okinawa2

<<prog 0.5>>\n\nWelcome to OWL.\nOptional World Link.\nThis terminal will give you access\nto all available networks:\nRadio, television,\nnews networks,\nwhether they exist or not,\npresent or future.\nBits have replaced savings.\nGold and dollar belong\nin the past.\nRight here, feel the beating\nof the heart of the future.\nThe Knowledge-standard!\n< >\n Ah, the Network! The Network's Network, that gave you\na free connection\nto databanks worldwide.\nIn pre-historic times\nof the <span class="hover" title="The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes in Brittany, France.">MINITEL\npeople used pseudonyms.\nHere they wore virtual masks.<<n knowls>>\n

And me too, when\nI decipher your programme,\nI don't understand it fully.\nIt seems complicated,\nI'm afraid I'll mess it up,\nI'm afraid I'll find\nthings hidden\nthat flow out without my noticing.\nLike in a storm when there's a fog\nand suddenly the sun pierces through\nand truth appears.\n< >\nI'm afraid of discovering that something's\ngoing to happen ,\nsomething that suddenly\nwill seem as potent as a song\nsuddenly not ours anymore,\nbut everyone's to share,\njust as Laura's <span class="hover" title="Composed for the film: 'Laura is the face in the misty light, footsteps that you hear down the hall, The laugh that floats on the summer night that you can never quite recall, And you see Laura on a train that is passing through, those eyes how familiar they seem, She gave your very first kiss to you, that was Laura but she's only a dream.'">song has become ours now.< >\nCan you hear my footsteps echoing as I step haphazardly through your lines of code? Well, I've really done it this time. Time to restore the system once again I suppose.<<n title>>\n\n<<err>><<prog 2>>\n

<<if $textlv lt 5.1>>\n\n\nThat's when you started\ncalling me Laura. We loved <span class="hover" title="Laura is a 1944 American film noir noted for its plot twist, in which the investigating detective falls in love with a murder victim's portrait---only for the same victim to show up alive.">the film.\nWe didn't know about the song yet.<<n laurap>>\n\n<<prog 1.8>>\n\n<<else>>\n\n\n\n\nI don't know how to LAURA. <<n title>>\n\n<<endif>>\n\n\n

Seen from the sky, Okinawa's main island\nlooks like a beast.\nNot a green crocodile\nlike Cuba,\nrather a crouched beast,\nready to jump, to unfurl\ninto who knows what form:\na lizard, a dragon? \nAs if all History's fierceness,\nwas in that island,\nwhere people are so peaceble\nthey infuriate History\nfor having something\nto do with them.<<n spain>>

I remember an abandoned shoe, one night. It was in a crosswalk, alone, derelict. No one had picked it up. No one had run over it. Another night, it was still there. As if the citizens of Paris had no interest or found superfluous to deal with abandoned shoes. Maybe an unknown woman left her shoe every night in the crosswalk.<<n whymat>>

\nIs that what <span class="hover" title="Mitsuru Ushijima was commanding general of the 32nd Army, which fought in the Battle of Okinawa during the final stages of the war. Ushijima's troops were defeated, and at the end of the battle he committed suicide.">General Ushijima thought\nwhen he saw victory slip away?\nWhen war displayed\nthe stubborn willfulness\nof material objects?\nAll that strategy,\nall that loyalty to the Emperor,\nand the malignity of objects\nstole an army as neatly\nas monkeys steal socks.<<n genimg>>\n

I delved into the game's code and found out that, in order to win, you simply need to take the maximum possible number of matchsticks each turn. \n< >\nIn this implementation, it is impossible to win because the computer is always capable of taking four matchsticks, while the player can only take three.< >\n"I've already won, but you can keep playing you like." \nDeath could say the same thing.<<n title>>\n\n<<prog 3.3>>

<<if $debug eq "on">><div style="position: fixed; top:0; left:0"><<print $textlv>><<print $error>></div><<endif>>

\n\n<<if visited() lt 3>>\nOKINAWA ONLINE\n<<elseif visited() gte 3 and visited() lt 4>>\n\nOKINAWA ONLINE\n\n<<elseif visited() gte 4>>\n\nOKINAWA ONLINE\n\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if !hasVisited("help") and $textlv lt 3>>\n Written by Chris Marker\n Adapted for Twine by P.B. Parjeter\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 0.5>>< >\nAvailable commands:<<sp>>OWL<<sp>>MAIL<<sp>>LOAD<<sp>>SAVE<<sp>>DELETE<<sp>>START\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 0.6 and $textlv lt 1>>\n<<sp>><<hov "(NOUN)" "To progress, you need to enter the correct noun.">><<endif>>\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n<<if $textlv gte 1.1>><hr><<redred "ONE">><<sp>>\nKINJO, Shigeaki<<sp>>TOKITSU, Kenji<<sp>><<if !hasVisited("laura")>>?????<<else>>LAURA<<endif>> (Belkhodja, Catherine L.)<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 2.2>><hr><<redred "TWO">><<sp>>NAPOLEON (Bonaparte, Napoleon)<<sp>>YAHARA, Hiromichi<<sp>><<if !hasVisited("flag")>>????<<else>>FLAG<<endif>><<sp>>TOMORI, Lion of<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 3.3>><hr><<redred "THREE">><<sp>>PYLE, Ernie<<sp>>SAIPAN<<sp>>COCOLOCO (Parrot)<<sp>><<if hasVisited("sesame")>>OPEN-SESAME (Password)<<else>>????-?????? (Password)<<endif>> <<endif>>\n\n\n<<if $textlv gte 4.4>><hr><<redred "FOUR">><<sp>>HAYES, Ira<<sp>>GUSTAVE<<sp>>KINJO.NEW<<sp>><<if hasVisited("harakiri")>>HARAKIRI (Suicide method)<<else>>???????? (Suicide method)<<endif>><<endif>>\n\n\n\n\n\n<<if $textlv gte 5.5>><hr><<redred "FIVE">><<sp>>HARFANG (Owl)<<sp>><<if hasVisited("lauranew")>>LAURA.NEW<<else>>?????.NEW<<endif>><<endif>>\n< >\n<<if $textlv lt 0.5>>ENTER PASSWORD:<<endif>><<textbox "$cmd" "" "handler">>\n\n< >\n\n<<if $error eq true>>Application “UNKNOWN”. System unexpectedly quit. Type 14 error. Type REPAIR to continue.<<endif>>

\nOkinawa would remember that symbol:\nA child survivor of forced suicide\nput out to protect an Army in ruins.< >\nSee that?\nYou'll be on American TV.<<n title>>

[img[./img/sky.jpg][wgib]]<<im>>

[img[./img/pyle.jpg][ethn]]<<im>>

What you left me with would be a pretty\nmodern idea of a puzzle,\none that would only\ndepict itself.< >\nStrategy games are made\nto win back lost battles,\naren't they?< >\nDid you really believe a player\nwould be capable of spending his nights\nwatching history repeating itself,\nand convincing himself that\nhis own history would also\njust have a single way\nto be played?\n< >\nIt's like Julius Caesar\nmoving to Bora Bora.\n< >\nOr Napoleon in the South Pole. St Helena was no fun anyway. Strange to think that\nthe first ever mention of Okinawa\nwas on account of him.<<n napoleonb>>

