The butterfly dream was an episode from the Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosophical text. In it, a man dreams of flying around as a butterfly and looks down to see his sleeping human body. He then wonders if his butterfly form is his true self and if his life as a human was nothing but a dream. Rather than clarifying which is reality and which is dream, the author suggests that anywhere someone exists in the moment is a legitimate reality in and of itself.
“The what now?” Mononobe fired back. “You know I’m no good at book learnin’, man. All I’m saying is, if there ain’t nothing to be done, then you’re better off not gettin’ involved. Ain’t no point. But I get that you gotta do what you gotta do.”
Aoyama was about to ask for clarification, but he knew it would lead him nowhere. Mononobe clearly thought this case was too thorny for him to get involved with. Even giving them this hint was going above and beyond. Aoyama promptly thanked his friend for the help. He could hear the background noise starting to pick up again on the other side of the call. There was something he needed to say before he hung up.
“I know I’ve said this before, but…I don’t think Rumi is doing this just because she feels like it. She’s the type of person who’ll put herself in harm’s way to help someone and never demand any gratitude in return. She’s somebody I respect from the bottom of my heart. I feel the same way about you.”
He got as far as that, then stopped short. Mononobe was laughing. It had been quiet at first, so much so that he hadn’t been sure of what he was hearing. But Mononobe’s voice had gradually gotten louder, and now the man was laughing loud enough to blow out the phone’s speakers.
“Mononobe, what are you…?”
Aoyama crumpled to the ground. His head hurt. It must be happening again. He was going to be shown another string of nightmarish imagery…or so he thought. Instead, he found himself all alone in an unremarkable Japanese-style room. His arms and legs felt strange. He tried to move them, but they didn’t budge. He looked down and realized he had prosthetic arms. False legs, too.
“What do you see now, huh, Aoyama?”
The voice seemed to come out of his own mouth. When he tried to reply, he couldn’t even get his breath to move through his throat like he wanted it to. Mononobe’s voice, on the other hand, vibrated through every inch of his body.
“Can’t see nothing, can you?”
What was going on? This wasn’t right. He should be able to see something. The voice echoed around him on every side. Laughing. Was Mononobe enjoying watching him suffer? Was it all just entertainment to him?
“You wanna see?”
No. Please, no.
“You know you want to.”
No. I just want to go home.
“Look sharp now.”
Slowly but steadily, an image started to form in the nothingness.
“See?”
The first thing he spotted was hands—a huge, tangled, writhing mass of them. So many hands, all reaching out, grabbing onto him, pleading for help. He couldn’t scream. In front of him was a woman. Her lustrous black hair fell over her face. She laughed. He couldn’t let her see him.
A skittering sound. An indistinct black form, crawling. A young girl with her guts spewing out, pinned to the ceiling. A large group of men, kneeling reverently and praying. Something crawled out of the woman’s mouth. Bugs. Lots of bugs. Baby bugs with human faces. Faces in the pillar. Young and old, male and female, too many to make out, all crying for help. All suffering.
“You see?”
The woman turned around. Her face was melting.
“Everyone wants to die.”
He did want to die. He’d rather die than be subjected to this. Skrsh, skrsh, skrsh, went the crawling thing. The woman with the melting face looked at him, amused.
“Nah, it ain’t that you want to die, right?”
This was hell.
—Across the faraway mountains…—
Someone was singing now.
“Hey.”
I’m sorry.
—Gather the seven stones…—
“That woman is deceiving you.”
I didn’t know.
—Build a stupa with them…—
“She doesn’t care about you or anyone else around her.”
Not even when you’re suffering like this.
—Conceive and grow fruitful…—
“You really oughtta worry more about yourself.”
It’s over. She’s seen me. The woman wraps her hands around my neck. Her rotting mouth is an empty cavern wafting fetid breath. Huff…huff… I hear it. I can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying.
“Makes my skin crawl.”
Aoyama felt a sharp flick on his forehead. The impact sent him tumbling backward onto the floor. Rumi took his hand and helped him up. The moment he saw her, tears began to flood his eyes. Resisting the urge to cling onto her arm, he somehow got to his feet, then stumbled over to the sofa. His phone was still in his hand, but the screen had gone black. The call had long since ended.
“That little punk…,” Rumi growled. “So, what did you and Mononobe talk about?”
Aoyama considered telling her about the things he’d just seen but then thought better of it. “That woman is deceiving you.” What did that mean? He wasn’t about to start doubting Rumi’s intentions. She had saved him so many times, and regardless of her brusque manner, she’d always been very proactive about helping people. So why did he feel so uneasy all of a sudden?
There were some things even Mononobe was powerless to do anything about. He’d felt Mononobe’s powerlessness firsthand. Aoyama had seen vividly just how Mononobe lived. He still wasn’t quite sure why Mononobe had shown him all that. But he was certain he’d been trying to tell him something. It had to be important for him to go to such extreme lengths. Mononobe wouldn’t lie. What possibilities did that leave?
“My vision kind of went black for a moment.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Rumi seemed relieved enough he was fine and shifted back to her usual lighthearted demeanor. For some reason, Aoyama couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.