Systems Engineer Higata was a modest man, but if pride ever thrummed inside him, it was because he had found the secret to a happy existence.
Mr Higata had been an engineer all his adult life. The day he passed the punishing entrance exams for his job could be called a proud highlight. Not that he allowed himself pride. Because his secret was this: the true path to happiness was to avoid it altogether. Joy was the mirror image of pain. He knew that better than anyone.
Aged eighteen, as winter thawed into spring, Higata formed his philosophy in the crucible of a single week.
On Monday, he made the high school baseball team.
On Tuesday, his parents rewarded him with a gift. A mustard-yellow Yamaha that hummed like a wasp, with limpid, glossy curves that called out for contact.
On Wednesday, he took his girlfriend Aoi out for its maiden ride.
On Thursday Aoi died from the crash the night before.
On Friday his doctors said, Good news: they could save his leg but he’d never run again.
On Saturday they told him about Thursday.
He may have been a gifted athlete, but young Higata primarily thought of himself as a Man of Science. So even as guilt and pain pawed at his limbs, he looked for a logical solution. Landlocked in a sea of hospital pillows, he crafted his hypothesis: that to chase joy was to invite suffering.
Painted pale by the fluorescent lights, Higata felt he’d identified the problem. Negative and positive were bound together, stubborn as ions. An important discovery. But he knew he was still just a theorist looking for a practical solution.
That answer came weeks after he was discharged. Rain glazed his bedroom window as he tapped his fountain pen, a sumptuous silver thing. He turned it over, idly felt its pleasing weight. A small inscription stared up at him: Write me a love poem! x, Aoi.
Higata turned his head away and saw his room anew. Curled on the frame of his bed, a soft cashmere sweater Aoi had left on her last visit (final visit). He knew it would still dumbly retain her coconut smell. On his pillow, a question mark of Aoi's glossy hair. Memories of her total velvet warmth, the heat he slid into one unreal night when his parents were out. Surprise on both their sweat-licked faces that some things could be just like the movies. On the nightstand, a photo of the two of them, Aoi’s lips colliding against the dimples on Higata’s face.
Lost in the photo (you stupid shitheel, you don’t even know what’s coming) young Higata came up with the answer to all his pain.
It was the thirtieth anniversary of what he had dubbed Higata’s Law. Not that he would be celebrating — that was one of his many rules, written with a cheap mechanical pencil after he trashed the toxic silver pen:
1. Own no objects to which you attach feelings. If sentimental warmth over and above practicality begin to form, discard objects immediately.
2. As above, be a part of no relationships to which you attach emotion.
3. Avoid situations, settings or events that engender strong reactions of any kind.
If Systems Engineer Higata had anyoneleft to explain his Law to, he’d have done so. As per rule two, he had shed his friends, quickly and efficiently. It helped that he fled Tokyo as soon as he graduated. His new home was a pocket of quiet. Perfect in its dullness. Even the town motto seemed trite, the last few words seemingly cribbed from a fairytale. He shook his head when he saw the big sign, the one ending with “…for a bright future”.
But sometimes, to enjoy (no not enjoy — merely to stress-test parameters) the feeling of a principle well-explained, he would daydream. Would pretend he was perched behind a lectern, answering a student’s query about his rules.
He dreamed this on most mornings, crammed on the shuttle that ferried him and his colleagues from town to the plant. Cocooned in white noise, he would address the class in his head. “We know the principle of Absolute Zero, yes? The point at which temperature is so low that atoms ‘freeze’. No motion. No heat.”
At this point he might take a sip of water — fittingly cold — before continuing. “Let’s posit something similar existing in the human mind. Absolute Medium if you will. A peaceful black hole where you neither like or dislike, loathe or love —”
Here Higata might imagine a precocious student raising an arm. “Uh, so it’s like avoiding the tequila at a party so you’ll never have a hangover?”
The teacher would see-saw his head gently. “More like avoiding the party altogether.”
“Isn’t that a bit empty? Like a half-life, at best.”
“A half-life,” Higata would clarify, “is the span of time it takes for radioactive isotopes to decay, or disintegrate. From context I believe you’re speaking of something more like a non-life, yes?”
Nods from the class, allowing an unreal Higata to continue.
“If you need a single word to sum up this way of living, I would choose not the word ‘empty’, but this one.” His pen would cut clear strokes on the blackboard, and underline them with a flourish: 釣り合い.
Equilibrium.
A calm cold night in January. He waited for his food order. Passing time by answering his non-existent class when something came to test him.
