like the whistle of a large
flute….pyo…pyo…pyopyopyopyo…a type of sound designed specifically to be high-pitched and
to be heard from far away, but it gave me the feeling that something frightening had suddenly
happened, and that it was coming to where I was, and there was nothing I could do about it. In
fact the variety of sounds that made up the morning stillness were overpowered by the menacing
pyopyopyopyo, as it turned now this way, now that way at each intersection in the city, with
surprising speed it came nearer and nearer to my sleeping head, until at last it came so close that
in a flash it must run through my disheveled hair, but at the last second it veered away in a large
turn. It continued slowly, still emitting its high-pitched moan, until it seemed a few blocks away,
when at length it changed direction again, and with its whine rising in pitch until it stung my ear
canals, I thought it was speeding closer when before long it came to a sudden stop. No sound
could be hear. When the world became silent, my sleep returned to a perfect ease….

…Finally everything was just right, but after about five minutes of comfort, suddenly a
sound pisshin came from the keyhole of the door next to my pillow. The door opened heavily
with a steady giiiii, something made a rustling sound and I felt that it was entering the room so I
reflexively jumped up and turned to look. …But… Once my eyes settled and I got a good look, I
was taken aback.

Before me, and in front the sturdy door left slightly ajar, was placed a small wicker chair.
And in front of that was an astonishngly off example of a man, looking down on me from where
he stood tall enough to pierce the clouds.

It was a giant of a man whose height was well over six feet. His face was long like a
horse, and the color of skin was as pale as porcelain. Under thin, long eyebrows were arranged
small whale-like eyes. Within them were pale pupils, clouded over and with no strength, like
those of a doddering old man, or of an invalid on the verge of death. His strong nose protruded
like a foreigner’s, and the bridge of his nose sparkled with a white light. Underneath that his lips
stretched in a straight line, and they were just as pale as the skin around them, which I assumed
must be due to some horrible disease. The unusual slope of his forehead, like a temple roof, and
his giant chin, like the prow of a battleship, contributed to his creepy visage… at a glance it you
there had to be a strange superhuman personality behind it. Standing in front of the wicker chair
so delicate that I thought it was for a woman, with his gleaming black hair parted in two, wearing
a luxurious deep brown fur overcoat, and fumbling his long, pale hairy fingers in front of a
swaying, sturdy platinum watch chain, his figure towered like a Western demon summoned by
magic.
 I looked up timidly at this visitor of mine. Like a creature just hatched from an egg, I held
my breath and blinked my eyes, and nervously moved my tongue within my mouth. However at
length it dawned on me… this must be the person that has come in that car just now… so I
turned myself so that I sat facing him.

Soon enough from the bottom of this giant gentleman’s small, heavily clouded pupils
appeared a cold light that held a certain kind of solemnity.

However, the giant gentleman didn’t seem to pay such a thing the slightest notice. In an
frigid manner, after giving me a quick glance, he raised his eyes and began slowly sweeping
them around the room. While that pale cloudy gaze traversed every nook and cranny of the room,
I cowered, feeling for some reason that every shameful act I had committed since opening my
eyes that morning was being laid bare and examined. …Why on earth has this creepy fellow
come to visit me… was the worry eating at the bottom of my mind.

It was then that the giant gentleman’s body suddenly shrank as if threatened by
something as he leaned forward. He hurriedly thrust his hand into the pocket of his overcoat,
drew out a white handkerchief, and dashed it up to his face. …in less than the space of a thought,
he turned half away from me, his entire body shook, and he let out a series of small, delicate
coughs at odds with his imposing figure. After short while, when his breathing had finally settled
down, he once again turned deliberately to face me and bowed.

“…Greetings… I hope you’ll forgive the overcoat… My weak constitution necessitates

it….”

His voice was feminine, and as you might expect did not match his body at all. But even
so, when I heard that voice it somehow put me at ease. Since this person, contrary to his
imposing figure, seemed to be gentle and kind, I let out a sigh of relief and raised my face, to
find in front of my nose a business card, which he was reverently presenting while once again
breaking into a cough.

“…I am K-… *cough cough*… excuse… excuse me please…”

I made a little bowing gesture as I took his business card with both hands.

