Tokyo Twins Chapter 16 - Chaos and demands - unanticipated - come forth.

by Tommy Schmitz



The girls reached Fuda Station moments later

and froze suddenly in their tracks

to see their father Henry O'Brien

on a large flat panel television screen

affixed above the entrance of the station.




He was kneeling in a position

with hands behind his back.

He looked worried and tired and unshaven and thin.

He read a message in English aloud.




"We are the humiliated

the stomped upon

and the hated.

Even as we simply live

upon the land

our ancestors nurtured

for a thousand years,

or ten thousand.



From Palestine to Chiapas to North Carolina

from Tibet to Kosovo to Kashmir

from Cheshnya to East Timor

from Basque to Northern Ireland

from the Ainu of Hokkaido and of Honshu before that,

and from a thousand - at least -

more populations of people

who's cultures are no longer endangered,

because the people themselves are extinct.




In our own homes

we are homeless.

We are strangers and scapegoats,

or simply and wholly forgotten.



In our efforts

to live and to raise our children

and to honor the spirits of our ancestors,

upon these mere spots-on-the-rug

of planet earth,

drenched in the blood and the tears,

and the smiles and celebrations

of who we are

and always have been,

we are called "the terrorists"

for not disappearing

for not allowing

the ubiquitous and self-proclaiming-to-be-enlightened,

capital-market, finite-resource, political-boundary bullies,

to cage us in,

to abduct our children,

and to kill our entire people

however decrementally

however slowly

and then to belch unaware

and to sleep it all off

over decades

between the sheets

of our very own beds

as if nothing in the world

ever happened."




And then their mother appeared

before the camera

situated in the same position

looking equally as worn

continuing to read

the message:




"The lives of Mieko and Henry O'Brien

are at stake,

and will come to an end

one hundred hours from now

unless those who are accountable -

you leaders of the big eight -

step forward

to take their place."



A local news commentator

then appeared on the screen

with words that went unheard

by Katie and Susan O'Brien.




"I have to sit down." said Susan.

"Let's sit down." Katie said too.

And people they knew

and who knew them -

at least from sight -

moved on in avoidance,

ostensibly concerned

about disturbing

the sudden disturbance,

and looking down or away

and quickly walking by

Katie and Susan O'Brien.




When the girls left the house minutes before

Taya-san's cell phone went off,

and listening for a moment

he replaced it in his pocket

and walked to the television nearby

and turned it on.

It was an unscheduled broadcast

by the television networks of Japan.

A moment later he motioned for Kaneko-san,

and the two walked silently out the door to their car.




Oba-chan and Kenji stood up and watched

what the girls

and perhaps the world

were seeing.




"These people are nothing but savages and terrorists!"

Oba-chan said when it was finished.




"Their approach is one of ignorance," Kenji said and continued slowly,

"But how much more ignorant,

it is difficult to say

compared to the crimes put upon them."



"How can you take their side!"



"I'm not sure I am taking their side.

You wouldn't allow your own government

to conduct a simple search

for your daughters

on the land next door you deem sacred,

and for all the same good reasons.

What if they were Chinese or Koreans or Taiwanese or Americans,

who not only wanted to search Hebi-yama,

but to stake there a claim forever?"



"This is different." Oba-chan said.




"Please tell me how so?" Kenji continued slowly.

Oba-chan buried her head

in the palms of her hands

and wept aloud

and cried "it isn't fair".




And Kenji, aware he was pushing,

his older sister to the edge,

said more softly and slowly,

"Tell me this, O-ne-san,

what if it were the Ainu returning here next door,

who called Hebi-yama their own home

for ages longer than the Japanese?"

He paused and continued.

"From the soil of this bamboo forest,

whose generations of ancestors

are crying out now?"




"Get out!" Oba-chan screamed,

and ran into her bedroom.

And Kenji left the house,

not unnoticed by the agents

sitting outside in their car.