You wake up early. It is pitch-black outside. Your laptop blinks: it is not charged. The electricity went out during the night again. No matter. You take your paper notebook, but even that is redundant. The material is fascinating. You have a code to section, label, and commit it to memory. Writing it down would be incriminating anyway.
The buses do not run this early, but you snatch one of the bicycles outside the complex and get peddling.
You pass a shantytown with tents; more permanent structures with cardboard and metal sheeting; and tiny homes in disrepair. You smell smoke from a spent fire and pedal faster.
A piece of wood appears from a tent. You swerve, but it claws into the front wheel’s spokes. You fall to the ground. You get hit with putrid eggs. You stagger back. A poncho-clad man lunges, punches you in the face, and searches your pockets. But you turn and hit him with your elbow, claw the ground, and get up.
- “There is nothing there.” He looks through your wallet and just finds your card. He tosses it back to you.
- “That’s unfortunate,” he said.
- “What the hell? You could’ve cracked my skull here. Where do you get off doing this?”
- “I am living in a tent and hungry. You think I care about you? Going to the office,” he said.
- “I am damn starving myself. I am welder, you hear! I ain’t going to no office. You should’ve eaten those eggs, Hell, I would have.”
- “They were smelling up the tent: I thought I’d make better use of them. What’s a welder doing here anyway? Everything shut, don’t you know?” He said.
- You walk back to the bike. Not much damage. It can make it to the library.
- “I am trying to get us out of this, shit,” you said.
- “Us? Well, try a little better, why don’t you? A whole damn generation of folks underestimated the mob and look at where we are? I remember the old days, but even then, we took it all for granted and didn’t bother to face our problems. And look now where I’m living.”
You do not say another word, get on the bike, and pedal uphill. You are surprised but not shocked at the attack. You even see it from his perspective and think you would do the same thing.
You stand on the pedals and push up. The sunlight hits the dew in the weeds spread out in the cracked concrete. You throw the bike near the entrance fountain, throw off your shirt, and wash it there. You ring it and lay it out in the rising sun. You rest your back on the concrete slab and look at the gray laden clouds. What did Japan want to preserve so badly? Their way of life, their sense of self, no doubt.
You wait until the chained fence is unlocked, the librarian unlocks the main door, and the guards stand at their places. You walk forward without looking at their faces. You walk up to the literature floor, gather the books, and begin.