\n\nHow come he knew about the Game?\nTo whom did you talk?\nHow stiffing suddenly\nthese unasked questions.\nI get time-ache like headaches.\nHere. It spins you inside.\nYou want to excise it, to get out,\nand leave your head to its aches,\nyou want to go for a stroll.< >\nTime should take care of itself,\nleave me to here and now,\ntalking to cats,\nfeeling early spring sun\non my skin.\nNo way. Time drills into me.\nI suffer electric shocks,\ntime neuralgia,\nthe image of a silent house,\na garden in snow,\na rainy day,\nfondling a horse over a gate.< >\nIt is in me but not mine,\na migraine of time,\nwhere time is just\npointless pain,\nwithout sentiment or nostalgia,\nthe sting of time,\nthe sting of an invisible insect\nyou can do nothing about.<<n pylex>>\n\n\n\n\n\n

<<if !hasVisited("lauranew")>>\n\n\nYesterday I had a strange exchange on OWL.\nA guy said:\n"I just took something to sleep.\nI won't wake up.\nI feel so calm.\nBefore dying,\nI want to make a gift\nof the kind my contemporaries\ncan appreciate.\nOne last phone call\nbefore I go."< >\n"I am well-known, you see. Tomorrow my name\nwill be in all the papers.\nAnd yours too, if you say\nyou're the last person\nI spoke to before I left.\nSo I make this gift.\nThe last words of…\nYou'll see tomorrow in the papers,\nI'm not fooling, you see?”< >\nI answered:\n"I think you're fooling,\nbecause I know about death,\nI know it well,\nI know it by heart.\nAnd we could still talk\neven if you said\nyou were dead.\nBecause the man I loved is dead\nand I talk to him every night.\nGood night.” <<n nothing>>\n\n<<else>>\n\n<<goto "cat">>\n\n<<endif>>

Game saved.\n\n<<run Save.slots.save(0)>> <<n "title">>

We were convinced\nthis was what war was,\nthat everyone was\ndoing this to everyone,\nbecause they must not shame,\na superior race,\na model for humanity,\nand because they were nice,\nand because they were helpful\nand wanted to do what\nwas expected of them,\nand wanted to prove\nNapoleon wrong.\n< >They killed themselves…\nin their thousands, whole families.< >\nWith a grenade, if the Army\nhas supplied grenades,\nwith sticks if they had no grenades.\n< >\nOr by jumping off cliffs,\nlike the women of Saipan had done. \n<<n cliff>>

<<silently>><<prog 1.1>><<set $jnum to 300>><<set $unum to 95>><</silently>>\nLEVEL ONE\n< >\n\n\n<<set $hits to 0>>\n<<set $missiles to 60>>\n\n\n\n<style> #grid > a, #grid > a:hover, .planeico {all: revert; display:inline-block; width: 30px} #grid > a {background-color: black; color: white} </style>\n\nAt Formosa, Japan lost over 300 planes, while the Americans lost less than 100. And here I am, with a solitaire version of <<hov "Battleship" "The game of Battleship is thought to have its origins in the French game L'Attaque played during World War I, although parallels have also been drawn to E. I. Horsman's 1890 game Basilinda.">> with flying formations rather than sturdy ships. As if this will reach a virtual ceasefire...in any case, I have <<print $missiles>> missiles left. There are SOLO, TRIPLE, QUADRUPLE, and SIX-PLANE formations that I need to find.\n\n\n\n<<widget "pln">>\n\n<<linkreplace "░">>\n ✈\n <<set $missiles -= 1>>\n <<replace "#miss">><<print $missiles>><</replace>>\n <<set $hits += 1>>\n <<if $missiles eq 0>><<replace "#grid">>< >OUT OF MISSILES< ><</replace>><<endif>>\n <<if $hits eq 14>><<replace "#grid">>< >BATTLE SUCCESS<</replace>><<replace "#button">>< >[[CEASEFIRE ACHIEVED: CONTINUE|title]]<</replace>> <<endif>>\n<</linkreplace>>\n\n\n<</widget>>\n\n<<widget "nop">>\n <<linkreplace "░">>_\n <<set $missiles -= 1>> \n <<replace "#miss">><<print $missiles>><</replace>>\n <<if $missiles eq 0>><<replace "#grid">>< >OUT OF MISSILES< ><</replace>><<endif>>\n <<if $hits eq 14>><<replace "#grid">>< >BATTLE SUCCESS<</replace>> <<replace "#button">>< >[[CEASEFIRE ACHIEVED: CONTINUE|title]]<</replace>> <<endif>>\n<</linkreplace>><</widget>>\n\n\n\n\n< >\n\n<<print either("<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> ",\n\n"<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> ",\n\n"<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> \n<<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<pln>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> <<nop>> "\n\n\n)>>\n\n \n\n[[CLICK HERE TO RETRY|oneb]]\n

\nTwo months later, one of the most famous\nimages of that battle\nshowed a girl with a <<hov "flag" "I put a FLAG in the program that'll prompt a quote. Too bad for those who don't get it.">>; that is to say, a little girl\nwaving a white <<redhint "flag">>,\nat the head of a line\nof civilians and soldiers.<<n flagpic>>

Okinawa Online

\n[img[./img/klein.jpg][twod]]<<im>>

Harakiri is not,\nin the European sense,\nsuicide, but the act\nof giving oneself death.\nThe act of living through harshest pain\nat the end.\nThat's what harakiri is.\nSo to perform harakiri ,\nyou must be in good health,\nvery well-balanced,\nwith enough energy\nto make a gift of death.\nPulling a trigger is not enough,\nnor is swallowing pills,\nnor stepping out into the void.\nYou must touch yourself\nto the end,\nwith living energy.\n< >\nAnd the Game, is that the only way to end it? As it bleeds out error codes, to release it from its simulacra of suffering, through self-destruction?\n< >\nThe computer, it doesn't know how to harakiri, you bet.<<n title>>\n\n<<err>>\n<<prog 5>>

Shigeaki Kinjo told me: "The battle was lost in advance,\na battle the Japanese army\nhad no chance of winning.\nIt was inscribed\nin the context of defeat."< >\n"And because that was the context,\nthe purpose was to fix the aftermath,\nand reinforce the “Tennosei”,\nthe imperial system,\nwhich had to survive\nto the military defeat.\nAnother direct consequence\ninscribed in this context of defeat,\nwas that no effort was made\nto protect the civilian population,\nso civilian casualties\nfar outnumbered\nmilitary casualties."< >\n"It's true that Okinawa\nwas a <span class="hover" title="The desparate battle led the Imperial Japanese Army to commit countless atrocities. Soldiers used civilians as human shields and confiscated food, executing those who hid it, leading to mass starvation. They forced civilians out of their shelters and killed more than 1,000 civilians in an act to prevent spying.">horrendous battle.\nNothing remains, no culture heritage,\nno culture from the past.\nEverything was destroyed,\nutterly destroyed.\nI who love so much the past,\nin Okinawa I feel a deep despair."\n< >\n"In a way, the people of Okinawa\nare resentful, even today.\nThere is a profound\nfeeling of injustice\non account of those events.\nI think the war isn't over yet."<<n kpic>>

[img[./img/cat.jpg][mouse]]<<im>>

I was amazed you could fall for an image,\nthen have a real lady\nappear in its stead.< >\nCan one be as lovely as an image?\nCan one be as memorable\nas a song?\nI remember the film's composer, David Raksin,\ncommissioned to write the song\nover the weekend\nfor Mr Preminger.\nYou don't keep Mr Preminger waiting.\nHe'd got a letter from his wife\nwhich he couldn't decipher.\nHe wasn't short-sighted,\nbut something odd inside him\nprevented him from being able\nto read it.< >\nHe used to compose by placing\na sheet of paper\non the piano to focus his attention,\nso the music flowed from a void,\nnot from an idea.\nAnd he took his wife's letter\nthat he couldn't decipher\nand put it on the piano.\nThen the notes started to flow.\nAnd as they flowed,\nas they fell,\nhe began to decipher the words.\nThey said his wife was leaving him.\n<<n andme>>

