Cameras don’t lie. They don’t tell the truth either. Not the truth History books and News Bulletins are telling. Camera tell a silent story. A series of meaningless images and sound that the narrator has to put back in order. That was the official title written on Shinya Yoshida’s business card: Real-Life Drama Narrator. Maestro, Director, Lead Role, he could’ve called himself all of that. Narrator was just an artistic choice. Behind his observation post, he was king. There was never a moment for him where he was more satisfied of his choice. Leaving Kabuki and No theater representation for real life art. Shinya liked to think that human psyche was his molding material.
John Rasmussen had disappeared from the cameras for the last few minutes. Shinya saw him wander around his apartment like a potted plant on a skateboard for maybe an hour. Gaze low, back hunched; the signs of defeat. Shinya Yoshida had a laugh, thinking he would probably react in a similar fashion if he had learned on CNN that he was declared dead a few hours ago. For ten minutes now, according to the camera’s time code Rasmussen had disappeared. He droned back to the living room where the lead-stuffed mannequins were, sat behind the couch and disappeared from the eye of the camera. Shinya Yoshida wasn’t worried because Rasmussen was most likely still there. The shadow cast by the ceiling spot on the couch was a perfect hiding spot.
Shinya thought Rasmussen was just letting his high go by. He would stop drinking and eating anything around the house and become gradually weaker. That was the third part of the plan; making the subject submit to the authority of the narrator. There was no use for characters that fought their fate, not in real life.
The first camera went down a few seconds after Shinya Yoshida unwrapped a tuna sandwich. There was no outage, no breaking sound, the image switches to white noise just like that. From his constantly improving electronic skills, Shinya judged that somebody had cut or pulled a wire. Before Shinya could even think about an emergency plan, another camera went down. On the remaining screens, still no sign of life. No traces of John Rasmussen. The storyline had the compound deserted by a living ghost.
By the time Shinya turned around to grab his shotgun, four screens were turned off. Rasmussen was in enough of an uproar to be vulnerable, but Shinya, as the narrator, judged that the tale had been long enough and that the bad guy needed to die. It was time to leave the hideout. Rasmussen short circuited the cameras within ten minutes. Not only he was in an uproar, but he became a security threat. Figuring out the camera pattern wasn’t so hard, it just showed that Rasmussen had a part of the brains he pretended to have. Once he had figured out the wiring of one of them, he could figure out that they were all interrelated. There was a limit to a number of junction boxes you could put in such an operation. One was perfect as long as the cams stayed out of reach. As soon as there was a single chink in the plan, Rasmussen could maneuver with a relative ease to break the camera setup without being traced. And that’s exactly what he was doing.
Then it happened.
“Talk to me”. Shinya heard over the sound system. “Talk to me, motherfuckers”.
His heart stopped for a split second.
“Talk to me, come on, what do you have to lose, I’m a dead man walking, am I?”
Shinya sat back behind the observation post and tried to control his trail of thoughts. Rasmussen had no idea – couldn’t have any idea – of where he was right now. He couldn’t imagine to have to share a house with his demise. The logical answer was to go investigate the shed outside. Shinya thought he would check out the shed if he was in Rasmussen’s shoes. There was no harm talking to him. He survived part one without overdosing, part two without committing suicide and he was going strong into part three. The important was to buy time, so he wouldn’t figure out what hit him. He had to be tipped off to the shed.
“Big Bad Johnny. You make me sad now, I can’t see you..boooohoooo….hooooooooooooo….fuckin’ hoo” played Shinya, over the microphone.
“You know that people pay crazy amount of money for a single snapshot of me. You know that, of course. You know me well motherfucker.”
“I know everything there is to be known about you.”
“Who are you, my mother?”
“No, your mother is dead John.”
Strange rumble noise. Shinya smiled interiorly, knowing he struck a nerve. Rasmussen was thrashing his own house.
“WHO ARE YOU, SHOW YOURSELF SO WE CAN SETTLE THIS LIKE MEN” screamed the writer, making the sound system squeal at the extra decibels. Shinya reclined and put an index over his right eardrum, the one who got damaged by a gunshot in one of his recent cases.
“You’ve been playing with dangerous people John, and that for so many years” continued Shinya.
“Tell me something I don’t know” blurted Rasmussen, while strange background noise almost covering his voice.
“What are you doing Johnny boy?” asked Shinya.
“Preparing to smoke you out, you vermin fuck” answered Rasmussen.
“You’re cute, you’re going to torch your own house up?”
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. It’s not like you could do anything about it you know? You don’t see me anymore” said John Rasmussen, satisfied.
“That’s where you’re wrong Johnny, I can see you out the window” lied Shinya. “I’m going to bring marshmallows to eat at the bonfire.”
“No you’re not”
“Why you say that Johnny?”
“You wouldn’t have asked me what I’m doing right now. I’m not preparing to torch my compound. You’re inside with me.”
Blind eyes don’t lie. Rasmussen was smarter than he thought, he wasn’t a one liner wonder like his show made him out to be. This turned into a guerilla.
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