by Robert Haaser, 10/27/2001
(Humming)
“I am here from far away,
An alien, not seen in the light of day,
Elusive, I’ll stalk your children at night,
And your people will pay for their short-sight.”
The wind picked up early in the early morning, before sunrise, across the western sea to a small island south of Japan. It sang without intelligible words or emotions to anyone except, for an instant, to Yoshiro Nakamura still sleeping in bed. He awoke from a dream of something dark, far away and indescribably horrible.
Today was the day. He had to get up to meet his brother Suk at the top of Kishida hill at the abandoned balloon bomb factory. Yoshiro pulled out the box of dirt bought from the old man at the edge of town. It is rumored that it was Hiroshima on the mainland where Americans had leveled the city. The old man said that the bomb was filled with poison because everyone who survived the bombing was very sick — “nothing can grow in this dirt” the old man said. Yoshiro thought to himself, “Suk told me that he heard Hiroshima was destroyed in a single bomb, but I know better. Anyway, I will take this dirt to the top of the highest tower in America and fling it off, making their lands infertile. We WILL make our way to their land and fight an unseen war. There are many Japanese there, willing to fight, who have been enslaved, and put into concentration camps. American will pay!”
As he quickly dressed and put on his shoes, he found himself humming. The tune he hummed seemed familiar for a moment, but then he forgot and the tune died away. He tried to think about it for a moment, but when nothing came to his mind, he shrugged his shoulders and left for the hill.
Old Hikaru was already at the factory. He had a number of maps in front of him and he looked worried. “This is a 1 in 10 shot. If we fail to land in the right place, the mission will not succeed.”
Yoshiro reminded him, “If no one does anything, then we are like slaves who will let insignificant foreign countries push us around. If today is not the right day for take-off then, it is a good day to die.”
Late in the morning Yoshiro’s brother Suk arrived carrying the necessary food and water supplies for the trip. Hikaru turned to Suk as he opened the door and pointed to the map. “The winds show take us to American, but if we get stuck in any of these vorteces,” he pointed to the map again, “the winds will take us too far south, or nowhere at all.” He muttered under his breath, “If we were north, on the mainland, it would be different.”
Suk responded carefully, “Remember what you told us before? We must be elusive or the Americans will be expecting us. Many bombs have already been sent from the mainland. This factory was closed not more than a year and a half ago because some coward told them the Empire of Japan had surrendered to this tiny nation.” He threw a screwdriver at the map where America was drawn in.
*****
Yoshiro looked up at the glistening morning light reflecting off of the rubberized silk balloon painted silver, floating above the factory and began to hum:
(Humming)
“I am here from far away,
An alien, not seen in the light of day,
Elusive, I’ll stalk your children at night,
And your people will pay for their short-sight.”
Suk was busy hooking up the enclosure they would be sitting in during their flight. The flag of the Empire of Japan was already flying and the Symbols of each family on the island had been printed on the outside of the enclosure. Hikaru heard Yoshiro humming and became angry: “Where did you hear that?”
“No-where,” Yoshiro answered. “I had a dream last night and I heard it there.”
“That tune carries a curse with it. I will NOT be tolerant of hearing that on this trip. It brings misfortune to anyone who sings it. I heard it during darker times of my life.”
It was nearly nightfall before all preparations were complete. Hikaru noted, “Make sure that incendiary device is well-fastened. If we lose it, then we will not be able to dispose of our craft, hiding the fact the we arrived in enemy territory. Ok?… everybody in.”
Final checks on armaments and daily supplies were made and the balloon touched off. Suk boasted, “This balloon is state of the art! When we get too low, sand-bags will drop automatically, sending us back up! I built this enclosure to float in case we run out of sandbags, thus minimizing failure potential.”
The enclosure seemed unstable, but was holding together nicely. It looked like a giant pendulum hanging from a hydrogen balloon in the sky. And so they launched. The island looked green and peaceful as the wind carried them East. And then it disappeared over the horizen.
*****
Several days and nights passed. In the middle of the fifth say, Yoshiro began to hum, when he saw a small island he’d seen before — twice. “Hikaru, Suk, we are going in circles?!” he exclaimed with a troubling shout.
Hikaru responded, “Yes, I didn’t want to say anything to worry the two of you, but it looks bad. We will be out of supplies in a week or so. And there is no real land in sight and we’re going nowhere” Hikaru pointed to the horizon. “And there is a storm brewing. We may not make it to our goal.”
Yoshiro: “Can we cut the wires and land in the water? We could live on the small island and boat somewhere later.”
Suk: “We would not survive hitting the water from this height. The craft might though, depending on how it enters the water.”