System recovery failed.\n< >\n[[RETRY?|fiveb]]

<<set $debug to "off">>\n\n<<widget "br">> <</widget>>\n\n<<widget "n">><<link "↵">><<goto $args[0]>><</link>><</widget>>\n\n<<widget "im">><style>a, a:hover {background-color: black; color: white}</style>\n<</widget>>\n\n<<include "progb">>\n\n\n<<set $textlv to 0>>\n\n<<widget "hov">><<print $args[0]>><</widget>>\n\n<<widget "prog">><<silently>>\n<<if $textlv lt $args[0]>>\n<<set $textlv to $args[0]>>\n<<endif>><</silently>>\n<</widget>>\n\n<<widget "seterr">><<silently>>\n<<if visited() eq 1>><<set $error to true>><<endif>><</silently>>\n<</widget>>\n\n\n<<widget "redhint">><<if visited() gt 2>><<print $args[0].toUpperCase()>><<else>><<print $args[0]>><<endif>><</widget>>\n\n<<widget "redred">><<print $args[0]>><</widget>>\n\n<<widget "err">><<silently>><<if visited() is 1>><<set $error to true>><<endif>><</silently>>\n<</widget>>\n\n<<widget "sp">>  <</widget>>\n\n<<include "memw">>\n\n<<widget "audiotag">>\n<div style="position:absolute; top: 0; right: 0; padding: 2px">🔊︎ AUDIO PLAYING</div>\n<</widget>>

It's Sunday, like Pearl Harbour.\nThe Americans expect a bloodbath,\nlike in the other islands.\nThey land on the beach.\nNo reaction.\nNo reception committee.\nThey reach the Japanese forts,\nfind them abandoned,\nyet intact: the bombs\ndidn't work.\nSo why did the Japanese leave?\nUshijima, watching\nfrom the Shuri heights,\nwaits for planes to decimate\nthose idiot Yanks\ntrapped on the beaches.\nNo planes.\n< >\nI thought the game I was making would\nrectify this malignant fate.\nThe 9th Division stuck in Formosa?\nSo I create a “Formosa” sub-program,\nI ask for the 9th Division's intervention.\nYou're kidding! “Access denied”.\nIf I insist,\nthe sub-program vanishes.\nIf I insist again,\nthe system crashes.\nThe beginning is strange.\nLanding April 1st sounds foolish.<<n type>>

The machines were on, as if she had just stepped out.< > Our loyal screensaver cat kept watch, and the system's <<redhint mail>> page was open.<<n title>>

"It was terribly shocking,\nbut telepathically\nall of us thought\nthis was the thing to do\nand others began to kill\nthe people they loved most.\nThey began with children,\nwith the weak and the old,\nwith those who lacked the strength\nto take their own lives.\nSo husbands killed wives,\nparents killed children,\nbrothers killed sisters.\n"< >\n"They killed them because\nthey loved them. Such was the tragedy\nof those mass suicides.\nIt was a real butchery,\nand the waters of the river\nwhere they threw the bodies\nindiscriminately\nbecame rivers of blood."< >\n"As for my own family,\nmy brother, who was\ntwo years my senior,\nand I raised our hand\nfor the first time\nagainst the mother who had borne us.\nAt 19, my brother\ncould not help moaning.\nHe suffered so much.\nMy father went off to die.\nWe also killed our younger\nbrother and sister."<<n third>>

At the end of the original shot,\nyou can tell he doesn't die.\nHe gets up again.\nYou feel he'll get over it\nlike the napalm girl in Saigon.\nThat ending has always been cut\nin all documentaries.\nA born symbol doesn't get out\nof it so easily!\nHe testifies against war,\nyou cannot weaken his testimony\nfor the sake of a few frames.< >\nTruth? What is truth?\nThe truth is, most didn't get up.\nSo what's so special about this one?\nThe ethics of imagery?\nIs napalm ethical?\nAre you in favour of napalm?<<n oshima>>

The end of the battle is written\nin the deep, by Okinawa,\nwhere Oshima,\nsurveyor of memories,\nfilmed underwater graveyards.\nOkinawa was\nthe Japanese' sute-ishi,\ntheir sacrificial pawn.\nIf the price was high enough,\nthe US\nwould shrink from invading\nJapan's main island\nand peace could be made.< >\nThe reality was,\nit made the case\nfor the Atom Bomb.\nWithout Okinawa's resistance,\nHiroshima would not have been,\nand the century would've been different.\nWhich means that in all respects,\nour lives were fashioned by events\nthat took place in that little island,\nbetween the moment\nwhen Kinjo killed his family,\nand general Ushijima's\nself-death.<<n history>>\n\n\n<<prog 5.5>>

\n$('#ui-bar').remove();\n$(document.head).find('#style-ui-bar').remove();

Config.passages.nobr = true;

function setFocusjquery() {\n $('#textbox-cmd').focus();\n}\n\n$(document).keydown(function() {\n setFocusjquery();\n});\n\n

// moving and rightclick\n\ndocument.documentElement.setAttribute("oncontextmenu","return false;")\n\ndocument.documentElement.setAttribute("draggable","false;")\n\ndocument.documentElement.setAttribute("ondragstart","return false;")\n\n

I sidestep: as if Okinawa was a lethal word,\nan <<redhint "open-sesame">>...Only I don't know\nwhat it would open.\n\nI shift the topic to the end of the Pacific campaign. Ernie Pyle's death. The Pullitzer-prise winning journlaist was killed in Ie Shima, a small island northwest of Okinawa. A bullet from Japanese machine guns hit him in the temple, killing him instantly.\n\n<<n pylepic>>

VERSION HISTORY< >\n0001 / 23 Aug 2021 01:57:52 AM PDT\n

[img[./img/ira.png][hayesb]]<<im>>

<<hov "Once again" "Once again, as in Chris Marker's 'Sans Soleil:' As for the students, some massacred each other in the mountains in the name of revolutionary purity, while others had studied capitalism so thoroughly to fight it that they now provide it with its best executives. Like everywhere else the movement had its postures and its careerists, including, and there are some, those who made a career of martyrdom.">>, Oshima pointed the way. Laura went on to study\nhow each side depicted the enemy.< >\nIt was not always pleasant.<<n western>>

[img[./img/general.jpg][madgod]]<<im>>

<<timed 2s>>I never saw Laura again. <<next 2s>>When I arrived at her computer, the program had been left open. < >Mechanically, I typed in her name. "I don't know how to <<redhint "Laura">>,” the machine told me. <<n title>><</timed>>

System recovery succeeded.\n< >\n[[CONTINUE|title]]

Sometimes the screen tore into black\nshapes reminiscent of other forms,\nthose where the century\nhad made the blueprints\nfor its own suicide,\nengraving images in our minds\nimages of ruins:\nThe ruins of Coventry and\nBerlin, of Dresden and Stalingrad.\nThe ruins of Okinawa.< >\nI had spent time cyberlooking\nfor Okinawa witnesses and informants,\nbut, like in any other network,\nI found all sorts of things.\nRumour had it initiates could\nplug into other people's\nnervous system. So they said anyway.\n\n<<n title>>

