Dogra Magra (34/47)

by Hisashi Yumeno

At this moment, I couldn't help but marvel that I hadn't fainted. Perhaps it was because I had grown accustomed to numerous strange occurrences. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that I repeatedly closed and opened my eyes, and continuously rubbed my face with a handkerchief, struggling to call back my soul, which felt as if it were scattering far away, and firmly plant myself back in front of the original glass window. Still, I simply couldn't muster the courage to look out the window again. I kept my head down, staring at the linoleum floor, sighing with tremors repeatedly, and exhaling the intense scent of whiskey that spread across my tongue.

During that time, Dr. Masaki put the flat whiskey bottle he was holding into his medical coat pocket and cleared his throat, as if he himself had finally calmed down.

"No, it's no wonder you're surprised. That young man was born from the same woman's womb, on the same year, same month, same day, and same time as you."

"...Huh..."

I glared at Dr. Masaki's face. At the same time, I felt as if everything was starting to make sense, and I finally found the courage to look back at Ichiro Kure outside the window.

"...Then, Ichiro Kure and I are twins..."

"No, that's not it..."

Dr. Masaki shook his head with a stern expression.

"You have a much closer relationship than twins. Of course, it's not just a coincidence of resemblance."

"...Such a thing..."

Before I could finish speaking, my mind began to swirl again. I stared intently at the somewhat cynical smile on Dr. Masaki's face, and his dark eyes beneath his pince-nez. I wondered if he was mocking me, or if he was serious...

A sympathetic smile gradually appeared on Dr. Masaki's face. He nodded repeatedly, inhaling and exhaling cigar smoke.

"Yes, yes, it's understandable that you're confused. You've been suffering from a well-known illness called 'Rikonbyo' since long ago..."

"...Huh... Rikonbyo..."

"That's right. Disembodiment sickness is when another version of oneself appears and does different things, and it has been recorded as a ghost story in various books since ancient times. However, as a specialist in mental science, I would say that it is theoretically possible. Seeing it in reality right before your eyes would give you an indescribably strange feeling."

I hastily rubbed my eyes again. I cautiously looked out the window, but the young man was still standing in the same spot. This time, he showed a bit of his profile...

"...Is that me... Oh Ichiro... which one is Oh Ichiro..."

"Hahahahahahaha, you still can't remember, can you? You haven't woken up from your dream yet."

"Huh, a dream... I'm dreaming..."

I turned around, my eyes wide open. I looked up at Dr. Masaki, who was leaning back proudly.

"That's right. You are dreaming right now. As proof of the dream, from my perspective, there hasn't been a single person in that liberation treatment facility since a while ago. There are only five or six paulownia trees with withered leaves standing there... The liberation treatment facility has been strictly closed since the major incident yesterday..."

"..............."

"It's like this... listen. This will be a somewhat technical explanation, but in your consciousness, what is currently awake and active is mostly your sensory functions for reality. In other words, only actions like seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, remembering current facts are active, while the part that recalls memories of the past is only awake to the extent of dreaming. Therefore, when you look out this window at the scene in the hall, in that instant, your memory of yourself standing there until yesterday revives to the extent of a dream, appearing in your consciousness as a clear illusion, just as you see it now. And it appears superimposed with your current consciousness of yourself standing there. In other words, the 'you' standing outside the window is an objective image of your own past, manifested as a dream from your memory, and the 'you' inside the glass window is your current subjective consciousness. You are seeing dreams and reality together... now..."

I rubbed my eyes firmly once more. Blinking widely, I glared at Dr. Masaki's strange smiling face.

"...Then... am I... still Go Ichiro..."

"...That's right. Both theoretically and practically, you inevitably have to be the young man named Go Ichiro. It's natural to find it strange, but it can't be helped. And... if you were to fully recover your own past memories, not to the extent of a dream as you're seeing now, but to a clear reality, then unfortunately, this experiment would be Wakabayashi's great victory and my defeat... or whether it is, we won't know until we see the results. Hehehehe."

"......Anyway, this is strange. It's utterly inexplicable, isn't it? However, if we explain this academically, it's actually nothing out of the ordinary. Even ordinary people often experience such things when their minds are tired or their nerves are weak. Of course, to a lesser extent... While walking through the city in broad daylight, they might recall the scene of themselves being doted on by women last night and smirk, or while walking down a lonely street, they might suddenly stop, startled by a hallucination of the moment they were almost hit by a train. Women, too, might gaze blankly, recreating their bridal figure in an old wedding mirror, or, chasing after memories from their student days, inadvertently find themselves in front of their old school gate... There are many more examples. It's the same psychology as dreaming of one's future funeral; one is seeing a double image: a phantom image created by an objective memory of one's past, and a real image reflected in one's current subjective consciousness. Moreover, in your case, the part of your brain that is dreaming is in a much deeper state than normal sleep, so the hallucinations in that liberation therapy facility are, as you are seeing now, extremely vivid. Just like dreams during deep sleep, they approach you with a profound allure that is no different from reality... no, even greater than reality, making it difficult to distinguish them from your conscious reality."

