NOWHERE-NOW HERE, HECTOR CASTELLS TRAVEL JOURNAL III

I. Now Here, FK’N’OAK, September 2024

I open my eyes inside the cabin. My body feels foreign and I have become left-handed overnight, so it seems. There’s a song playing on repeat inside my brain. I identify it instantly. It is an ambidextrous variation of Aphex’s Twin “Stone in Focus” performed by Glen Gould. It is as soothing as senseless: Gould died way before Aphex was born.

I’m exhausted, as if I have just woken up after a hundred years sleep, a deafening achievement for an insomniac. My left ear is awkwardly wet: it’s the third abnormality I notice in thirty seconds of sudden consciousness, so I start panicking on second thirty-one. As it turns out, the auricle is dripping some sort of transparent gel. Somehow, I know that there will be blood and that I will have to play it by ear.

I’m wearing a navy blue Hawaiian T-shirt, a pair of awkward grey trousers and buttery runners. For all I know, which equals almost nothing, I don’t belong to my dress code or to anything else around, inside or outside me. My jaw line seems dotted with tiny, soft bumps, as if someone has stitched it together over my centurial unconsciousness. I yawn and my mouth opens like a watermelon outsizing the rest of my features.

I’m holding a Kindle between my hands. I read: “You are nothing but a creature, non-human and somehow strangely pathetic.” I recognise Mishima’s line as second nature. Then my left hand switches off the device and its black mirror reflects my worst fears: I look like Wilson, the unfortunate volley-ball stuck on an island with Tom Hanks.
The pilot voice says: “We are starting to descend to Fuck an Oak”, and before I entirely lose it, the screen in front of me solves the time and space paradox with a map displaying Southern Japan. I fasten up my seatbelt and search inside my pockets. I unpack an Irish passport and my boarding pass. As it turns out, my idiotic new name is Wilson Harper —and Fuck an Oak is Fukuoka.

Upon landing, a piercing pain raids my left temple. Next thing I hear Khaled’s voice: “Welcome to Japan, WH. Shun, our Zen master, is waiting for you outside international arrivals. Don’t forget to pick up your obnoxious backpack, and remember: don’t think, just follow your instinct.”

It kind of rhymes —and sucks enough to turn “Stone in Focus” into a ruthless stoning that could be orchestrated by the Masters of Joujouka.

“Can you hear me? Who are you? Why the fuck are you inside my brain?”

I can make the sound of his shoes dancing flamenco before he says:

“Oh my days: it’s working!”

“What is?”

“Your implant, my dear. I’m Khaled, your master and commander.”

“Khaled?” I ask pretending to have forgotten what I have not. I restrain my opinion on his bombastic, postcolonial choice of words.

Only then the background flamenco turns into a stomping reggaeton.

II Now Here: Fuck an Oak, Fukuoka, Japan 2024.

I walk the corridors of the terminal like an unnatural mammal: I feel like Bambi on K. Walking has never been so awkward. Then my left temple starts releasing waves of excruciating memories: it echoes my last conversations with Selby and Nora on repeat: “And dear, remember, don’t even dare coming back home,” says Selby; “Love and Asia,” whispers Nora.

Khaled’s device must be flawed: I remember what he thinks I have forgotten: I only breathe to avenge the hideous murder of my loved ones. The downside is that I’m crushed by callous migraines that force me to stop walking before each travolator. Once I catch my breath, the headache turns into a wave of analgesic pleasure that makes me feel In Rainbows. Who knows, perhaps I’m not Wilson but Thom Yorke? It’s far fetched, and yet again, slightly feasible.

I keep walking until reaching customs. I’m alternatively exhausted and high as if I just have climbed Mount Everest while coming up on ecstasy. I’m surrounded by dozens of other aliens, none of them apparently related to my ethnic background, the saddest on Earth.

My obnoxious backpack is also honouring its adjective: I’m the only passenger not carrying a suitcase. The custom agents are polite and friendly. They take samples of different parts of your anatomy, all of them wearing white masks as if confinement has become perpetuated —which actually has.
After passing all the checkpoints, right before reaching the exit door, a plastic glove tips my shoulder. I turn around and a masked agent asks me if they can run a test on my belongings. I say sure, they say thanks, place the obnoxious over a counter and scan it with an immaculate white pen.