Private Ira Hayes knew his side.\nHe was a US Marine,\nbrave and disciplined.< >\nHe was <<hov "told to pose" "Hayes was one of six soldiers in the photo of the flag over Iwo Jima, which gained a reputation for being staged. Another soldier, Joe Rosenthal, was confused by reporters asking him if the photo was 'posed'; this led reporters to claim he had staged the photo. Rosenthal has since denied that the photo was staged." >>, with five pals,\nto re-stage the picture. He didn't waver.\nIt was for the cause.\n< >\nThose who had put up the flag\nin combat were gone.\nThey took six others.\nIt wasn't much,\njust a set-up,\nthere'd be more like it,\nthe original was uninspiring anyway.\nHayes never got over it.\nHe wasn't to blame,\nhe had fought with the best,\nbut he'd been asked to lie.\nSimple soul,\nhe couldn't live with that lie.\nHe couldn't tell the truth,\nthe Corps honour was at stake,\nso he took to drink,\nand died in poverty.<<n title>>\n

So swift that the ordinary gremlins,\nthat sneak into everyday life,\nhaven't had the chance to get to us.\nThey met a shut door:\n“Closed for a death”.\nSo annoying for them.\nNothing for them in the will.\nA life, a body, untouched,\non which there wasn't\ntime enough to spot\nthe first signs\nof lovelessness,\nabandon,\nor relinquishment.< >\nA real fairy-tale, one of them\nfalls asleep\nand never changes.\nThere's no greater gift.\nShall I thank you?\nI thank you.\nThank you.\nThank you.<<n neversaw>>

<<audio ":all" stop>>\nThere is a little book entitled\n“The Tragedy of Okinawa”.\nThe print is odd,\nwith characters spaced\nlike in a primer.\nIt's very thin,\nthe lines are double spaced.< >\nIt's like it intends\nto teach how to read,\nand how not to read.\nNo book can explain\nhow a 16 years old boy\nkills his mother\nbecause an invisible camera\nspies on him,\nand he cannot disobey.< >\nThe boy's name was Kinjo,\nhe lived in Tokashiki Island,\nwhere you used to go whale-watching.\nWhat could he tell us now, Kinjo?\nWhat could we say to him?\nKnow what?< >\nWhen I began to choke,\namong this horror\nwhere everyone is a persecutor.<<n tokyo>>\n

[img[./img/toki.jpg][tokyo]]<<im>>

That's where I recognised him: Kinjo.\nThe boy from the Keramas.\n< >\nA village elder, a leader,\nwas snapping off a tree-branch.\nI watched him,\nintrigued.\nThen, on his very hand,\nthe stick became a weapon.\nAs if having a seizure,\nhe began to beat the life out\nof his wife and children,\nwhom he loved,\nusing just this piece of wood.<<n shocking>>

\nLike when you search for a word\nthat escapes you.\n“I had it on the tip of my tongue”.\nI'd have your death\non the tip of my memory,\nI'd have thought:\n“There was a time when…”\nBut then there was another time,\nthe time of my list,\nfrom jealousy to deceit,\nand that time would mute our time,\nmute the echo of our life.< >\nEverything would have been\nas though through a wall,\nbarely audible…\nLike when rescuers search\nthrough a wall of rubble,\nthey always come too late.\nAnd you?\nWhat would you have kept?\nOne day my image would\nbegin to blur,\nyou'd realise the scraps\nof words,\nscraps of life\nfilling your memory,\nwere shifting out of focus.< >\nMust I thank you too?\nThank you for this gift\nof a life in which\nthere wasn't enough time\nfor something mediocre to slip in,\nneither lies nor cruelty.<<n swift>>

Last night: fun dialog\nwith a mask.\nA <<hov "Harfang owl" "Aka the snowy owl.">> mask,\nso I listened.\nHaving some knowledge about Harfang,\nin our days,\nshows some culture.\nDisappointing, as usual.< >\nWhen he went for a date\nI really got him:\n“Think of all the time we've saved\nin just five minutes:\nSix months of passion,\ntwo years of jealousy,\nfour years' infidelity,\neight of misunderstandings,\nreconciliation one spring,\none summer of fighting,\none autumn of breaking up,\none winter of despair,\njust work it out.\nBye and thanks\nfor the time saved."< >\nHe found nothing to say.\nAnd you?\nShall I thank you?\nThe list I gave him, so as to shine,\ndid time have it in store for us?< >\nDo I see me, in ten years time,\nseparated from you,\nreading in the paper you've died,\na feeling of something\nalready seen,\nalready lost,\nthe faraway echo\nof something I don't know,\n— your absence now —\nwhich I wouldn't have known,\nbut would have felt within me,\nas if my programmer foresaw it all,\nwhat happened, what\nmight have happened?<<n search>>

<<timed 3s>>END OF GAME. \n\n< ><<link "RESTART?">><<run Engine.restart()>><</link>><</timed>>

\nAnother famous photo shows\nthe Tomori lion\nsurrounded by infantry men.< >\nI wonder what the first GI thought\nwhen he saw that critter.\nThe lion still guards\nits village,\nsince its mission was to protect it.\nVisitors never fail\nto leave coins in its mouth,\nfor good luck.\n<<n lionpic>>\n\n

\nFilm director Nagisa Oshima said: "I remember the fear and I have really experienced the feeling\nof being a part of Japan at war.\nThat is why I particularly feel,\nsince my job is film-making,\nthat Japanese war films are rubbish.\nThey deal only with themselves,\nhow they suffered from the war,\nhow brave and painful it was,\nThey never show the other side."\n< >\nBut – as in the books and films –\nthe smell of battle is missing.\nTill we get smellies, like talkies,\nwar films don't exist. Just as well,\nI swear there'd be no audience.<<n smell>>

Chris Marker, P.B. Parjeter

\nNow Laura saw\nthe Game couldn't change history.< >\nIt would repeat it, in a loop,\nwith an obstinacy that was\nas respectable as it was futile.\nStoring the past\nin order not to revive it\nwas so 20th Century.\nShe talked of it\nin a detached fashion now,\nas if she'd come to a limit;\nbeyond it, the Game\nwas not hers any more,\nnor was History.< >\nI knew she spent the nights\nin conversations with Masks.\nI asked what she was looking for.\nShe responded:\nLevel Five, of course,\nin a tone that made you think\nshe was cured, that for her\nthe War was over.< >\nNaturally, I was wrong.<<n mad>>

Game loaded.\n\n<<run Save.slots.load(0)>> <<n "title">>

<<if $error eq true>>\n<<set $error to false>>\n<<goto "levels">>\n<<else>>\nSystem is already functional.<<n title>>\n<<endif>>

With or without Kinjo, the war came to a close. After the retreat from Shuri,\nGeneral Buckner\nsent Ushijima,\nin his Southern bastion,\nan offer of honorable surrender.\nThe Japanese general reacted\nwith an outburst of laughter.\nWas it laughter,\nborne on the wind,\nthat prompted a frontline gunner?< >\nUnknowningly, he aimed\nat Buckner,\nwho was examining the ground,\nand Simon Bolivar Buckner,\nonly US general\nto die in combat,\nfailed to convince his enemies,\nand died a few days before them.\nIt is said that Ushijima prayed\nfor Buckner when he died.\nThen he and Cho\narranged the ending,\nthe only end they could conceive: suicide, or <<redhint "harakiri">>.<<n title>>