"..............."

“...Furthermore, I believe this is a dream being shown by a part of your brain that has been in a long coma, gradually recalling memories related to recent events. So, it might take a while for you to wake up. ...When you do wake up, I think you'll either be startled or faint when the 'you' outside the window and the 'you' currently there realize, 'This is me.' However, at that moment, this room, I, and even your current self might disappear somewhere, and you might find yourself in a completely different place, in a completely different form... In fact, just now, when you almost fainted, I thought you were about to wake up... Hahahahahaha.”

“……………”

Before I knew it, I had closed my eyes again, and I was just listening to Dr. Masaki's voice. Gradually confused by the two-fold and three-fold mysterious meanings of his words, I stood firmly on both feet, trying my best. I was trembling, fearing that everything would disappear if I opened my eyes at any moment, and I slowly moved my my tongue in my mouth.

It was then. My right hand, which had unconsciously been pressing my head, unconsciously stroked down to my hairline, and suddenly I felt a pain that permeated my spine...

I involuntarily cried out, "Ah!" I squeezed my closed eyes even tighter and gritted my teeth. Then, when I carefully stroked that spot again, it felt slightly swollen, though it might have been my imagination, but it didn't seem to be a tumor. It was definitely a trace of having been strongly bumped or hit by something... I hadn't felt such pain until now... And I don't recall hitting my head that badly at all between this morning and now...

This must be what it means to dream within a dream. I gently placed my hand over the pain and shook my head vigorously from side to side, keeping my eyes tightly shut. ...With a feeling like jumping off a cliff, I bravely opened my eyes wide and meticulously looked around above, below, left, and right, but... nothing had changed from when my eyes were closed. Only the shadow of a large kite, which seemed to have been circling near the liberation therapy center for a while, just swept across the sandy ground within the facility again.

When I saw that, I couldn't help but realize that everything had to be real. No matter how strange or terrifying a confluence of psychoscientific phenomena it might be, for me, it was neither a dream nor reality. I had to be convinced that I was seeing real forms with my own eyes and hearing real sounds with my own ears. ...I couldn't doubt that conviction even an iota. I was able to calmly gaze at the figure of Go Ichiro, the young man outside the window who resembled me so closely that I could only think of him as another me, without feeling any fear. Then, slowly turning back to Dr. Masaki, the doctor instantly narrowed his eyes and smiled, revealing his dentures all the way to the back.

"Hahahahahaha. You still don't understand even with all this suggestion? Can't you think of yourself as Go Ichiro?"

I nodded clearly, remaining silent.

"Hahahaha. No, that's amazing, amazing. Actually, what I just said... it was all a lie..."

"Eh... a lie..."

As I said that, I involuntarily released the hand that was pressing against my head. With both hands hanging limply... I think I stood facing Dr. Masaki with my mouth agape and my eyes wide open. Probably in the exact form of the character for "dumbfounded"...

Right before my eyes, Dr. Masaki clutched his stomach as if he could no longer bear it. From his small body, he began to laugh, squeezing out the loudest possible voice he could muster. He choked on cigar smoke, loosened his tie, unbuttoned his vest, readjusted his pince-nez, and continued to laugh thoroughly, as if the air in the room disappeared and reappeared with each burst of laughter.

“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha. That’s truly exhilarating. You’re so thoroughly honest, it’s amusing. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Oh, how funny… Oh, I can’t stand it… Don’t get angry, my boy… Everything I’ve said until now was just a joke, a bright red, bright red joke with gold leaf… Aha… Aha… But I certainly didn’t mean any harm. In truth, I just wanted to test your mind a little, taking advantage of how much that young man… Go Ichiro, and you resemble each other, like two peas in a pod.”

“…T-test my mind…”

“That’s right. Actually, I’m about to tell you about the truth of Go Ichiro’s psychogenetic inheritance. But that story will be full of even more incomprehensible things, so if you don’t keep your mind sharp, you might make a terrible misunderstanding. In fact, if you initially assume that young man ‘must be my twin,’ the thread of my story will get completely confused, so I thought I’d put up a little preventative measure. Ah-ha-ha-ha.”