“I’m afraid it has reacted,” they say.

“To what?”

“I don’t know. Just follow me to the inside facility, if you don’t mind?”

My heartbeat becomes a typhoon dragging all the ghosts of my recent past. I wonder if Carl Murder and his bloodhounds might be waiting inside.

“Yo, Khaled? Can you hear me? I think I’m in trouble.”

Khaled won’t answer, and I can’t help but remember the bridge of Lindsay’s Buckingham homonymous song: “I should run on the double/I think I’m in trouble.”

I smile for the last time in many nameless hours.

III Now Here, Afternoon Express, Fuck a Yoak, Japan, 2024

Once inside the room, the single agent swiftly multiplies into a number of unmasked males. The first two hold a laminated A-4 against my face listing all the jail-friendly substances in the country.

“Am I carrying any of those?”

“Of course not.”

“Why do you smile like that?” This is agent number 3 asking with a stern face.

“I was in a car crash a few months ago. I had to go through a face reconstruction. I guess the surgeon is to blame.” He reacts with such an eloquent, puzzled face that makes me realise that I just have landed in the country that invented emojis —and Aikido.

Agent number 4 comes in and asks permission to run a full search through my belongings, and to sign an authorization letter “in my language.” They see the Irish passport and read the name of the shameful country where I was born. They decide I have to use the latter murderous idiom. Only then agent number 2 places his discoveries on a little tray: a condom expired in 1999 and a wrecked plastic wrap. Then shouts:

“What is this?”

“Peanut’s Pie first song?” I reply instantly.

“What?”

Ooops, Freudian slip.

“I mean, it is the relic of a long gone past. You just need to check the expiration date of the condom. You seem to have found a pocket that has been eluding me since last century, my apologies.”

“Where are you?” It is Khaled asking now. “Shun is getting increasingly impatient outside. He says that your flight landed two hours ago and the typhoon is almost there.”

“Still inside,” I whisper.

“What is still inside?” —It is agent number 4 asking.
I feel like a tri-polar middle-age backpacker stuck in Midnight Express.

“I need my glasses. The plastic wrap looks empty to me.”

Agent 5 and 6 proceed to sweep my absurd clothes, socks and runners. Number 3 is still holding the relic and asking to sign my letter of consent.
Agent 7 only shows up then. He is the master of them all. He is wearing an updated uniform. He holds a pair of little tweezers and a magnifying glass, and asks for my signature to inspect the incriminatory evidence. I can’t even see it with my glasses on: it is the corpse of a subatomic leaf.

I mention my age, the subatomic nature of the finding and wonder about the legal nature of invisibility. Agent 7 states that in Japan what matters is the content not the size, and I know as everybody does, that all joy and literature terminates with the horrible, aforementioned word —cuntent I am not.

This is Midnight Express reloaded turned into a microscopic manga turned into Afternoon Express part III: The Tiny Leaf that Fucked Me, and I can’t obviously mention how grateful I am that Carl Murder is not here. After being escorted to the toilet by agents 3 and 5 and evacuating the most distraught pee of my life, the Master of All lectures me on the absolute illegal nature of the microscopic finding.

I’m about to cry when Afternoon Express comes to an end in unforeseen happy fashion. They let me go, emphasising that I will become a jailbird if I get into any sort of trouble outside this nasty inside. I can’t help but be grateful: I have eluded the Interpol and the subatomic punishment. I’m not free, but then again, no one is.

As Mishima writes “I’m the embodiment of all that might or might not happen, of all that unpredictable, tension-filled, silent world.”

IV Now Here, Meet the Zen Master, Fukuoka, August 2024

Outside international arrivals there is no trace of Zen Master Shun and the silent world is in full bloom. I haven’t felt so young in such a long time: everybody is smaller and looks older than I am; hence the backpack kind of suits me.

“Are you here Khaled, copy?”

“Yes. What the hell happened? Our mission is on the verge of collapse because of your arrival fiasco. Shun is fuming. He is driving back to the facility. He will contact you soon. Check your phone. I can only hope you have learned the lesson.”