[img[./img/laura.jpg][fall]]<<im>>\n\n

[img[./img/belk.png][levels]]<<im>>\n\n<<if $debug eq "on">>[[title]][[twob]][[oneb]][[threeb]][[death]][[fourb]][[fiveb]]<<endif>>\n\n

\n\n<video src="./img/nim.mp4" autoplay></video>\n\n< >\n<<progdyn "death" 46>>\n

LEVEL THREE< >\n\nI tried the <<hov "Marienbad game" "Otherwise known as Nim, this game was popularized by the 1961 film 'last year at Marienbad.' Nim became one of the first 'computer games' in 1962, when a Polish engineer created a mainframe to play the game.">>, where each player takes turns trying to remove the last matchstick. \n\n<<widget "tr">>\n<<set $take to $args[1]>>\n<<link $args[0]>><<set $take to $args[1]>>\n <<set $ncount to $ncount - $take>>\n <<append "#prompt">>< >You took <<print $take>> matchstick[s]. <<if $ncount eq 0>>You took the last matchstick; you have won.<<else>>There are <<print $ncount>> matchstick[s] left.< ><<endif>>\n <</append>><<remove "#trs">>\n\n <<timed 2s>>\n <<set $pctake to 4 - $take>>\n <<append "#prompt">>The computer took <<print $pctake>> matchstick[s]. <<set $ncount to $ncount - $pctake>> < ><<linkreplace "NEXT TURN">><<append "#prompt">> \n<<if $ncount lt 11 and visited() gt 1>>I've already won, but you can keep playing if you like. [[. . .|threec]]\n<<elseif $ncount eq 0>> There are no matchsticks left; the computer has won. [[TRY AGAIN|threeb]]<<else>>There are <<print $ncount>> matchstick[s]. How many matchsticks do you want to take? <<trx>><<endif>>\n<</append>>\n<</linkreplace>>\n\n<</append>>. \n\n\n <</timed>>\n\n<</link>>\n<</widget>>\n\n<<widget "trx">>\n<div id="trs"><<tr "ONE" 1>> <<tr "TWO" 2>><<tr "THREE" 3>></div> \n<</widget>>\n\n <<linkreplace "START GAME">>\n<<set $ncount to 12>><<append "#prompt">>There are <<print $ncount>> matchstick[s]. How many matchsticks do you want to take? <<trx>> <</append>>\n<</linkreplace>>\n\n\n\n\n< >\n<div id="prompt"></div>

"I've already won, but you can keep playing you like." That's what the computer told me after a few attempts. \n<<n "threed">>

CHAR / KILOBYTES \n<<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">><<print "=">> \nÂ / -001000 \n» / -000100 \n¿ / -000000 \næ / +000010 \nØ / +000100 \n¢ / +001000\n<<n fiveb>>

I wish I could bring good news,\nbut the truth is that\nthe Network is not\nwhat it was.\nYou said there is something\nirretrievably vulgar about success.\nOWL must be a success.\nYou wonder how some people\nplug in.< >\nA few days ago a man\nin an <<hov "Oberon mask" "Oberon, King of Fairies, most notably used in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'; in the play, Bottom the weaver is transformed into a donkey.">> asked me\nif I was his baby donkey.\nI felt a whiff of nostalgia.\nI remembered the time when\nyou were all just weirdos\nin Washington DC,\nand thought that the only secrecy\nleft this over-bugged world meant\npenetrating the most open network,\nhowever, with passwords\nto discourage the morons.< >\nBut there's no discouraging morons.\nYou were part Robin Hood,\npart secret society,\nYou were on raids for information,\nlike leaving Sherwood for supplies.<<n pyle2>>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n<<linkreplace "-100 JPN✈">><<set $jnum -= 100>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+50 JPN✈">><<set $jnum += 50>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "-10 JPN✈">><<set $jnum -= 10>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+7 JPN✈">><<set $jnum += 7>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "-5 JPN✈">><<set $jnum -= 5>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+3 JPN✈">><<set $jnum += 3>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "-1 JPN✈">><<set $jnum -= 1>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n\n\n<<linkreplace "+100 USA✈">><<set $unum += 100>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n\n<<linkreplace "-50 USA✈">><<set $unum -= 50>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+10 USA✈">><<set $unum += 10>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "-7 USA✈">><<set $unum -= 7>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+5 USA✈">><<set $unum += 5>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "-3 USA✈">><<set $unum -= 3>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n<<linkreplace "+1 USA✈">><<set $unum += 1>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><</replace>><<checker>><</linkreplace>>\n\n

<<widget "checker">>\n<<if $jnum - $unum eq 0>><<remove "#planelist">>\n<<replace "#resetbut">><div style="text-align: center; width:100%">[[BATTLE TIED; SUCCESS|title]]</div><</replace>><<endif>>\n<</widget>>\n\n\n<<silently>><<prog 1.1>><<set $jnum to 300>><<set $unum to 95>><</silently>>\nLEVEL ONE\n< >\nThe Formosa Air Battle was fought over four days in October 1944. Japan lost more than 300 planes, while American forces lost less than 95 aircraft. And here I am, trying to end a virtual war reenactment in no one's favor. To reach anything like an armstice I need each side to have an equal number of aircraft.\n< >\n<<linkreplace "START GAME">>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<<link "+10 JPN✈">><<set $jnum += 10>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</link>>\n\n\n<style>\n\n#jplaneB {\n;\n \n position: relative;\n animation: mymove 10s;\nanimation-timing-function: steps(4, end);\nanimation-fill-mode: forwards;\n animation-delay: 0.25s;\n}\n\n@keyframes mymove {\n from {left: 0px;}\n to {left: 90%;}\n}\n\n</style>\n<<timed 19s>><<remove "#jplaneB">><</timed>>\n\n \n\n\n\n\n<<link "+10 USA✈">><<set $unum += 10>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><<checker>><</replace>>\n<</link>>\n\n<style>\n#uplane {\n;\n \n position: relative;\n animation: mymove 35s;\nanimation-timing-function: steps(4, end);\nanimation-fill-mode: forwards;\nanimation-delay: 0.35s;\n}\n\n@keyframes mymove {\n from {left: 0px;}\n to {left: 90%;}\n\n}\n</style>\n<<timed 24s>><<remove "#uplane">><</timed>>\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n<<link "-5 JPN✈">><<set $jnum -= 5>><<replace "#jnum">><<print $jnum>><</replace>><<checker>><</link>>\n\n<style>\n#jplane {\n; \n position: relative;\n animation: mymove 15s;\nanimation-timing-function: steps(4, end);\n animation-delay: 0.45s;\n}\n\n@keyframes mymove {\n from {left: 0px;}\n to {left: 90%;}\n}\n</style>\n<<timed 14s>><<remove "#jplane">><</timed>>\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n<<link "-5 USA✈">><<set $unum -= 5>><<replace "#unum">><<print $unum>><<checker>><</replace>>\n<</link>>\n\n \n<style>\n#uplaneB {\n;\n position: relative;\n animation: mymove 37s;\nanimation-timing-function: steps(6, end);\nanimation-fill-mode: forwards;\n animation-delay: 0.25s;\n}\n\n@keyframes mymove {\n from {left: 0px;}\n to {left: 90%;}\n}\n</style>\n<<timed 24s>><<remove "#uplaneB">><</timed>>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n< ><div style="text-align: center; width:100%">[[CLICK HERE TO RETRY|oneb]]</div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<</linkreplace>>