Hikaru: “And the island is too small. Without more vegetation and animals, we would die anyway. If we stay in the balloon, there is still a chance.”
Yoshiro: “Can’t we poke a hole in the balloon?”
Suk: “No, there is a very high chance it would explode completely and we’d be dead.”
Yoshiro started to freak out. “#$^#%&#&%#! There’s got to be some way! We MUST land in the water and boat somewhere!” Yoshiro stood up in a panic and rocked the enclosure greatly — some heavy radio equipment fell through a windown with a loud crash, and the balloon jetted upward noticeably.
“You fool, sit down!” the others begged him. “If we stay calm, we may get through this, but otherwise, we will not!”
The balloon had gone higher than they expected due to the lost weight. The three found themselves near asphyxiation as the wind began to correct itself. Because of his age, Yoshiro was able to stay barely aware as the others lay motionless and started turning white. In order to pass the time in his helpless state, he hummed to his heart’s content — and dreamed of horrible things to do to the American people: abduct their children, damage technology and fill their lives with fear and suspicion.
The storm approached slowly as the balloon slowly descended. As Suk came to, he exclaimed, “Hikaru’s dead! What happened? He must of died of asphyxiation — no!! We went too high and the air was too thin.”
The air has become rough and the enclosure rocked back and forth. Through the storm-clouds, they could barely make out land. “I don’t see cities,” Yoshiro shouted over the wind.
Suk: “We must be too far south — Mexico. Maybe we can land there. These people have no qualms with us.”
Yoshiro: “But the wind is blowing us north.”
Suk: “We are still too high to consider landing. We’re going to have to ride it out.”
The July storm thickened and threw them around. Rain streamed in through the broken windows as the enclosure rocked back and forth. Suk said, “Tie Hikaru down so he doesn’t fall out — we can give him a proper buriel later.”
It lasted for hours and night began to fall. Suddenly, a burst of wind and rain forced the craft downward. Suk yelled, “HOOOLD OONNN!”
BOOOOOOMMMM! Everything exploded!
As the enclosure hit the ground, the incendiary device went off, blowing pieces of the enclosure everywhere. The balloon took off, on fire, and rocked with an explosion a moment later.
Yoshiro was mortally wounded. At first he could not find Suk, but then crawled forward to find him in pieces and cried as the hair on his head burned down to the skin, “Oh, my brother! I will make them pay somehow!” He began to hum as he scribbled a note to anyone that might find him into the ground and died.
*****
Early the next morning, a nearby farmer had heard the explosion in the night and saw strange material blown up against the house. He called the police from an army base miles away. They arrived on the gruesome sight and started coughing and wincing. Human remains had been exploded everywhere. The pieces of rubberized silk painted silver glistened in the morning light all over the landscape like stars in a night’s sky, but was made horrible by the human remains everywhere.
A military scientist who was with the group noticed his geiger counter had crackled to life. “Sir, it’s radioactive.”
The sergeant in charge responded as he read over the Japanese inscriptions lying all over, “What are the chances it was a nuclear payload?”
Scientist: “Sir, I don’t know. We can’t know. Sir, isn’t that Japanese?”
Sergeant: “I think so, but we’ll let the linguists figure that out. I am not about to speculate on firing up another war with the Japanese unless this is for real.”
The sergeant called up the base. The general responded to the description, “Good God, this is awful! Tell your men to deny this to the end and get ALL OF IT. This incident is hereby classified all the way to the top. I’m sure my superiors will agree.”
Sergeant: “What if someone saw the balloon land from far away? What should my men tell them?”
The general thought for a minute. “Tell them it was a weather balloon, dammit! Tell them it was a weather balloon!”
Sergeant to his men: “Pick up all of it, and I mean ALL of it! This situation is now classified. Don’t tell your wife, family, newspaper, nobody. We don’t want to fire up fears or speculation of war unless this is for real — and this was NOT NUCLEAR! If people think the Japanese can nuke us, there WILL be panic. Be on the look-out for newspapers — report ‘em to ANYONE if they break ABSOLUTE silence. We’ll shut ‘em up.”
After everything was cleaned up, it was a hot July mid-afternoon and all needed water. They dropped by the farmer’s place and he gave them plenty to drink.
The farmer’s son poked his head around the corner of the house and noticed one of the bags was open. He felt something dark and horrible from the bag. As Yoshiro’s first young victim looked upon the tortured body, into his lifeless glassed-over eyes, now darkened with blood, he heard something, although no words were spoken. Something dark that would spreak like a virus, haunt dreams and make many fear:
(Whispering)
“I am here from far away,
An alien, not seen in the light of day,
Elusive, I’ll stalk your children at night,
And your people will pay for their short-sight.”