“Which one?”

“Have some self-respect and stop using backpacks.”

“I can’t even recall packing it, let alone embarking on that plane. I wonder who is to blame. By the way, why is my ear dripping gel?”

“Perhaps ask the guy that you met inside a public toilet during your layover in Kuala Lumpur airport?” I hold my tongue. I definitely have forgotten that one.

“He was an animal,” I lie. “And what about the migraines?”

“I already told you: they tend to vanish a couple of days after the implant insertion, be patient. You might have managed to find a lead to Alex by then. You remember her, don’t you?”

“Yes. She is the one thing I won’t forget about, Malek… I mean Khaled.”

I can feel his smile through my spine; my memory loss is his gain somehow.

The hall of the just landed aliens is a domestic affair filled with flashy ads, chilly branding, explosive pictograms and booming exclamation marks set against the silent world. The graphic design and outlay of the whole area is way more boisterous than any of their inhabitants or the sliding robots preserving the immaculate floors and toilets, which are shinier than Vienna’s Opera House.

I’m at awe, my watermelon mouth expanding in utter amusement, when my phone rings.

“Look outside. Can you see me?”

There’s a middle-aged guy sporting a beret, jeans and a silver goatee. I follow his finger as hypnotised. He greets me matter-of-factly.
I try to shake his hand, hug him and/or express some level of Mediterranean physical gratitude. He looks at me as if I’m Bambi on K. I immediately trust him.

“I’m Shun. Get in the car. We are late and the typhoon is upon us.”

There are dozens of white oblong MPVs lined up in front of us. Then I look down and I see a vintage, black car. “Yeah, that’s the one. 1969 Volkswagen. I fixed the engine and drives like silk now, but I wasn’t planning to push it through the hurricane.” I’m about to say sorry before he signals me: “Please don’t”. You don’t say that here, nor I will miss you, I love you or goodbye.

Then he says:

“So Khaled is inside right? Left temple job?”

“Indeed.”

“We can take care of it at the underground facility, but you must be briefed first.”

I wonder what he means, but I keep it to myself: that is the first rule of the X journalist book: “The only answers you can trust never come after a question.” I actually and acutely learnt that one from Khaled (aka Shuarma), while conducting the traumatic first interview of my life.

Shun drives for two hours. We leave behind stunning valleys and industrial towns filled with massive Pachinko parlours and giant steel factories. He overtakes dozens of white, undented matchbox cars. Most of the pilots are as old as Methuselah and they don’t know what a crash is.

“We don’t do accidents here,” says Shun —no question asked.

All the roads and buildings are tidy and seemingly foldable: it feels like every petrol station, 7 Eleven, driveway, lunchbox, insect, car, person or traffic light could disposable and replaced again overnight, as if they all were interchangeable pieces of the same puzzle, some sort of futuristic LEGOLAND designed to minimise the impact of human presence. We leave a former mining camp behind, and reach the coastal road.

The ditches are flanked with smooth Mediterranean looking pine trees until the air suddenly chills. Only then the branches start crooking and bending in furious manga ways. The asphalt is coated with glittery moss, and the wind picks up recklessly enough to propel us from behind
Shun diverts into a winding road and we drive up until reaching its peak. He manages to elude the digressive, rampant wind in every curve. There is an astonishing red shrine crowning it, overlooking the Southern Coast.

Shun pulls out by a cart track, activates a device on his car and the ground literally opens. He parks the Volkswagen, comes out and then points his finger towards the horizon and says: “South Korea is right in front of us. You don’t want them behind you.”

I ask nothing and he explains that we are at one of the foundational temples of Shinto religion. I have read enough about the polytheistic and animistic faith to feel immediately safe.

“This one is devoted to Kitsune, the Fox, bearer of fertility and protector of warriors and swordsmiths,” says Shun.

“So God is a trickster here?”

“You can’t say that. You don’t judge or question deities, you just acknowledge their power: they will destroy you if you don’t pay your respects. Just be grateful and avoid cynical thinking.”