\nUnavoidably, one calls\non all those myths\nthe knotted threads of man:\nthe <<hov "Parcae" "In ancient Roman religion and myth, the Parcae were the female personifications of destiny who directed the lives (and deaths) of humans and gods">>, the <<hov "Norns" "Deities in Norse mythology responsible for shaping the course of human destinies.">>,\nall the figures devised by men to say\nlife's thread unravels\nand breaks.< >\nDo they spin Kinjo's life still?\nWhat would Kinjo think before\nfractal islands and Klein blue?\nBefore the Goddess of Mercy?\nA few visits to Heiwa Dori,\nNaha's indoors market,\nand you become aware:\nit is run by women.\nAll are connected with the War.\nThey are widows and orphans.\nSometimes survivors.< >\nMost little girls of that age\nexperienced mobilization, propaganda,\na feeling that they too must fight.\nThe nurses at Himeyuri-no-to\nbecame a symbol.\nAn obligatory tourist pilgrimage\nin Okinawa.\nIt starts with a cheerful song,\nwhich was their favourite.\nThen the photo sessions.< >\nAnd faces peering into a hole\nthat looks like a simple hole\nin the ground.<<n title>>

I don't know how to start.< >\n\nI want to tease the computer, like we used to, fool about with it, turn its neurons inside out.< >\n\nIn LOGO, for instance, a noun for a verb.< >\n\n“Dog” and the computer is foxed, It doesn't know what to answer and confesses: “I don't know how to dog”.\n“Sardine”: It doesn't know how to sardine, Or “Cauliflower”: “I don't know how to cauliflower”.< >\n\nSo humiliating for a computer not knowing how to cauliflower.< >\n\n“Tortoise”: “I don't know how to tortoise”. “Shoe”: “I don't know how to <<redhint "shoe">>.\n\n<<n "title">>\n\n<<prog 0.6>>\n

\n\n\n\n<<if $textlv gte 0>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "OWL">><<goto "help">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "LOAD">><<goto "load">>\n<<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "REPAIR">><<goto "repair">>\n<<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "VERSION">><<goto "version">>\n <<else>><<goto "no">>\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 0.5>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "MAIL">><<goto "mail">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "START">><<goto "start">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "SAVE">><<goto "save">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "DELETE">><<goto "delete">>\n\n\n\n <<endif>>\n\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 0.6>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "SHOE">><<goto "shoe">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "DOG" or $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "NOUN" or $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "CAULIFLOWER" or $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "SARDINE" or $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "TORTOISE">><<goto "how">>\n\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 1.1>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "KINJO">><<goto "kinjo">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "TOKITSU">><<goto "tokitsu">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "LAURA">><<goto "laura">>\n\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 2.2>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "NAPOLEON">><<goto "napoleon">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "YAHARA">><<goto "yahara">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "TOMORI">><<goto "tomori">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "FLAG">><<goto "flag">>\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 3.3>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "PYLE">><<goto "pyle">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "COCOLOCO">><<goto "cocoloco">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "SAIPAN">><<goto "saipan">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "OPEN-SESAME">><<goto "sesame">>\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n\n<<if $textlv gte 4.4>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "HAYES">><<goto "hayes">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "GUSTAVE">><<goto "gustave">>\n\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "KINJO.NEW">><<goto "kinjox">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "BUCKNER">><<goto "buckner">>\n\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "HARAKIRI">><<goto "harakiri">>\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 5.5>>\n <<if $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "HARFANG">><<goto "endof">>\n <<elseif $cmd.toUpperCase() eq "LAURA.NEW">><<goto "lauranew">>\n <<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n\n

\nA future ethnologist\ndoesn't know what escapes him,\nby not following me in the morning,\nbetween powering on the computer\nand the moment when I\ncome back to work on it.< >\nBut in the future,\nhe could send a spy camera\nand then he will see me\nhaving breakfast with two cups,\nhanging out two towels,\nplacing two toothbrushes\nin a glass..< >\nPardon me, dear ethnologist,\nthis is not really for you.\nIt's for Gloria,\nwhen she comes to clean for me,\nand for passing friends.\nIt re-assures them.\nThey think : “Laura has got someone\nin her life. She plays the mystery girl,\nbut I know the tell-tale signs”.\nIf they had any suspicion\nabout my encounters with you,\nthey'd be aghast.< >\nIn <<hov "The Girl with the Golden Eyes" "An 1835 novella by Honoré de Balzac. The story follows the decadent heir Henri de Marsay, who becomes enamored of the Paquita Valdes and plots to seduce her, but becomes disillusioned when he discovers she is also involved with another lover. When he attempts to kill her, he discovers that she is already dead by the hand of her lover, his half-sister. She declares that Paquita came from a land where women are no more than chattels, able to be bought and used in any way. In the last lines of the story, de Marsay tells a friend that the girl has died of tuberculosis.">>,\nMarsay refers to screen-women,\nwomen you display\nto hide the one that matters.\nI've got a screen-man,\nwith my cups\nand my towels\nand my toothbrushes.\nOnly that he is hidden\nand you're invisible.\nYou can't make a better\nménage à trois.< >\nWell. Back to the grind.<<n "title">>

\nFor both sides, nothing\ngoes as planned.\nI'll sort this mess out.\nPut the Japanese\nback in their bunkers,\nbring in planes.\nSounds easier to move symbols\nthan real planes…\nBut no. “Request denied”.\nAnd here I am with my codes\nthat don't enter,\nmy access denied,\nmy type 14 errors…\nAnd my calling on you.\n< >\n//Application “UNKNOWN”.\nSystem unexpectedly quit.\nType 14 error.//\nType 13 would be prettier,\nbut it's always type 14.\n< > \n\nOne day I'll give Chris\nall this stuff\nfor him to try to do something.\nA game that won't work,\na woman going loony…\nWe'll see what he can do, \nthe editing wunderkind. <<n "title">>\n\n\n<<err>>\n<<prog 1>>\n\n

Too exhausted to take notes,\nshe rehearsed sketches in her head,\nwith brilliant repartee…\nYes, that was a blank,\nbut it would come back,\nshe knew.\nAnd Cocoloco on her hand\nwould look so funny in close-up.< >\nThen Cocoloco died of parrot-disease,\nand, back in France,\nshe realised she'd forgotten it all.<<n title>>

If some future ethnologist\ngets to see these images,\nhe'll ponder the funeral rites\nof the strange tribes\nof the late 20th Century,\nI'll provide the details.< >\nYes, it was customary for such tribes\nto address a familiar\nand protective spirit,\nknown as a computer\nto some of them,\nand as an electronic calculator\nto others.< >\nThey'd consult on everything,\nit kept their memory.\nIn fact, they no longer had a memory,\nit was their memory.\nIt was accompanied\nby a whole ritual.<<n title>>

<<timed 3s>><<goto "fiveb">><</timed>>

\nThe Americans landed\nin the Kerama islands.\nThey bombed Naha from there...Look, we had a swim\nover there yesterday...I'm sure you've read\nabout it in the papers,\nmass suicide in the Kerama islands.< >\n\nI read page after page on Okinawa\nand I feel like crying.\nThe only place in the world,\nthe Nazi camps aside, where people\ncontinued to die after the battle.\nThe islanders weren't true Japanese,\nbut were Japanese enough to die.\n“No one falls into enemy hands alive,\nit is shameful,” was how it went.< >\n\nThey were imbued with army orders\nstating that,\nif necessary, meaning\nwhen encountering the enemy,\nthe first grenade was for the enemy\nand the second they had to use\nfor suicide.<<n flaggirl>>\n

