in circles, circles of conspiracies, circles of agendas, conspiracies and agendas that form narratives and give meanings, narratives and meanings, fictions and lies –
For on your hands, you are still clothed in your despair, on your knees, still digging your own grave, still-born in your own tomb, this airless, artless tomb of ink and words, still enticed and entranced, still deceived and defeated,
in-snared and in–
prisoned –
In the flicker-light of these eight candles, where there are no keys and there are no doors, where there are only locks and only walls, but still you turn the yellow-pages of your notebooks, your ink and their words, still searching for clues and searching for maps, in their clippings and in your copies, in the ghosts of their stories,
your stories of their ghosts:
NEIGHBOURHOOD INVESTIGATIVE HQ
A local organization named Mejiro Chian Kyōkai Nagasaki Shibu
has founded a ‘Civil Investigative Headquarters’ because ‘the locals will be upset unless the [Teigin] case is solved quickly,’ said the Chief of the HQ, Mr Shimizu.
The HQ is located in the office of the Nagasaki Shrine, and their investigation is mostly focused on the killer’s tracks. They summon those who had been in the vicinity of the crime scene, and who had hurried to rescue the victims, as well as local children who may have also witnessed the crime. Shimizu and his team plan to gather up all these testimonies and give their reports to Mejiro Police Station.
Each member of the team runs a separate district of the neighbourhood and witnesses are summoned to the Nagasaki Shrine HQ, even in the night, to be questioned by these amateur cops. For now, Chief Shimizu ignores his own business and devotes himself entirely to the investigation, twenty-four hours a day. ‘I take 5 or 6 Hiropon injections per day but, what-the-heck, I’ll do beyond my best till we get him,’ said Mr Shimizu, and he will not disband the HQ until the killer is caught.
However, one local housewife complained, ‘I really wish the killer would be caught very soon, or he [Mr Shimizu] will be back to ask us for another donation to his association!’
In the flakes and in the flurries, in the night and in the snow, the medium stands before you now, in a cape and in a hat, and she says, ‘I am Shimizu Kogorō. I am the Occult-Tantei…’
Before you now, in his cape and his hat,
with his curses and his spells, stain–
tear-ed and stain-blood-ed, nailed
to the back of a door, IN THE oCcULT CITY
The Fifth Candle — The Curses & the Spells of the Man in the Shrine
The city is a curse, this city is a spell;
webs of curses, weaves of spells.
For this is the oCcULT CITY.
But I am its nemesis —
Here to break its spells, to exorcize the curses,
IN THE oCcULT CITY …
IN THE oCcULT CITY, in the shadows of my private shrine, beneath the branches of its winter trees, they are unloading the trucks outside the bank. One, two, three, four. They are stacking the coffins along the side of the bank. Five, six, seven, eight. They are waiting to take them away again. Nine, ten. I tear open the box of Hiropon. I take out a syringe. And another. I take off my hat. And my cape. My jacket. I unbutton the left cuff of my shirt. I roll up the left sleeve of my shirt. I shake the bottle. I twist off the cap. I break the seal. I attach the bottle to the needle, the needle to my arm, to my vein, my blood. And I press down. Down, down. Now I remove the needle from my blood, from my vein, my arm. I throw away the needle. The bottle. I roll down the left sleeve of my shirt. I button up the left cuff of my shirt. I put my jacket back on. And my cape. My hat. Now I lean back against the trunk of a winter tree. I light a cigarette. In the shadows of my private shrine, I cough. They are loading the ten coffins into the trucks. One, two, three, four. They are stacking the coffins in the backs of the trucks. Five, six, seven, eight. They are taking them away, again. Nine, ten …
Under a blood-red moon, low in a dirty-yellow sky,
sirens across my city, sirens through my night.
Here among these branches, here among these limbs,
I am lost in a forest of broken bones and dead skin,
in my defeated city, now occupied,
I shuffle through this forest,
the broken bones and the dead skin.
I stain the trees,
the branches and the limbs.
IN THE oCcULT CITY, in the shadow of the scene of the crime, across the road from the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank, I have formed a local organization. I have named it the Mejiro Security Association — Nagasaki Shrine Branch. I have established a Civil Investigative Headquarters. I have opened an office for business in the back of the Nagasaki Shrine, Shiinamachi. I have cut out the articles, the reports. I have stuck them onto paper, into notebooks. I have pinned a map of the oCcULT CITY to the wall of the office in the shrine. I have plotted the points on the map; the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank, the Nakai branch of the Mitsubishi Bank, and the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank. The three points to date. To date, for there will be six points; Six Points to His Evil Star. For I will map the Six Points of His Evil Star in the oCcULT City and I will stalk the steps of the Killer through this oCcULT CITY. I will track His trail through this oCcULT CITY. I will talk to the witnesses, the women and the children who were here, the women and the children who saw the aftermath of the crime. I will record their testimonies. I will take their testimonies to Mejiro Police Station. For I am here to help, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for I will not sleep. I will take six Hiropon injections every day. I will do my very best, I will go beyond my best, until the Killer is caught, until His curse is lifted. For I will lift the curse of His crime from this neighbourhood, the curse of all the crimes from this city, for I have come to solve all crimes, I have come to MURDER all curses and spells.
I am here to assassinate MAGICK –
To break its seal.
He is here, He is here, He is here,
and He smiles and He says,
‘Leave this place! Leave this city,
this oCcULT CITY,
for this is not your city,
this is my city!’
But I am not afraid, not afraid of Him,
and so I smile and I say,
‘Be gone from this place! Be gone from this city,