Kyushu Imperial University,

Professor of Forensics

Kyotaro Wakabayashi
Chief of Medical Faculty
 I read over the business card repeatedly two or three times, and was once again
dumbstruck. I couldn’t help once more looking up and down at the figure of this huge gentleman
standing erect before me and holding back a cough. And then,

“…This is… Kyushu University….”

I whispered to myself, and involuntarily cast a restless glance all around me.

At that moment a muscle under the left of the giant, Dr. Wakabayashi, quivered in a
slight spasm. It produced such a strange expression that I thought was this possibly the peculiar
way that this person smiled? Following this his while lips slowly began to move as well.

“…That’s right… This is the Kyushu University psychiatric ward, room number 7. I’m
terribly sorry to disturb your rest, but circumstances require me to make this sudden visit. …To
come to the point, a while ago it seems you asked the nurse who was delivering your meal to tell
you your own name… As soon as this was reported to me by the night staff, I made haste to
come here immediately, so then how are you now? ….Have you already been able to recal your
own name? …Have your memories regarding your past been fully restored…?”

I was not able to answer. All I could think to do was to stare stupidly up at that huge chin
in front of my nose, struck with an idiotic expression and my mouth agape.

…Should I really be surprised by this? Hadn’t I been clothed with the ghost of my own
name since this morning?

The time that had passed since I had asked the nurse for my own name was less than an
hour. In that short time he had come without taking the time to change clothes, and in spite of his
illness, to ask me if I remembered my name… what an eerie nimbleness and baffling
enthusiasm….

Why was it such a big deal for this doctor whether or not I could remember my name?

Confused on two or three differnet levels, I looked back and forth between the business
card in my hand and the face of Dr. Wakabayashi, comparing the two.

Another strange thing I noticed about Dr. Wakabayashi is that he never once blinked
while looking down at me in my confusion. He appeared to be waiting for my reply, with his
mouth shut tight and drilling a hole in my face with gaze, and from his strained expression it was
clear he was expecting something important in my reply. The more I read his expression, the
more firmly convinced I was that whether or not I remembered my name and my past had some
deep personal implication for Dr. Wakabayashi.

For a short while the two of us sat staring at each other… but soon Dr. Wakabayashi,
realizing he was not going to get a reply from me, seemed to give up hope and softly closed his
eyes. However, as his eyelids fluttered open again a smile even more profound than before
spread from his lips to his left cheek. Meanwhile, he seemed to become confused as to whether
my dumbfounded silence had another meaning, as he moved his lips while nodding slightly two
or three times.

“…Quite right. You must think this all very mysterious, naturally. Since I primarily stick
to forensic medicine, it may seem that butting into a case of mental illness like this one is
unreasonable, to say the lease, however in this case there are considerations which make it
profoundly unavoidable….”

As he was saying this, once again, he tensed up in preparation for another bout of
coughing, but then relaxed, as it seemed to be a false alarm this time. his eyes twinkled in the
shadow of his handkerchief, and he continued in a choked voice.

“…In other words, there was no alternative. To tell the truth, the celebrated Keishi
Masaki has just recently taken up the office of chair for the Department of Mental Illness.”

“…Keishi…Masaki…”

“…Indeed…Keishi Masaki is a leading figure, not just in our own country, but in
international scholarly circles. When the current practice of mental illness research had reached
its limits, he boldly established a new theory with his fundamentally revolutionary Science of the
Mind. Yes, he is a great scholar… Having said that, of course, I don’t mean to say that what has
been practiced up until today is anything as unscientific as, say, the study of psychic phenomena
or spritiualism…. And it goes without saying, that you can count yourself among those who have
received this new treatment….”

“I… treatment for mental illness….”

“Yes, that’s… quite right, Professor Masaki holds the responsibility for your cure, and
yet here I am, a forensic specialist asking after your condition. Which is to say, its only natural
that this appears to you extremely irregular, and you are entirely within your rights to express
any number of doubts at this present state of affairs. …Nevertheless, his successor has not been
decided, and there is as yet no suitable assistant professor, so as a result of this, I received an
order from our president to, for the time being, take on as you might say a double class load… to
this end, having been entrusted with Professor Masaki’s confidence, I shall with particularly
great care exhaust all my power in nursing you to the exclusion of all else. To put it in other
words, there is good reason to say that the honor of this department of mental illness, no, rather
the prestige of all of Kyushu University, hangs solely and entirely on whether or not your
memories of your past have been restored… on whether or not you can remember your own
name.”