I'd seen these images before.\nYou can see\nthis woman turn back,\nand spot the camera.\nDo we know she would have jumped\nif at the last minute\nshe hadn't known she was watched?\n< >\nI remember <<hov "the man" "In 1912, a tailor named Franz Reichelt jumped from the Eiffel Tower using a parachute of his own design, falling to his death.">> in Paris \nattempting a mad leap\nwith a Batman-like parachute\nfrom the Eiffel Tower.< >\nIt's so obvious,\nat least it is to me,\nthat at the last minute,\nhe knows the contraption\nwon't work,\nhe knows he'll die,\nbut the camera is there.\nHe can't chicken out,\nso he jumps and dies.< >\nThe woman in Saipan saw the lens\nand knew\nthat foreign devils\nwould show the world\nshe hadn't had the guts to jump.\nSo she jumps. The cameraman\naimed at her\nlike a hunter\nthrough his sights,\nand he shot her like a hunter.<<n ethn2>>\n

Kenji Tokitsu, an author and martial artist, said: "I feel the Japanese\nhave changed a lot. I feel they want to bury\ntheir whole past, World War II.\nJapanese people tend to avoid facing that issue.\n< >\nIt's a tragedy that's affected\nmy whole life.\nYet it contains a depth,\na kind of life\nso strong and vivid\nthat today we cannot approach\nthat kind of intensity.\nThere's some kind of madness,\nin fact,\nabout World War II.\nIt's not nostalgia,\nI'm not nostalgic\nabout that era.< >\nBut those who lived through it\nfind something missing today.\nSome of that was worthwhile.\nWhich is not to belittle\nthe <span class="hover" title="The desparate battle led the Imperial Japanese Army to commit countless atrocities. Soldiers used civilians as human shields and confiscated food, executing those who hid it, leading to mass starvation. They forced civilians out of their shelters and killed more than 1,000 civilians in an act to prevent spying.">atrocities\nperpetrated by the Japanese military.< >\nBut having to define who one is,\nhaving to fight to the very end,\nmeans facing\nsomething which alters\nyour whole perception of life\nin the face of something crucial."<<n tokimg>>

I put a flag in the program\nthat'll prompt a quote.\nYou know it.\nIt was in the Keepsake\nwhere I saved sentences for tough times.\nIt's <<hov "Rabbi Huna's" "Rabbi Huna mentions the name of Rabbi Joseph in an old rabbinic commentary, the Middrach Rabba about Leviticus, 27:5.">> admonition.\nMaybe most people won't understand.\n< >\nIt's the one that goes: “God always sides with the persecuted.\nIf a just man persecutes a just man,\nGod sides with the persecuted;\nif a bad man persecutes\na just man,\nGod sides with the persecuted;\nif a bad man persecutes a bad man,\nGod sides with the persecuted;\nand even if a just man persecutes a bad man,\nGod sides with the persecuted”.\n<<n flag2>>\n\n\n<<err>>\n<<prog 3>>

\n<<widget "progdyn">>\n\n<<if $args[2] neq "noskip">>\n<<if visited() gt 1 or $debug eq "on">><<link "SKIP">><<goto $args[0]>><</link>><<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<set $intv to ($args[1] / 34) + 's'>>\n<<timed $intv>><<if $visited lt 1>><<endif>>\n<<next $intv>><<if $visited lt 1>><<endif>>\n<<next $intv>><<if $visited lt 1>><<endif>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next $intv>>\n<<next 5s>>\n<<goto $args[0]>>\n<</timed>>\n\n<</widget>>

For days, I continued to search through the computer's records for any trace of Laura. The game of cat and mouse, I reflected. Though the computer "mouse" looks more like a turtle, in my opinion. < >\n \nBut I am not a virtual cat. I am a real live cat that has marked the imaginations of everyone who has seen it.<<n tech>>

Kinjo told me: "If you look in the Bible,\nyou'll see confessing your mistakes\nand expressing repentance,\ncleanses people of their past.\nBut Japanese mentality,\nthe way of thought,\nconsiders that errors\ncommitted in the past\nremain errors forever. They cannot be erased."< >\n"I decided that\nmy mission must be\nto proclaim the value of human life\nto counter the notion,\nthe ideology of the past,\nthat held life in such contempt,\nfor such was the lie they taught.\nThat was the motivation\nfor my becoming a missionary,\na Christian minister."<<n buckner>>

Then you retreated back\nto your impenetrable lair.\nI have to go out too,\nto gather knowledge\nabout Okinawa,\nand I feel like a hunted spy,\nI'm afraid they're after me.\nAnd I wonder if it isn't true.\nUnder those pussy-hound masks,\nI discern true enemies,\npeople who want to know too much\nor who already know too much.< >\n“Okinawa?\nRings a bell. Wasn't there\na strategy about that?\nWritten by some peculiar guy?\nRemind me his name…”\nSure I'll give your name!\nNow, I don't mention Okinawa.<<n timeache>>\n

<a title="Soldiers use the stone lion as cover.">[img[./img/lion.jpg][thatkinjo]]<<im>></a>

LEVEL FOUR< >"Open sesame"...the phrase comes from "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." Ali Baba hears the phrase from one of his brothers, but can't remember it when it comes time to open the secret passage, confusing it with other grains.< >Is that our fate as well, for what we have seen only distantly to fall into immemory?\n\n<<set $cardstaken to 0>>\n<<set $choiceA to null>>\n<<set $choiceB to null>>\n\n\n\n<style>a, a:hover, div.mems {all: revert; display: inline-block; width: 120px; border-bottom: 3px solid black; } a {background-color: white; color: black} \n</style>\n<<widget "carte">>\n\n<<if $args[0] neq true>>\n\n<<linkreplace " ">><div class="mems"><<print $args[1]>></div>\n <<if $choiceA eq null>><<set $choiceA to $args[1]>>\n <<elseif $choiceA neq null and $choiceB eq null>><<set $choiceB to $args[1]>> <<if $choiceA eq $choiceB>><<print "<<set " + $args[2] + " to true>>">><<endif>> <<timed 0.5s>><<goto "fourb">><</timed>>\n <<endif>>\n\n<</linkreplace>>\n\n<<else>><div class="mems"><<print $args[1]>></div>\n<<endif>>\n<</widget>>\n\n< ><<carte $rice "RICE" '$rice'>> \n<<carte $sesame "SESAME" '$sesame'>> \n<<carte $oats "OATS" '$oats'>> \n<<carte $flax "FLAX" '$flax'>> \n<<carte $sesame "SESAME" '$sesame'>> \n<<carte $wheat "WHEAT" '$wheat'>> \n<<carte $flax "FLAX" '$flax'>> \n<<carte $corn "CORN" '$corn'>> \n<<carte $rice "RICE" '$rice'>> \n<<carte $oats "OATS" '$oats'>> \n<<carte $barley "BARLEY" '$barley'>> \n<<carte $corn "CORN" '$corn'>> \n<<carte $millet "MILLET" '$millet'>> \n<<carte $barley "BARLEY" '$barley'>> \n<<carte $wheat "WHEAT" '$wheat'>> \n<<carte $millet "MILLET" '$millet'>> < >\n\n\n<<if $rice eq true and \n$sesame eq true and \n$oats eq true and \n$flax eq true and\n$corn eq true and\n$wheat eq true and\n$barley eq true and\n$millet eq true>>[[CONTINUE|title]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $debug is "on">>[[SKIP|title]]<</if>>\n\n\n\n<<prog 4.4>>

