Mahito lived according to a different set of ethical principles, so the old man’s explanations helped him understand the difficult concepts. The old man wasn’t like other human beings, and Mahito was deeply interested in his life experiences.
“Gregor is an insect, so his family tries to keep him hidden, but he crawls out and dies in the end. Why do you think that is, old man?”
“Because you cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
“That’s Virginia Woolf, isn’t it?”
The old man raised his eyebrows at Mahito’s recognition of the quote. “You must read a lot. It makes talking to you easy.”
“Don’t you want to go back to the human world?”
“If you don’t have any attachments to that world, there’s no need to run around in it and no need to stand and face it,” said the old man.
“Ah, I see.”
During the entire brief conversation, Mahito did not once look up from the book.
The old man’s soul may have been invisible to the eye, but as usual it burned placidly in the darkness. In the dark tunnel, Mahito used the soul’s flickering light to read by.
Outside the tunnel, summer was gradually approaching.
The end came suddenly.
One day, Mahito was wandering around town. He picked up a collection of poems and returned to the tunnel to an unexpected disturbance.
He counted one, two, three flickering souls. One was a shape he knew well, but it was extremely faint, like the flame of a dying candle flickering in the wind. Mahito strolled into the tunnel as usual.
As expected, the old man was there, but he was lying on the ground in an odd position. Two young men were standing on either side of him, looking down.
“Whoa, that sucks. Geezer’s gonna die.” The thin man with long hair didn’t sound particularly upset.
“Told you I could kill a man!” the well-built man with the shaved head responded almost cheerfully.
“Yeah, but that was like … on the spur of the moment.”
“Yeah, cuz even though he was all feeble and stuff, he got bossy and told us to get out. He was dissin’ us, dude. So I had to kick him.”
The shaven-headed man had the muscular legs of an athlete. To kill an old man with one kick would be as easy for him as crushing an empty can.
The men weren’t the slightest bit interested in the old man’s life or soul. They had done this without reason, without hate, without malice. They had just happened to stroll in. Then, on a whim, they had committed a violent act. In a sudden fit, they had beaten an old man.
Perhaps that was one expression of human freedom.
Mahito crouched and studied the old man’s face. His burned features were swelling from the blunt trauma. But even at this moment, his expression conveyed tranquility.
“Are you dying?” Mahito questioned the old man in a whisper.
“Yes … I believe so …” the old man rasped. He probably didn’t have the strength left to make his vocal cords vibrate. The young men were talking loudly, so they didn’t hear him.
Mahito examined the old man’s soul. It was slowly approaching the end of its life without hesitation or anger. Mahito was impressed.
The old man was free in the truest sense. He had liberated himself from all the chains of this world, and that hadn’t changed even on the threshold of death. Mahito was relieved to confirm that with his own eyes. He observed the old man’s dying moments the way one might gaze at a flower wilting.
However …
“Hey, old man?”
Mahito had a premonition.
It was like turning the page of a book to an unexpected development, or realizing what’s inside an ornamental box the moment before you open it. Disquiet filled his breast. Instinctive alarm bells warned Mahito to stop watching, and he almost did, but everything continued to race toward the end.
“I … expected to die … alone.”
The old man’s soul wavered. A smile formed on his swollen features.
“But there’s someone here … to watch an old man … give up the ghost.”
It was like watching a single drop ripple the surface of water, an inconsequential event. Yet it was the moment of the old man’s death. Here at the end of the very end, the old man’s soul metabolized.
“Thank … you …”
And then the old man died with a smile on his lips.
Mahito sat motionless for a moment, his eyes wide.
He had thought the old man was different from other human beings. He had thought the old man was truly free. He had thought the old man had reached a special state of release from all worldly bonds, a state of spiritual enlightenment.
But a bond had claimed him at the moment of death.
A solitary death eluded the old man and he had clung to another being as he expired. The old man had turned out to be just another human being. He died satisfied, perhaps as was proper for a human being.
Mahito said nothing. He felt cold inside, as if a wind were blowing through him. He didn’t know what word human beings would use to describe this feeling, but his consciousness was like a tangled thread, quivering and then suddenly untangling. All that remained was the feeling of standing in an arid wasteland.
“Anyway,” said the man with the shaved head. “The cops won’t bother with an old man no one knows anything about.”
“Y-y-yeah, I s’pose not!” The long-haired man sounded chipper.
“Besides, the old bastard’s the one who started it!”
“Got what he deserved, yeah? Shoulda looked us in the eye when he was talkin’ to us!”
“Even worse, he got my pants grimy when I kicked him!” said the man with the shaved head.
“Aw, don’t mind that little thing! You crack me up, you killer!”
“He wasn’t no person tho’. And you know I like to keep clean. Crap … Does blood come out? Water ain’t enough.”
“I doubt it,” said the long-haired man. “But now that the action’s over I’m hungry. Let’s hit a convenience store.”
“Think I could get some good detergent there?”
“Like I know! You can look for it after we nab some box lunches.”
Mahito stood up suddenly, as if he had finished searching for something on a low shelf. He felt weary to the bone.
The voices echoing in the tunnel were irresponsible, oblivious to reality, incoherent, and drowning out the murmur of the water.
With a languid movement, as if picking up a piece of trash, Mahito approached the shaven-headed man. He used his cursed technique.
Idle Transfiguration.
He struck the man’s back. His victim had time to cry out in surprise and pain before he stopped being human.
Simply killing him would leave a corpse that would clutter up the place, so Mahito folded him down to a size that would fit in the palm of his hand. He could throw the man away later. Then, with a broad wave of his hand, he folded up the other man too.
After that, all was quiet.
Mahito picked up the men, who were now the size of chess pieces, and looked down at the old man’s body. The old-timer was no more than a meat sack full of bones. The body no longer held a soul for Mahito to alter via Idle Transfiguration.
For a moment, Mahito pondered the not inconsiderable problem of disposing of the body.
The only sound in the tunnel was the water.
The sky looked endless.
Mahito could see the clouds between the buildings. As the wind blew, they drifted along pleasantly.
Mahito was wandering around town again.
“Maybe I should go see a movie. It’s been a while.”
He chose a small, old-looking theater and snuck inside.
He’d been more motivated recently, as if an unnecessary burden had fallen from his soul, leaving him lighter. And because of that, he’d been tinkering with human beings more often.
He had started thinking that if he could shrink people, then maybe he could enlarge them too, so he’d spent a whole night trying that out. It had been fun, but he thought maybe he’d gotten a little too involved. He wouldn’t push himself too hard.
Sometimes you need a change of pace.
He had no idea what movie was showing. It was probably a minor and unimpressive flick, but if he didn’t expect too much, he might just find the story surprisingly entertaining. He had a funny feeling he would.
As he walked down the hall, he absentmindedly reached into a pocket and felt the small human figures. They were starting to bulk up. He couldn’t have them getting in the way, so he tossed them aside in the movie theater’s lobby.
He opened a door and stepped into the theater.
Not many people were in the audience, perhaps because it was a weekday. Some human forms, possibly students, were dispersed throughout the seating area.
Mahito stood in a corner and waited for the images to appear on the screen. Then darkness descended, signaling the start of the film.