The Study: Mercenary of The Unconcious

So now you know a bit about me. I guess that's only fair. I've been watching you for three and a half decades now (and before me there were many others who watched you for many years prior to my existence) and not once have I introduced myself. That was one of the more interesting days at the office. Most of the time when I'm looking to make a difference I do it in a much more discreet manner. Maybe make some people disappear, maybe set up some type of accident, but I don't know, it might be because my own time is coming to an end, or maybe I just needed to shake things up a bit, continually change that is, so I tried something new. If you're wondering what agency I work for, you can stop. I don't work for a company, I don't have a badge, I don't get paid salary and I definitely don't have anything invested in a 401k, I am simply a killer. That term sounds rash, but calling it anything less would only be aiding and abetting the falsehoods our world rocks itself to sleep with. The last time I saw Maki, it wasn't on the best of terms, she didn't get it, she coined me as something I quite liked though, something that I'd print on a business card if I ever got that sort of thing. An older Maki, one who's freckles had expanded with age and who's hair looked like burnt wood, looked up at me and said, "You can't do this Robert. This wasn't the point of our project, this wasn't meant to create a monster, to separate you from your neighbors, your fellow man. Robert you have to stop, you've done enough. Please just turn yourself in. It's not your place to be the mercenary of unconscious action." I was quite fond of how that sounded, Robert Bromley, Mercenary for hire specializing in the areas of punishing humanities unconscious actions. It has a ring to it, you can't deny it.

I know what your next question is... How'd I get here? How did a kid who decided to study abroad in Japan to conquer the fears of himself, end up becoming a mercenary, a killer to some, a purveyor of punishment for the dreams you can't seem to remember and the life path you have been lost on since loosing touch with what life really is? I suppose since the end is near for us all, I can indulge you with a little bigger piece of me. I warn you though, being witness to these words may make you come to some realizations about yourself, these words may come to haunt you in the worst possible way because by the time you will have realized what you have been failing to realize for years, it will be too late. Myself or my successors will have come for you. We've been watching, we always have, we always will.

* * *

The bikes, while fun, ended up being a lot more work than either of us had anticipated. On our return trip to Kyoto, back to the comfort, protection and warmth of Masa and Keoki's humble home, we decided to say farewell to the saddle sore and stinky feet and opted to take the Shinkansen from major city to major city. Looking back I regret this decision, for it is the simplification of life I was beginning to despise. The trip began to feel like a time warp for me. I didn't really care what city we were in or how long we were gone for, all I could concentrate on was what Maki had been writing about me. It drove me crazy to think that maybe she saw something in me, something weak, something that we would snicker about as we'd make our daily rounds. I tried to suppress this feeling, I really tried just shoving it deep inside of me, but more often than not I'd yield to those sour waves of angst that brought about conversations I'd rather not revisit. Maki would always make me look like the fool, and that’s because in the end, it's who I was.

I just couldn't shake the fact that I was being watched, it set something off inside of me that I was disgusted by at first, but later came to embrace. I kept watching people alright, but instead of jovially enjoying human nature, I wanted to light fire to it and watch it burn. For years after this realization I accredited Maki with igniting it, but I've come to see this was my own doing, my own issues with myself that sent the sparks of cruel-love deep inside the kindling of our species. We hit Hiroshima, Hyogo and then finally got back to Kyoto. We had taken 3 months in total to venture to the southern most tip of this land and return to the center. I asked Maki how long we'd be in town before heading west and her only response was that she had decided to enroll in school for the spring semester. I played it off like it didn't matter much to me, but on the inside I was freaking out. My whole growth felt like it depended on this one person and if she wasn't in my life, I wouldn't know what steps to take next. I thought about flying home, about calling it quits, about giving up on this community college perception of an existential awakening. I didn't though, for once in my life I fought the desire to cave and headed west alone.

The further west I traveled, the more modernized the cities became. Only a month ago I was staying in rural fishing villages on the southern coast of Nippon and now I found myself sleeping in a capsule stacked between hundreds of others just like it. I made it to the Aichi prefecture in the Tokai region of Japan and took note of how a battle raged on between modernity and tradition. Temples rotted away on moss covered hillsides, but were lighted perfectly with halogens in a variety of colors. Hundred-year-old koi fish, swollen and pale glided through murky water under heavy lily pads and above them was a moving sidewalk that not only conveyed the lazy from one side to other, it also conveyed messages for the most popular restaurant in town, McDonalds. This war didn't end in the architecture. It was in the plants, cherry blossoms versus palm trees, and in the wardrobe, kimonos versus knee-high socks, and in the people themselves. It was old man verse young man, and young man verse young man and for every person that seemed to understand the importance of reflection, there'd be a hundred more taking glances in every mirror they past. For everything that was being fought over, it baffled me that there wasn't more commotion. I found this observation the most disturbing. The old accepted the new as a fad and the new accepted the old as tradition. Both sides saw the other, but neither of them understood the value in this; they were too caught up in maintaining their own image.