The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop. Koji Suzuki

to the left and right, before finally coming to rest on the left-hand side. Then it branched out, becoming a frayed bundle of lights, crawling around like worms, which finally formed themselves into words. Not the kind of captions one normally saw on film, though. These were poorly-written, as if scrawled by a white brush on jet-black paper. Somehow, though, he managed to make out what they said: WATCH UNTIL THE END. A command. These words disappeared, and the next floated up into view. YOU WILL BE EATEN BY THE LOST … The last word didn’t make much sense, but being eaten didn’t sound too pleasant. It seemed that there must have been an “or else” implied there. Don’t turn off the video halfway through, or else something awful will happen: it was a threat.

      YOU WILL BE EATEN BY THE LOST … The words grew larger and chased all the black from the screen. It was a flat change, from black to milk-white. It was a patchy, unnatural color, and it began to resemble a series of concepts painted on a canvas, one over another. The unconscious, squirming, worrying, finding an exit, spurting out—or maybe it was the throb of life. Thought had energy, bestially satiating itself on darkness. Strangely, he felt no desire to push stop. Not because he was unafraid of whatever wanted to eat him, but because this intense outpouring of energy felt good.

      Something red burst onto the monochrome screen. At the same time he heard the ground rumble, from an indefinable direction. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, such that he began to imagine that the whole cabin was shaking. It didn’t feel like the sound was coming from those little speakers. The sluggish red fluid exploded and flew about, sometimes occupying the whole screen. From black to white, and now red … It was nothing but a violent succession of colors, he hadn’t seen any natural scenery yet. Just concepts in the abstract, etched vividly into his brain by the brilliantly shifting colors. It was tiring, actually. And then, as if it had read the viewer’s mind, the red retreated from the screen, and a mountain vista stretched out. At one glance he could tell it was a volcano, with a gentle peak. The volcano was sending up white puffs of smoke against a clear blue sky. The camera seemed to be situated somewhere at the foot of the mountain, where the ground was covered with rugged blackish-brown lava.

      Again the screen was swathed in darkness. The clear blue sky was instantaneously painted black, and then, a few seconds later, a scarlet liquid spurted out from the center of the screen, flowing downward. A second explosion. The spray thrown up by it burned red, and as a result he could begin to make out, faintly, the outline of the mountain. The images were now concrete where they had previously been abstract. This was clearly a volcanic eruption, a natural phenomenon, a scene that could be explained. The molten lava flowing from the mouth of the volcano threaded its way down through ravines and headed this way. Where was the camera positioned? Unless it was an aerial shot, it looked like the camera was about to be swallowed up. The rumblings of the earth increased until the whole screen seemed about to be engulfed in molten rock, and then the scene abruptly changed. There was no continuity from one scene to the next, only sudden shifts.

      Thick, black letters floated into view against a white background. Their edges were blurred, but he somehow managed to make out the character for “mountain”. It was surrounded by black splatters, as if it had been written sloppily by a brush dripping with ink. The character was motionless, the screen was calm.

      Another sudden shift. A pair of dice, tumbling around in the rounded bottom of a lead bowl. The background was white, the bottom of the bowl was black, and the one on the dice was red. The same three colors he’d seen so often already. The dice rolled around soundlessly, finally coming to rest: a one and a five. The single red dot and the five black ones arranged on the white faces of the dice … What did it mean?

      In the next scene people appeared for the first time. An old woman, face lined with wrinkles, sat perched on a pair of tatami mats on a wooden floor. Her hands rested on her knees and her left shoulder was thrust slightly forward. She was speaking, slowly, looking straight ahead. Her eyes were different sizes—when she blinked, it looked like she was winking instead.

      She was speaking in an unfamiliar dialect, and he could only catch every other word or so:

      … your health … since … spend all your time … bound to get you. Understand? Be careful of … you’re going to … you listen to granny now because … there’s no need to …

      The old expressionless woman made her statement, then vanished. There were a lot of words he didn’t understand. But he had the impression he’d just been lectured to. She was telling him to be careful of something, warning him. Who was this old lady talking to—and about?

      The face of a newborn baby filled the screen. From somewhere he could hear a baby’s first cry. This time, too, he was sure it didn’t come from the television speakers. It came from very near, beneath his face. It was very like a real voice. On-screen, he could now see hands holding the baby. The left hand was under its head, and the right was behind its back, holding it carefully. They were beautiful hands. Totally absorbed by the image, Asakawa found himself holding his own hands in the same position. He heard the birth cry directly below his own chin. Startled, he pulled back his hands. He had felt something. Something warm and wet—like amniotic fluid, or blood—and the weight of flesh. Asakawa jerked his hands apart, as if casting something aside, and brought his palms close to his face. A smell lingered. The faint smell of blood—had it come from the womb, or …? His hands felt wet. But in reality, they weren’t even damp. He restored his gaze to the screen. It still showed the baby’s face. In spite of the crying its face was swathed in a peaceful expression, and the shaking of its body had spread to its groin, even wiggling its little thing.

      The next scene: a hundred human faces. Each one displayed hatred and animosity; he couldn’t see any distinguishing features other than that. The myriad faces, looking as if they had been painted on a flat surface, gradually receded into the depths of the screen. And as each face diminished in size, the total number increased, until they had swollen to a great multitude. It was a strange multitude, though—existing only from the neck up—but the sounds welling up from them befit a crowd. Their mouths were shouting something, even as they shrank and multiplied. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. It sounded like the commotion of a great gathering, but the voices were tinged with criticism, abuse. The voices were clearly not welcoming or cheering. Finally he made out a word: “Liar!” And another: “Fraud!” By now there were perhaps a thousand faces: they had become nothing but black particles, filling the screen until it looked like the television had been turned off, but the voices continued. It was more than Asakawa could bear. All that criticism, directed right at him. That’s how it felt.

      When the next scene appeared, it showed a television on a wooden stand. It was an old-fashioned nineteen-inch set with a round channel selector, and a rabbit-ear antenna sat on its wooden cabinet. Not a play within a play, but a TV within a TV. The television within had nothing on its screen yet. But it seemed to be on: the red light by the channel knob was lit. Then the screen-within-the-screen wavered. It stabilized and then wavered again, over and over, with increasing frequency. Then a single character appeared, hazily: sada. The word faded in and out of focus, distorted, and began to look like another before disappearing altogether, like chalk on a blackboard wiped with a wet rag.

      As he watched, Asakawa began to find it hard to breathe. He could hear his heart beat, feel the pressure of the blood flowing in his veins. A smell, a touch, a sour-sweet taste stabbing his tongue. Strange—something was stimulating his five senses, some medium besides the sounds and visions that appeared as if he were suddenly recalling them.

      Then the face of a man appeared. Unlike the previous images, this man was definitely alive—he had a pulsating vitality. As he watched, Asakawa began to feel hatred toward him. He had no idea why he should hate this man. He wasn’t particularly ugly. His forehead sloped a bit, but other than that he was actually rather well-formed. But there was something dangerous in his eyes. They were the eyes of a beast closing in on its prey. The man’s face was sweaty. His breathing was ragged, his gaze was turned upward, and his body was moving rhythmically. Behind the man grew scattered trees, the afternoon sunlight shone between their branches. The man brought his eyes down and looked straight ahead again, and his gaze locked with the viewer’s. Asakawa and the man stared at each other for a while.