I took a deep breath as if waking from a dream. Shivering at Dr. Masaki’s words, I again placed my hand on the throbbing part of my head.

“…But my head here, it suddenly… started to ache…”

I started to speak, then closed my mouth. I blinked, fearing I would be laughed at again.

However, Dr. Masaki did not laugh. He spoke in a calm tone, as if he had known about the pain in my head all along.

“Hmm… that pain, you say?”

At those words, I felt an even more eerie sensation than being laughed at.

“That’s… it didn’t suddenly start hurting now. It was there since this morning, even before you woke up; you just hadn’t noticed it until now.”

“...But... but...”

I bent my trembling fingers one by one in front of Dr. Masaki.

“...This morning, the barber touched it once, the nurse once, and I myself touched it many times before that… but it didn’t hurt at all…”

“It’s the same no matter how many times you touch it. As long as you think you are a complete stranger unrelated to Wu Yilong, you won’t feel that pain. But once you realize that Wu Yilong’s appearance and your own are exact replicas, you suddenly remember that pain. ...That’s where the mysterious rational function of psychical science appears... All things in the universe are merely psychical scientific existences that take 'mind' as their object, thus proving clearly that phenomena exist which can never be explained by so-called materialistic science. That is, the pain in your head is closely related to the ultimate seizure of Wu Yilong’s psychological inheritance. In fact, Wu Yilong reached the limit of that psychological inheritance last night and attempted suicide by banging his head against the wall. That pain now remains in your head.”

“...Eh... eh... Then... I am... indeed Wu Yilong...”

“Well, don’t panic so much. The heart of a gadfly knows not the bee, the heart of a pig knows not the dog. It’s common sense that if Zhang San hits his head, Li Si feels no pain whatsoever. That is, it’s a materialistic way of thinking.”

Dr. Masaki suddenly uttered such enigmatic words along with the smoke from his cigar. As I stood bewildered, unable to grasp their meaning, he winked one eye, made a grimace, and began to chuckle.

“Now, how the pain in Wu Yilong’s head, which you yourself can only perceive as a complete stranger, remains in your own head through what psychical scientific action…”

I had to turn back to the window and stare at the figure of Go Ichiro, who was standing in a corner of the liberation therapy room, smiling broadly. At the same time, I felt a somewhat mysterious pulsation in my headache, as if it had newly come alive and was throbbing.

Before my eyes, Dr. Masaki once again blew out a huge cloud of smoke.

"...Well, do you think you can solve this question yourself?"

"No, I can't."

I replied firmly. Holding my head, I felt the same pathetic feeling as when I woke up this morning.

"If you can't, it can't be helped. You'll just have to remain a wanderer, not knowing who or where you are, forever."

Suddenly, my chest tightened. It was the sadness of a child who, walking in an unfamiliar place holding their parent's hand, suddenly had their hand released by their parent and was abandoned. Involuntarily, I took my hands off my head and clasped them together, saying as if in prayer,

"Please tell me... Doctor. Please, I beg you... If I encounter anything more mysterious, I'll die."

"Don't say such cowardly things. Hahahahaha. I'll tell you even if you don't get so worked up."

"Please... Who is it... I am..."

"Wait a minute... Before I make you understand that, there's one promise we need to make."

"...Wh-whatever promise it is, I'll keep it."

The smile vanished from Dr. Masaki's face. He drew back the smoke he was about to exhale into his mouth and stared intently at my face.

"...Will you really keep it...?"

"I will definitely keep it... What kind of promise is it...?"

A cynical sneer, characteristic of the doctor, once again appeared on Dr. Masaki's face.

"What is it? If you ask with the same certain feeling you have now, with the confidence that 'no matter how wrong I am, I am not Wu Ichiro,' I don't think it's a particularly difficult promise... In other words, I intend to proceed with a thoroughly in-depth and excellent discussion about Wu Ichiro's psychological genetic incident. Will you bear with me and listen to the end, no matter how terrifying or impossible the content of that story may be?"

"I will listen."

"Hmm... And after my story is finished, if you acknowledge that its content is a fact without a single falsehood, and at the same time understand that it is your lifelong duty and your great responsibility to humanity to record that fact and make it public along with my will, will you definitely carry it out, even if it is a nuisance to you personally and a task worthy of fear?"

"I swear I will."

"Hmm... And one more thing... If that happens, I believe you will naturally also understand that you have the responsibility to marry the girl in Room Six and remove the cause of her current mental abnormality. Can you fulfill that responsibility as well?"