When Dr. Kobayashi had finished speaking, everything around me seemed to suddenly
grow very bright, and I started blinking my eyes. I had the feeling that the ghost of my name had
appeared from somewhere, accompanied by a bright shining halo….

…However… in the next second, I was overcome with a feeling so miserable I couldn’t
even raise my face, and so I was left hanging my head.
 …This is, without a doubt, a hospital room in the mental illness ward of
Kyushu Imperial University. Which means I’m the patient being housed in
room number 7, whatever significance that might have.

…From the moment I opened my eyes this morning, my head has felt a bit strange. That
could be due to some mental illness… yes. That’s proof that I’m suffering from something even
now. …That’s it. I’m insane.

…Aaaa! I’m a god-damn lunatic…!

…This is the kind of every limitless shame I had been brought to, by the almost too polite
explanation of the courteous Dr. Wakabayashi, and the crystal-clear awareness it gave me. And it
brought along with it a suffocating pounding in my chest. Was I ashamed, or afraid, or even sad?
Because of the indistinct emotion which I myself couldn’t understand, I felt pin pricks all over
my body, and from my ears to the nape of my neck once again burned with an intense heat.
…My eyes grew warm. All I wanted to do was throw myself face down on the bed. I sadly
brought both hands to my face and gently pressed the tears into my eyes.

Dr. Wakabayashi, looking down at me in this state, swallowed, producing a couple of

loud gulping sounds. Then, holding his hands together in front of him as if I were some sacred
person, he softly comforted in a voice even more gentle than he had spoken with up to now.

“Quite right, Indeed, quite right. For anyone to find themselves in this room is quite a
shock, and you can be struck with a kind of despair. …But there is no need to worry. Your
admittance to this ward means something completely different from the hospitalization of any of
our other patients.”

“…I…I’m…different from the other patients…”

“…Just so… You are serving as the most valuable research subject for experiments
related to, among other things, the epoch-making “lunatic liberation treatment”, as it’s called,
established by the aforementioned Professor Masaki in this department for the treatment of
mental illness….”

“…I… I’m… an experimental subject for the lunatic liberation treatment… a treatment
for the liberation of lunatics….”

Dr. Wakabayashi was moved enough to bend forward and nod. As if to show respect for
the name “Lunatic Liberation Treatment”….

“Just so, just so. That’s exactly it. Both Dr. Masaki, who pioneered the experiments of
this ‘Lunatic Liberation Treatment’, and I think before long you will understand just how epoch-
making this theory is that he worked out, but then… you already, by the precise function of your
own brain, will provide experimental proof of this new science of the mind of Dr. Masaki’s. with
amazing results, on the back of which, both his character and the name of this university will
make a mark on science the world over. ….Besides, you, as a result of the great mental shock
produced by this experiment, have suffered a complete loss of awareness of self, from which
now, at any moment, you are about to gain a vivid recovery. …That being the case, you are, as it
were, at ground zero of the liberation treatment. You are the central figure of a miraculous
experiment and so at the same time, without a doubt the guardian angel of the honor of Kyushu
University.”

“…Th-…that sounds like a really awful experiment… Why me…?”

Flustered, I blurted this out without thinking and slid to my knees at the side of the bed. It
was terrifying to be steadily wound up in the center of a story that reached the extremes of the
bizarre…. While looking down at my face, Dr. Wakabayashi nodded in a manner even more
calm than before.

“Of course, it is only natural that you harbor such doubts. …But…unfortunately I cannot
address them at the present moment. At some point in the not too distant future you will recall
the entire process for yourself….”

“…I’ll remember it for myself. …H-…How will I remember…”

I mumbled in increasing agitation. I felt that Dr. Wakabayashi seemed to be once more
clearly reminded by the way I spoke that I was a pitiable mental patient.

But Dr. Wakabayashi did not make a fuss. He quietly raised his hand to calm me down.

