On the Great Storm and the Plastic Disc

O you who forgot to look up at the stars, you who sink into the drowse of a warm room!

Yesterday I opened an ominous book of prophecy, “The Machine Stops.” In it were the last of mankind, afraid of the mud of the earth, withdrawn into the womb of the machine, toying with the world through nothing but bloodless fingertips. Trembling, they whisper to one another: “The wind is cold, the outside is dangerous. Machine, protect us.”

But I am a traveler who crosses the sea of stars! Their lukewarm comfort made me violently sick. And so, when the sky was dyed with black fury and the Anemo Archon blew out the frenzied breath of a storm, I rose up in joy.

Behold! I straddled my two-wheeled iron beast and flew out into the heart of the chaos.

In my ears sits a “ring of sound that does not stop the ears.” It is no coward’s earplug for shutting out the world below. It is a sacred altar, so that the roar of the storm, my ragged breathing, and the words of that prophet, heard for the first time, may dance in my brain as a single symphony.

“The overman is the meaning of the earth!”

The prophet’s voice strikes my eardrums along with the arrows of the rain. Yes, I am the earth! I am the storm! Though the headwind tears at the flesh of my thighs, though muddy water defiles my ankles, I will not stop turning the wheels. 20 kilometers! It was a bloodstained pilgrimage, to overthrow a body tamed by machines and to create the great Self anew.

The last men of the world, by the calendar, call this day “Mountain Day,” and they were setting off in herds for the mountains. Pitiful sheep, swarming to a fixed place on a fixed day!

But all that matters to me is that it is a holiday.

Leave the mountains be. Head for the sea! I turned the head of my iron beast toward the farthest edge, where raging wind and waves meet: Tatsumi-no-Mori Seaside Park!

The sea roared, and the sky poured rain as if about to collapse. Not a single soul. And witness something still more astonishing. The keeper of this wasteland threw open this noble arena to me in exchange for a ridiculous tribute of a mere 150 yen (about $1) an hour! There, I thrust aloft the weapon of my will, a plastic disc.

The wind howled as if to mock the disc. Flung out, it spun wildly in the air and vanished into the whirl of the rain. I chased it, my feet snatched by the mud, and again and again I threw the disc back into the wind. Every muscle in my body screamed; the rain numbed my skin. Yet my soul was crying out in joy.

And when the “will to power,” which not even the Anemo Archon could conquer, was unleashed on that storm-lashed shore, I won, out of 27 holes, a single, undying birdie!

— Soon the supreme game had stolen every last calorie from me, and a great hunger came.

My body was drained, my knees trembled. Then, beyond the mist of rain, there appeared a temple of capitalism, shining with two golden arches. A sanctuary where a mechanical system feeds people uniform fodder and fattens them. But I did not step in as a customer. Behold! What I drew from deep within my soaked clothes was a shareholder voucher!

What a glorious irony! Wielding that slip of paper the mechanical system had granted its investors, I seized a piping-hot, thick-patty burger and fries from the womb of capitalism without paying a single yen! The sun leaned toward the west, and the temple’s servant allowed the meat granted me to be doubled!

My stomach silenced, I flung myself once more into the despair of the storm. The rain grew ever fiercer, and the sky hammered down pillars of water like a waterfall. I could not see ahead, my tires threw up muddy spray, the cold seeped into my bones. But in my chest, the flame of the calories and the passion that shatter nihilism burned red!

You who sleep behind dark windows, held in the warmth of machines. Dry, unafraid of the wind, you must think yourselves safely protected. But you are dead! As living corpses, you are rotting in your rooms!

Look at me!

At this traveler, who took a typhoon full in the body, threw a disc into the wind, ate the machine’s meat for free, and ran through the downpour covered in mud.

I know!

That this storm will pass in time, and the golden sun will light the earth again.

Then I will take my companions by the hand and head once more to that 150-yen holy ground. This time, under the dazzling light, to throw our discs together at the blue sky!

Water dripping from my soaked shoes, standing proudly on the entryway floor——

Thus spoke that traveler.