As he says it, the typhoon spits a radicalised airwave that strips me off the ground and throws me at the very edge of the cliff. Shun reaches his hand nonchalantly and saves my life just like that. I turn around; my instinct performs half a hug before he eludes it like a sceptical cobra. As he is doing it, a suspended body emerges behind him. She wears a translucent black and red kimono, and she is floating just like Khaled when I met him. She approaches escorted by a dark blue armoured formation: they are all sporting black helmets; black belts, katana and spears, and they don’t float.

Her face is paler than a thousand full moons, and even though her make up is unlike anything I have seen before (a dainty, bruised rainbow smearing her purple eyes and lips like red axes), her features are extremely familiar. They encircle us gently under the brutal gale, and then Thousand Moons says:

“From now on, you will remain in the ‘Now Here’. If you fail to keep your awareness you will descend into ‘Nowhere’. Bow if you agree”.

I do as I’m told.

“We have arranged a tea ceremony to help you with it. You can follow us now, we must go underground.”

V Now Here, Underground Japan, April 2024.

The fluffy ground opens before the typhoon wipes us out, and we descend through a marble, black stairway, leading to a subterranean shrine. There are torches on the walls, and I can make a number of sculptures and paintings devoted to the Kitsune Kami. Thousand Moons advances suspended until reaching the altar. Then kneels, crushes the tea leaves, scolds the silver cups, sets up a bamboo table and asks me to kneel in front of her.

“Before drinking the tea we shall debrief you. This is a powerful liquid and it will eradicate your implant if you agree to. We can silence it for a short while with this patch, while you decide.”

Khaled’s broken voice crackles through the device:

“Don’t. Traitors!” I apply the patch and his voice fades instantly.

“First of all we must know the nature of your engagement with Khaled.”

“He employed me after I lost Selby, my partner, and Nora, my best disciple. He offered to help me during the most excruciating period of my life, although he did it in a rather fishy way.”

“The question is how deep was your involvement?”

“I was recruited to write his hagiography and he granted me a safe place in return. It’s a long story, but…”

“We know the story. Interpol, Carl Murder, and the exploiting deal as a ghost writer in exchange for what…. this face?”

“What? Are you associates? I know the face isn’t great, but at least it will make it impossible for my hunters to track me down, right?”

“It is the opposite. They chipped and tagged you in such an outrageous way to make sure they won’t lose track of you. You are the biggest threat to their mission, and our biggest hope.”

“What? Am I? I’m just an emaciated orphan looking to avenge those who took my life.”

“That is a blunt way to put it. Are you ready to know? Remember, you must regain your composure and keep your awareness of the Now Here. That is your only flaw, and the reason they put the implant in your head.”

“Sounds like I’m not going to like what you are about to say…”

“Just remain ‘Now Here’, is all that matters right now, a crucial effort.”

“Go on.”

“You are not human, my dear.”

“I kind of suspected that one…”

“I’m serious. You were never born. At least not biologically: you are the only working, alive prototype of the thousand hundred we designed in order to stop Murder’s and Alex organisation effort to turn humankind into a tedious and lazy fuck AI, if you excuse my words. Do you remember the Viscerally Happy Online Corporate Ruck?”

“What? Wait… Fuck. Seriously? I would rather not, but yeah, how to forget that shame. Now here, this is hard-core. The VHOC-R was my first and last short story, definitely one of the worst science-fiction works ever written. It was dreadful! I guess that makes me very much human, doesn’t it, mother?”

As the word MOTHER comes out of my lips a red, lightning flash floods the room. I know like second nature that it is the shining heartbeat of all the red foxes ever born. My skin has turned dazzling rubicund when MOTHER says:

“Welcome back home dear. Our mission starts right now, Now Here. Please, proceed and drink the tea. There is HOPE.”

“So what am I? And what will I be? A Japanese robot?”

“Blunt again, and yet so unlike any other AI, dear. You will walk free again. Your only mission is to disdain the bullshit, as you have always done, nothing new under the sun, keep the writing and the martial training. Whatever waits for you ahead, it will be mapped as the only way to remain unalterable and untouched by the furious quivering’s that technology is going to throw on our way. You walk the world now, just follow your instincts, tell us what you see, and pray for someone to read what you have to say.”