It happened at his usual ramen place, one chosen not for its proximity or its reasonable price, but because of its food. There was not a single dish there that Higata truly liked. Nothing he would miss if it was gone. The first time he levered his square head to the watery broth, chewed the wiry noodles, he nodded in non-satisfaction: It’s perfect.
“Excuse me,” came a voice.
He blinked. His ramen bowl was still leaking mushroom clouds of steam. Her tattoos swam into focus first. On her neck a golden koi. On her arm, a pillar of English letters.
“You want a top-up of tea?” Her voice at once light yet gravelly. A black smock trailed string down her leg.
“Sure.”
When she leaned over to reach the mug, he found himself asking what the letters on her arm meant. It distracted him from her scent. Coconut.
“It’s my favourite song. ‘Untitled’ by Interpol. You ever hear of them?”
“The police organisation?”
She had a gap in her front teeth. He could see her tongue pressing through it (I like that) when she smiled.
“No, the band. New Yorkers. If you like songs that will punch the crap out of your heart, give it a listen.” She swivelled her eyes (colour like honey) to the restaurant manager. “Sorry,” she stage-whispered. “I’m new here. Not supposed to swear in front of the customers. Apparently ‘crap’ fucking counts.”
“Um.”
“By the way,” she said. “You're ordering the wrong dish.”
She tapped him on the wrist (ah soft) and then she was gone. Coconut in the air. It took Higata eleven minutes longer than usual to finish his ramen.
Two streets before his home he passed a cafe with a large bay window. Someone was waving at him from inside. He stepped into the heat.
“You come here too? This is the best fucking coffee in town. Cappuccino to die for,” she said.
“Is it? I've never had one.”
“I power walk here after every shift so I can mainline it.” He realised she had a dyed streak of electric blue (lightning crackle) in her hair.
“You said I was ordering the wrong thing,” Higata said.
She pointed at the bar. “Coffee first. Talk later.”
He sipped through the delicate foam. It tasted like a bar of sun sliding over your face.
“The ramen is the worst thing on our menu, kiddo,” she said. His colleagues only ever called him Higata, occasionally Sir.
“The fried chicken is good,” she added. “The udon is better. Stick to those.”
He found himself saying he liked not liking the ramen. He told her about Higata’s Law, minus how it came to be. Conversation was like unjamming a rusty door — it had been a while.When he was done she nodded thoughtfully. “Wow. You’re a total… idiot.”
Unbidden, a giggle creeped out of him. “Do you always talk to customers like this?”
“Only the idiots,” she said soberly. “No but seriously. Ever heard of Epictetus?”
“Is he a rapper?”
A squint to check if he was being deliberately obtuse. “No, dipshit — I can call you that ‘cause we’re not at the restaurant. He’s a Stoic philosopher. Said ‘Fortify yourself with moderation.’ Compared it to building an impenetrable castle or something.”
“Well, that sounds logical.”
“It sounds like hell. Can you imagine Epictetus at a party?” She scratched the koi at her neck, made it ripple on her skin. He could see her pulse. “Anyway, point is, you’ve basically borrowed from the worst of Stoicism and Buddhism. Your life sounds…shitty, I guess?” She drained her coffee and smiled. “No offense. See you tomorrow!”
He sat with his cooling coffee in his hands, hating her a little. Hating himself a little for not explaining his theory better — she was nothing like his hypothetical students, so obedient and open. Coconut in the air.
He stayed away for six days. Then his feet found their way back.
“You listened to that song?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said, trying not to show that he would never do so. It sounded horrible.
She tutted, tapped the bowl of his usual ramen. “Making a lot of bad choices.” Five minutes later she came back with a plate of fried chicken.
“Oh, thanks,” he mumbled. “But I didn't order it.”
“I know. On the house,” she whispered (tingles). “Only joking, it’ll show up on the bill. But it’s worth it.”
He took a bite, just to be kind. When he looked down he had finished the plate.
Higata is on the shuttle to work, he is standing at his whiteboard. The class waits. He crosses his arms with a flourish. On the board he’s written:
Happiness = sadness Ergo Sadness = happiness.
“So we take the above as our starting point,” he says. “And we know that what happens on one side of the equation must correlate to the other, yes?”
The class nods.
“Like so.” He draws a diagonal line over the word ‘happiness’. “Which means…?”
They mirror his slashing motion.
“Precisely.” He crosses out ‘sadness’ on the other side. “Happiness breeds expectation. Expectation can lead to fulfillment. But more often than not, disappointment. So remove both, and you are the better for it.”