“…W-…Wai…Wait, please. The situation is this… To tell the truth, along with your
entry upon and progression with this liberation treatment, actually, before too long was hidden a
grave, complicated fate, bordering on the miraculous. Furthermore, to tell the story of that fate, I
tried to tie together into one idea all of its strands front and back, and it all became a lie, a
fiction… to boil it down, for someone like you who has had direct experience, you can’t trust
anyone else to tell you about it if you don’t remember it yourself… and in this way your memory
of your past is inextricably bound up with the outcome of this miracle…however, for your piece
of mind I think it best not to explain these things in too much more detail at the present time.
…That is… to speak of this ‘Lunatic Liberation Treatment’, shortly after Dr. Masaki transferred
to this university, in February of this year, he started work on the design of this treatment center,
it was completed in July, and after only four months of experiments, exactly one month ago on
October 20th, Dr. Masaki passed away, while the center was shut down. The experiments that
Dr. Masaki carried out in that short time were, as you might say, focused on the restoration of
your memories. And, as a result, Dr. Masaki was able to predict without hesitation, that even
though you had long ago fallen into a unique type of mental condition, before long you would be
restored to the condition we see today.”

“…So this dead professor, Dr. Masaki… predicted what would happen to me today….”

“Just so, just so. It is almost certain that, as a result of the careful nursing you have
received as a valuable asset of this university, your mental faculties will be able to return to
exactly as they were before. Dr. Masaki resolutely asserted the fundamental principle of his great
theory, and that in the results of the experiments born from this principle, that you yourself
would provide the proof. Besides, as was expected, and just as Professor Masaki had predicted, if
you recover all the memories of your past, the inevitable result of that will be that the associated
feelings and relationships, however unprecedented or pathetic they may be, even to the point of
criminality, will all at once at the same time come flooding back. I personally have no doubt that
this is exactly what will happen.”

“…even …even to the point of criminality… was I involved in….”

“Just so. To begin with when we say unprecedented, we mean that we think we may
never see anything like it again, a truly unusual incident.”

“…Wh-….what kind of incident….”

I said breathlessly, leaning forward from the side of the bed.

But Professor Wakabayashi was unperturbable. He remained standing still and smoothly
continued his speech while looking down at me with those pale blue eyes….

“…I say that incident, because it can be no other. …What is hidden, let us say. Now, as I
said, in line with Dr. Masaki’s neruological related research, which I have long revered and taken
my guidance from, we now continue our research concerning the ‘mental science’s criminal
applications’…”

“…mental science’s… criminal applications….”

“Indeed… that’s putting it rather simply, but, well, the subject is so new, not yet
unpacked as it were, so referring to it in that way perhaps gives a sufficient rough understanding.
…That is, my original motive for taking up the study of this subject was because I inferred from
Dr. Masaki’s teachings on his “mental science” that it was full of the most dreadful and fearsome
principles. For example, within one branch of this mental science, “psychopathology” , one type
of suggestion action according to, human’s mental condition suddenly, like another peron swiftly
changed get……This person’s present mental life is in an instant negated, and replaced by the
personality of some far-removed ancestor, taken from where it had lain dormant in the depth of
the subject’s mind… … the field contains any number of such hair-raising theories and
examples, you see… …moreover, this theory as we call it, in spite of having practical application
and experimental results that are rigorously scientific, precise, and grave, differs in the
explanation of its action and the actual practice of its technique, as we might say, from the usual
run-of-the -mill science… …to start with an explanation which would be simple and engaging
enough even for women and children to grasp, thought of in a certain way, the research and
experiments are not so dangerous… …Of course, the you don’t have to look far for the details,
they are right before your eyes, and the further development should be obvious, so there is no
need to go into explanations here….”

“…Huh?…Huh?…such frightful research…”

 Dr. Wakabayashi nodded with solemn gravity.

“Indeed, indeed. Since the truth of this theory has been demonstrated to you first hand,
you have achieved not only a kind of immunity to the shuddering dread induced by the painting
of this naked truth, but also when in a short time when the memories concerning your own past
have inevitably been restored, you will come to realize how you possess the qualification and
indeed the right to participate in the research of this new theory. But, if by some chance the
contents of this secret research leak out to anyone else, there’s no way to predict what kind of
scandal will break out. …For example we might discover lurking latent in the depths of some
person’s mind a fearsome thoughts and impulses from his ancestral past, and given the right
suggestion, in a split second we could turn this person insane. But what if we were at a point that
to deal with the person who was driven criminally insane, we could wipe away his memory?
This so-called poison cannot compare with the way that Mr. Nobel’s invention of a new
manufacturing processes for gunpowder intensified the wars of the world.”

*The translation stops here. It was last updated on June 18, 2014.