"...Do I really have such a responsibility...?"

"You can think about that when the time comes. Anyway, whether or not you have such a responsibility, in other words, the method to clarify why Wu Ichiro's headache transferred to your forehead is very simple. It won't even take five minutes."

"...Is it really such a simple method?"

"Oh, it's nothing difficult. And the logic is so simple even an elementary school student could understand it, so I don't need to add a single word of explanation. All you have to do is go to a certain place and shake hands perfectly with a certain person. Then, a wonderful psychoscientific effect that I anticipate will flash like lightning... Oh, was that it? Was I this kind of person? At the same time you realize that, you might truly faint this time. Perhaps that effect might even occur before you shake hands."

"...Can't I do that now...?"

"No, you cannot. Absolutely not. If you were to find out who you are now, as I just said, you would fall into a terrible illusion and risk completely ruining my experiment. Therefore, I cannot conduct that experiment unless I personally witness you fully grasp the preceding and succeeding facts, consolidate them into a single record, and take the steps I instruct to make it public to society. ...Well? Can you make that promise...?"

"...I can..."

"Very well. Then let's talk. No, the conversation has become too formal. Come over here..."

Saying that, Dr. Masaki pulled my hand and led me to a large table, where he had me sit down. He himself sat opposite me in an old swivel armchair, took out a match from his white coat pocket, and lit a new cigar. He tapped the short, remaining cigar into the mouth of a Daruma ash catcher.

Since I could no longer see outside the window, I felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted. All the while, I clearly felt the increasingly complex and seemingly unresolvable questions intertwining in the center of my mind...

"No, the conversation has become ridiculously formal."

Dr. Masaki repeated, once again deliberately, and adopted a much more relaxed demeanor than before, resting both elbows on the desk. He propped his chin on his hands, a long cigar held sideways in his mouth, and peered at my face with a smirk.

"By the way, how about this? Leaving aside the question of who you yourself are for now, what do you think of the girl you saw this morning?"

I blinked, not understanding the meaning of the question.

「What do I think... you mean...?」

「Didn't you find her beautiful?」

Hit with such an unexpected and off-topic question, I couldn't help but be flustered. The countless large and small "❓" marks that had been buzzing around in my head like gnats vanished in an instant, and in their place, dark, moist eyes, small red lips, long blue crescent eyebrows, and ears faintly covered in fine hair floated before my eyes alternately. Then, I felt the back of my neck grow warm. Along with that, I felt the whiskey I had been given when I almost fainted just now begin to course through my body, and I unconsciously wiped my face with a handkerchief. It felt as if steam was rising from all over my face...

Dr. Masaki nodded with a smirk.

「Hmm... I thought so... I thought so. A young man who can calmly answer whether that girl is beautiful is either a delinquent tired of love games, or a descendant of the sexually impotent characters from Hakkenden or Suikoden... But did you really not feel anything else about that girl?」

To be honest, I didn't want to record my feelings at this time here. However, I cannot falsify the facts. Thanks to Dr. Masaki asking me this, I realized for the first time that my feelings for that girl had not progressed one bit more than when I first met her this morning. I was merely struck by her eerily fresh innocence and her pitiful beauty that was hard to look away from. I had only continued to wish that I could somehow bring her back to her senses, rescue her from this hospital, and introduce her to the young man who felt the same way. I didn't even have time to consider whether that was indeed a "deformation" of my "expression of love" for her. No, more than that, I even considered dissecting my own heart so deeply to be a blasphemy against her, and I was wary of it in the deepest recesses of my mind. I felt as if Dr. Masaki had hit the nail on the head, and I blushed for no good reason. I became as stiff as a stone and replied curtly.

"Uh... I did feel... sorry for her."

When Dr. Masaki heard this, he nodded repeatedly with satisfaction. Seeing his demeanor, it seemed Dr. Masaki had convinced himself at that moment that I was in love with that girl, but I didn't have the mental composure to dispel that notion. While I fretted, trying to prevent the misunderstanding, Dr. Masaki continued to nod leisurely and thoroughly.

"Of course, of course. To find someone beautiful is to be in love with them. Anyone who says otherwise is a pseudo-moralist..."

"...Th-that's so reckless... S-sensei... it's a misunderstanding..."

I cried out, hastily raising my half-raised hand.

"...The feeling of beauty in the opposite sex, love, affection, and lust are all different things. Love that mixes them all up is an illusion of love... It's a blasphemy against the opposite sex... It's a reckless statement unbecoming of a mental scientist... It's absurd. That is..."