The class nods. All except for a shape in the back, with blue in its hair.
He always avoided the news. Curated to cover accidents, assassinations and famines, it was a daily minefield. For a while he watched the nature channel until one evening, he found himself unable to breathe in the flickering light. Onscreen a gazelle, a jumble of weak limbs, was nosing the air, hunting for the scent of its mother. The mother, the narrator said gravely, had been killed by poachers hours before.
Hands clattering to the remote (add rule, no documentaries), he hunted for another channel. Two blazered academics filled the screen. Their cool voices seemed to promise boredom.
“It’s not a new phenomenon, of course,” the younger academic said. She scratched her neck (koi tattoo, pulse).“Hermits have existed since the Bronze Age.”
“Absolutely,” nodded her grey-bearded counterpart. “It’s only recently that we’ve branded the Japanese taxonomy of loners ‘hikikomori’. Modern-day hermits, only instead of caves they inhabit apartments. Sometimes just in their bedroom, with their bewildered parents on the other side of the door. Feeding their desires in a digital space, ignoring the physical.”
Higata listened with interest. Maybe he could pick up a few tips. But as he watched, he couldn’t help but pity these hikikomori. They were trying to do what he did, but crudely. They shut out the world, but clung stupidly to pleasures. Mainlining snacks like morphine, drowning themselves in entertainment.
She seems to like hearing about his job (“The power plant? Of course you’d have a career that precise. Perfect for an egghead like you.”)
She teases him when he talks about lattice physics, spent fuel optimisation, stress analysis.
“Higata, master of stress analysis and avoidance,” she says.
Sometimes when she hands him his bill, their fingers graze.
His weakest point each year is early spring, the anniversary that makes him feel 18 again, radioactive with pain.
This year it coincides with a flu that leaves him glued to his bed like a bug. A fever does his thinking for him, and he types in ‘u-n-n-t-i-t-l-l-d b-y i-n-t-e-r-p-o-l’. He can't tell if the first thrumming notes are from a piano or a guitar, but they do something to the back of his neck. An urgent hi-hat snickers from a corner, droning bass claws him down, down. He thinks of Aoi and how she would cling to him when she was asleep all those years ago, and long before the singer's first muttered words his face is wet.
When Higata wakes the fever is broken.
The rain has just stopped when he reaches the ramen shop’s neighborhood. The streets are breathing out a metallic air like pennies on the tongue. He holds a bright package to him. Not too tight, or the vinyl pressing will break, and it took him hours to find. He wonders what he’ll say to her.
He’s crossing the road when a vehicle buzzes past him. He darts to the pavement and sees a kid on a bright yellow scooter. The kid extends a proud single digit to Higata and hollers, “Are your eyes even open?” The wasp-whine of the engine boxes his ears. Long after the noise has turned a corner he stares after it.
The next day he finds a new ramen shop. The noodles are a little too good, but he ladles in black vinegar until it tamps down the rich flavour. It takes longer than expected for him to forget the old ramen shop. Every now and then, the scent of coconut.
On the whiteboard he writes “Addendum to the Higata Principle.” He lowers an index finger to the class. “Special care must be taken to avoid complacency. Constant vigilance. It’s like being an alcoholic. You never stop being an addict, so you can never let your guard down. You think ‘just a sip, this is fine….’” He pauses, searching for words. “And then you feel it.”
A girl in the front raises her hand. “Feel what, professor?”
“Pain,” he says.
The class is quiet.
“Any questions?”
There are no questions.
Spring is jolting the landscape awake. He feels good, clean. The bus coughs past the sign with the town motto (nuclear energy for a brighter future). Pain has been wrestled, and equilibrium has won. His life will flow on the right path now, smooth and clean. This Thursday is luke-warm, the sky half-grey; middling in all respects, as if the universe itself has bent to Higata’s Law.
At the plant locker room, two older colleagues rib Higata as he slips into his protective gear. They know their placid systems engineer makes no plans, that he lives his days like a water strider that barely stirs the surface of a pond. So they dream of plans for him, whispering like boys teasing a dullard uncle. Competing to see who can craft the most colorless weekend: On Friday Higata will have a lukewarm beer, and drift to sleep at ten. On Saturday he will go to the dentist. On Sunday he will buy some milk.
Crouched over himself like a man at prayer, Higata is only half-listening. He wrestles gently with a stubborn zip, until the two halves of his suit close into one; the zip at the end of its track, an equation concluded. It sounds a fine plan to him. On Sunday he will buy some milk.
