Soon there were rest homes in Japan, Canada, Dubai, and Italy full of the blind mindless ex-humans that seemed happy to live forever—as long as they didn’t wander in front of a speeding car and or disappear into an open elevator shaft. There were human rights debates, tired old clichés about the dignity of human life were traded by both sides. Then Capeksen, a Japanese robotics firm, came up with a solution. Scoop out the eyes and upper brain and put in a few dedicated microprocessors to care of things. The robotic eyes saw and looked better than blackened pustules. The computers used the remaining nervous system to move the “dead” man around. Suddenly the zombies could care for themselves. They could shower, they could fix food, they seemed more human.
At first no one had thought of them as slaves.
The next day Billy wanted to shoot a film of the kyonshi washing toilets in his school. He remained after class. The kyonshi paid no heed him as he knelt in front of each toilet and washed it clean. Billy thought this guy would get more out of Zen training than he was. He squirted some blue fluid into each bowl, methodically swished its white porcelain interior then flushed. Billy had shot him processing three bowls in a row and was about to leave when the kyonshi tripped on a small pencil stub dropped by a careless student. It pitched forward and dunked its head into the water. Billy winced at the cracking sound of the control unit hitting the bowl, and thought of getting swirlies in the eight grade. Emergency programs went into play and it pulled itself out. The crown-like controller on its head blinked on and off and on and off. The zombie sat with its back against the stall. It looked at Billy and said in toneless Japanese, “An accident has occurred. Please call a Capeksen technician. An accident has occurred, please call a Capeksen technician. Thank you for your aid in maintaining this expensive Kyonshi Mark IV.” The kyonshi cradled its head in its pale hands like a human with a bad headache. All of the lights went out. Billy’s instinctive programing as a human being took over, and forgetting that he was watching a zombie ran to what seemed to be a dying man. The kyonshi breathed slowly and evenly. It must be in some sort of sleep mode, thought Billy. He ran to the headmaster’s office.
Since Billy had reported the problem (with typical Japanese management style) it became his to oversee. As he waited in the restroom for the technician to arrive, Billy became an average American for a few minutes—underpaid, working in a humiliating environment, hating his boss. He was his father’s son for perhaps for the last time. He needed to comfort the zombie. It was like taking care of Dad after Mom left in his ninth-grade year. At least there was no vomit to clean up. Billy got a few stiff brown paper towels and dried the toilet water off of his suit. He pulled the zombie from the stall and laid it out on the green and brown tiles of the restroom. He was making a little pillow for it out of copies of To Kill a Mockingbird from his class. As he waited for the technician, he kept telling the kyonshi it would be all right, and cussing his asshole boss for making him wait in an unheated restroom. He was patting the cold brow of the kyonshi, when the restroom door swung open.
“Please stand away from the Kyonshi Mark IV,” said the white-coated technician.
It was an awkward moment. The technician lived in the the apartment next to his. This man or his wife had pounded on Billy’s wall many times when his Zazen program would loudly awaken him.
“I tried to make him comfortable,” said Billy.
“The Kyonshi Mark IV has no software appreciating comfort. Please explain the accident to me.”
The technician showed no signs of recognition, but how many six-foot-eight chubby red-haired Irish-Americans lived in Nagoya? From the small high windows, Billy saw that night had fallen. He had probably pulled this poor man from his apartment—once again disturbing his night.
Watching the man work on the fallen zombie looked like that robot repair scene from a dozen cheap movies. The technician popped the controller open and was removing a small box from behind the kyonshi’s right eye. He took a small unit from his belt, and connected it to the fallen zombie. He pushed buttons, the kyonshi sat up. More buttons, it stood up. The technician pushed more buttons, watched indicator lights and said, “I will have to take him home for repair. I will need you to sign him over to me.”
“Home?” said Billy, “Not to a factory or office?”
“I am the Capeksen representative of the area. Many people do not like having the kyonshi near them. But I live in an apartment full of Koreans and other foreign devils.”
Billy looked down. He had suddenly become Japanese again—not really Japanese of course, but the fantasy Japanese he had hoped to be. Billy Parsons felt loss of face. He bowed, and said quietly, “I am sorry to have disturbed the harmony of your home.”
The technician looked like he might laugh. Twice he started to speak, trying to find the right words, finally he spoke in English. “Mr. Parsons, you cannot understand, but you have given my wife and I someone we can yell at. It is a rare gift.”
Billy stared. The man was right. He didn’t understand. He looked at the bathroom floor again.
The technician said, “Would you like a ride to our home? I have brought my van, and I will have room for your bicycle as well, my friend.”
The technician had installed a device with longer cables by the time Billy brought his bike around. He walked the kyonshi to the van and stepped him in.
Conversation was limited on the way home. Eventually Billy managed to get the technician to talk about the mechanized puppets that Nagoya was famous for. Robotics had started here long before the West had dreamed of such toys. Billy asked if the technician’s family had made the puppets. The technician grimaced and said that his family had been butchers and leather workers. Then the man had laughed as though Billy was the funniest foreign devil of all time.
Billy learned that Capeksen did have a factory here. In fact most of the newly infected were shipped to that factory. The technician was a sort of contractor—much as Billy’s grandfather had installed cable TV. Billy guessed the job didn’t pay much. When the van had been finally been parked, Billy asked, “Please forgive this one’s ignorance of Japanese culture, but why did you say that it is rare you and your wife can yell at anyone?”
The technician looked at him and said, “Burakumin.” and shrugged. Billy had no idea what he was talking about, so he bowed. The technician laughed again.
When he got to his apartment he asked his phone what Burakumin meant. It said, “Village people.” He asked his phone to show him “village people,” and it showed him a photo of an American disco music group from his grandmother’s time. The technician did not look like the cop, the construction worker, or the Indian chief.
He nuked some yakitori, and when it was time to run his zazen program he turned off the “Awakening” feature. His koan for the night was, “A student asked Joshu, ‘If I haven’t anything in my mind, what shall I do?’ Joshu replied: ‘Throw it out.’ ‘If I haven’t anything, how can I throw it out?’ continued the questioner. ‘Well,’ said Joshu, ‘then carry it out.’ ”