Status Updates From Lady Joker, Volume 2

Beyond the countless wrongs that existed in the world, it was the ignorance of the public, which allowed the wrongs to flourish and spread, that had a potent effect on him.

This image was like the spread of an influenza virus, impossible to determine its every vector. While the only thing to do was to treat the symptoms, and the virus itself could never be completely eradicated.

In the case of Commercial Code violations involving a giant securities company and a major city bank, only the individual mechanism of each separate crime came to light, while the real engine that propelled such mechanisms remained invisible, and where or how it existed was unknown. No matter how you chased after it the trail always went cold at some point, never leading back to the source.

In the end, he alone was responsible for his many regrets, deficiencies, and nature as a human being, and even as he wondered if he would be this way until the day he died, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the person who would brood over such things was a stranger to him, which gave him the bittersweet hope that perhaps he had changed just a little.

Of course, the facts of the crimes committed by Lady Joker would remain as they were, neither more nor less, but it now felt as if they had formed a sandbar in a great, muddy current. Once the water level rose, the sandbar was fated to be inundated, leaving no trace of its former shape behind,

It almost made him wonder if the purpose of his years spent in corporate society had been so that he could enjoy this freedom.

what surprised Shiroyama—more than the regret and disappointment at having failed to accomplish his ambitions—was his unbridled thirst, growing ever stronger within him, for the freedom that was imminent. Who knew that parting ways with the company and becoming someone entirely new, stripping off all the titles and concerns he had carried for so many years, would animate his spirit and so invigorate him?

The hundreds and thousands of memories, questions, concerns, and hopes inside his head were quickly losing shape, transforming into a mass of gray clouds. I see, this is what it feels like to be weary of life.

Yes, his mind and body, and his whole life were fatigued—they certainly didn’t work as well as they used to. The way that sunlight suddenly grows dim. As if his body was sinking beneath an increase in gravity. And yet, he could feel the position and contortion of his every internal organ so keenly it made him shudder.

he could only describe it as something out of a dream, an experience that he wasn’t sure if he had gone through himself or not. Like the accidental death of his grandson, the outrageous crime of extorting a corporation felt like it had been bound to occur, marking a page in his life though leaving him without a sense of accomplishment nor any change in his essential humanity.

And the ones targeted by the grievances of the dead would have to shed tears not for the dead but for themselves, having forever lost the opportunity for reconciliation and vindication.

There was something terrifying about getting old. It couldn’t be helped that you started to lose various things, one by one, but aging meant there would be nothing to fill those voids.

The river of time gently flowing toward the opposite shore would at times shift its pace like this, triggered by something or other, again prompting the question of a man, long since resigned, of whether he truly understood anything. Time, in old age, must feel like this for everyone, loosely meandering as it drifted along.

What came over him then was neither disgust nor sorrow for himself and others, nor even despair, but a blankness, as if he was suspended in midair, and although he did feel a little sad, he still could not figure out what he was sad about. Realizing he had gone so far as to regard the police organization as nothing but an empty set, he didn’t even know if this view was temporary or if he would see it this way now on.

Perhaps it should be said that although what they saw was an illusion, the experience of being tossed about by that illusion was real—it is what created their collective “present.” Yes, the torment of being a part of an organization came from having to perform a one-man show, feeling what was supposed to be illusory as a real and physical experience.

And yet, this illusion was no ordinary illusion. The reason someone like Miyoshi at times raised his voice in protest of the nonexistent and illusory collective was quite simply to remain human. Protest made them more human, and with this alone to support them, they lived out their illusory existence as police officers day by day.

At times they were almost crushed by the pressures of their performance, or they were driven to choose their own death before they could be crushed, but from the larger perspective of the organization, their emotions were nothing but an illusion, as was the logic of the organization and their pride and attachment to it.

And yet the reality was, no organization could render its every member into symbols, and none of the individual members could ever restrain their humanity. What they saw in this set they called an organization were the irrationalities and the subtle negotiations of human desires, over which they lamented and despaired, and in doing so they continued to play the roles of imaginary members...

Just because an organization consisted of forty thousand humans did not mean it amounted to a humble collective of forty thousand different emotions and desires. An organization was nothing but an empty set, and if it could only become perfect when its every member was a symbol of perfect operational potential, then they would need to change the way they normally conceived of this organization in the abstract.

What was the will that was being conveyed? The will to object to an organization in which the only way to preserve one’s dignity was to end one’s life before being crushed? The will to expose the irrationality and oppression that was permitted in the name of defending the organization? Or was it the will to bid farewell to the organization by burning oneself alive, sacrificing oneself for the ..officers on the force?

ultimately, he could only conclude that there was a fatal mistake somewhere in both the internal and external existence of this organization, a hundred and five years in the making.

Kurata’s scale just so happened to tip to the side opposite from his own and in response, he couldn’t conjure any visceral feeling of having been betrayed or deceived. Instead, Kurata’s deep sense of shame expressed in the words he left Shiroyama with—“I cannot regret enough”—reverberated painfully in his heart, and...

Perhaps a light of recognition shone in Shiroyama’s heart that this was the inevitable result of a salaryman’s life. It was all a matter of which side the scale tipped when you finally decided to weigh a lifetime of success and failure, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, contentment and disappointment, affinity and enmity...

but rather, for some reason it seemed like the various strings that had connected him to organizations, society, friends, and everyday life had snapped. Those strings that had, until now, been pulled tight, ready to break at any moment. Or, perhaps he himself was the one who cut the threads, but in any case, he felt like he was suspended in air, as if he was finally going out of orbit and floating away.

My playing may sound terrible, but this harmony and melody are in their essence the purest and most passionate expressions of the soul, with nothing to be added or taken away. These reverberations are proof of the human capacity to remain pure despite living through incalculable death, poverty, and hatred. These reverberations salvage the soul of humanity..that taught an impoverished boy that life was worth living.

Yet it could also be said that no matter how much regret he carried and how much torment he would endure, his anguish was nothing more than what filled the inconsequential heart of a mere human being.

It was entirely unfair that, while those who made the threats were allowed to run free, the scandals of individuals and corporations become fodder for the media and expedients of police investigations.

Reflecting on how his quiet life, over the course of which he had steadily reaped, savored, enjoyed, and given thanks for the bounty offered to him every so often, had been nothing but a disguise for the underlying emptiness that had seeped into his body and soul since he was a child, he felt disgust, and covered it up all over again.

He would do it because he was required to. But if one reason for him to do it was because he had to provide for his own family, another reason was that, if prime scoops were to disappear from the Metro pages of today’s national papers, the intrinsic value of newspapers as a commodity would cease to exist—and not because landing a scoop held any significance for this age, for society, or for an individual like himself

As long as you exist within a system, there are no means of self-affirmation without a strategy for your own desires. And without any affirmation of your existence, there is no reason or justice to be had.