\nIn Spain when there's a bullfight it's to challenge death, you stare at the sun, stare at death in the face, like in the Falangists' fascist anthem, <<hov "Cara al Sol" "With the lyrics: 'Facing the Sun with a new shirt / That yesterday you sewed in red / Is how Death will find me, if she takes me / And I don't see you again. / I will march along with my companions / Who stand guard over the bright stars, With impassive ways, and who are ever Present in our strife. / If you hear that I fell, I'm at the post that waits me there. / Victorious flags will return / At the joyful pace of harmony, And my bundle of arrows will / Bear five roses that day. / One day, spring will laugh again, something longed for in sky, land and sea. / ¡Stand up, squads, to victory, for in Spain the dawn rises again!">>.< >\nIn Okinawa, it's the opposite: They say that before death is a time for playing, not a time for killing. – It's a brave animal. – But it's not in shape. – Can it do better? – It's really brave. It has no luck. It's a brave beast.<<n title>>\n

What can these be but\nthe playthings of a mad God\nwho made us to build them for him?\nImagine Neanderthal man\nglimpsing with this vision in his head:\na flash of city at night,\nall motion and light.< >\nHe cannot tell what it means,\nhe has had a poetic vision,\nall motion and light,\nA sea of lights,\nhe cannot unravel the images\nthat land in his mind,\nlike birds, swift,\nunreachable birds.< >\nThoughts, memories, visions\nare the same to him,\na scary hallucination.<<n sky>>

\nArranging all of this data. That's where Chris came in. At that point in his life he was more ready for other people's images than his own.\nThe challenge fired him up.\nHe began with the trip to Tokyo.\nHe loved the city, and the Game offered him\na new way to look at World War II.\n< >\nHe was set in his old ways from the start. He had become so Japanese that he shared their collective amnesia. As if the War had never happened.\n< >\nAnd me, I had loved Okinawa. I loved the ice in summer.\nI loved Naha, a spiritless city full of ghosts,\nand they loved ghosts.\nI had loved the jungle figs indoors,\nand birdsong at traffic lights\nthat got the blind across.\nIt was Japan, yet that Japan\nthat hadn't lost its memory.\n< >\nThere were cats too,\nfor they loved cats.\nThere were tags,\nand owls and karate.\nAnd their cult-film: a ghost story.< >\nThat's when you started calling me <<redhint "Laura">>.\n<<n title>>

Here's a piece Florence wrote.\nit's in her book of short stories,\nTo Be Read in an Elevator…\nCocoloco.\nIt was on an endless tour\nin South America\nthat she bought Cocoloco,\nthe prettiest of parrots.< >\nEveryday, to exorcise\nawful shows,\nshabby theaters,\ndangerous and dirty hotels,\nshe devised an act with Cocoloco,\nwhich exhaustion and fever\nhelped her consider brilliant.\nPerhaps it was, after all.\n< >\nShe gathered up scraps\nof news from a Europe\nshe loathed\nand now regarded as Paradise Lost.\nShe conceived comic, poetic scenes,\nwith political satire…\nCocoloco was very good as Yeltsin…\nA zaniness reproduced before\nstartled Indians,\nstartled but friendly.\nEach night took her closer to home.\nCloser, in her delirium,\nto a triumphal return, with her\nand Cocoloco\nas kings of TV.<<n cocoloco4>>

<<set $pieces to 0>>\n\n\n<<widget r>><<linkreplace "░">>▒<<set $pieces += 1>><</linkreplace>><</widget>>\n\n<style> * {vertical-align: baseline; margin:0px; padding:0px} a, a:hover {vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: blue; padding: 0px}</style>\n\n\n<div style="letter-spacing: 2px; color: blue">\n░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░<<r>>░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░<<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░<<r>><<r>><<r>><<r>>░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ \n\n</div>\n\n<<repeat 2s>>\n<<if $pieces gt 75 and $debug eq "off">><<prog 2.2>><<endif>>\n<<if $pieces gt 2 and $debug eq "on">><<prog 2.2>><<endif>>\n<<timed 5s>><<if $textlv eq 2.2>><<goto "twoc">><<endif>><</timed>>\n<</repeat>>

LEVEL TWO\n \n\n\nOur grandmothers' puzzles\nshowed the Mona Lisa,\nor the Night Watch.\nI imagine the perfect gift\nfor the century's end might be an Yves Klein puzzle—with pieces all the same. I had the discouraging thought that you'd left me in a huge puzzle and that, in the end, there'd probably be no image.<<n klein>>\n\n<<audiotag>>

\n[img[./img/map3.jpg]] \n\n\n\n<<timed 2s>><<replace "#nolinkmap">> \n[img[./img/map3.jpg][crocodile]]<<im>> <</replace>>\n\n<</timed>>\n\n<<prog 2.2>>\n

<<hov "Let There Be Light" "A 1946 documentary by John Huston, made while serving in the army. The film documented PTSD and was supressed by the U.S. government. It was not released until the 1980s." >>; a film that wouldn't be seen for decades. Demoralising, the army censors said.< >\nMore moralising was John Wayne\nin The Sands of Iwo Jima.\nThat got shown in wartime\nwith unexpected results.\nThe Star turned up in cowboy garb\nat a naval hospital,\nand got booed!\n< >\nAn episode in a war of images\nthat soon coincided with real war. It started here,\nat Iwo Jima, with that famous scene of the flag being raised. Whose side are you on, comrade?<<n ira>>

"I don't know how to OPEN-SESAME," the computer says, throwing another of those troublesome TYPE 14 errors. Time for another system repair, I suppose. <<n title>>\n\n<<err>>\n<<prog 4>>\n\n

Saved game deleted.\n\n<<run Save.slots.delete(0)>> <<n "title">>

[img[./img/kinjo.png]]<<cacheaudio "kinjo" "./img/kinjo.mp3">><<audio "kinjo" play>>\n \n\n\n\n\n<<progdyn "tragedy" 136>>\n\n \n\n<div id="srt"></div>\n\n\n\n<<timed 2s>><<replace "#srt">>\nI wondered what your experience of the battle was. Where were you when this mass suicide or death occurred?\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 11s>><<replace "#srt">>There was a command from the Japanese army that told people to move to the northern part.<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 22s>> <<replace "#srt">>\nUsually non-military people should go away, but we were led to just beside the Japanese .... so we became a target. <</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 41s>><<replace "#srt">>\nThe American soldiers invasion started, so on the 28th the American soldiers were moving toward the Japanese soldiers, to attack. \n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 52s>><<replace "#srt">>\nSo they found the few soldiers that were there, about three or four hundred soldiers from Korea...also came that were not soldiers.\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 64s>><<replace "#srt">>\nLaborers were they? / Laborers, laborers!\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 69s>><<replace "#srt">>\nSo, American soldiers did not attack. They did not ... they thought there was no necessity to attack. \n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 85s>><<replace "#srt">>\nWithout attacking they moved from the place where the soldiers were. But American soldiers came to the nearest spot. Mass suicide happened.\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 105s>><<replace "#srt">>\nSo that is the point: Japanese soldiers did not attack. They were safe but the people, non-military people, they committed suicide or killed each other. \n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 118s>><<replace "#srt">>\nWere you there when that happened?\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 122s>><<replace "#srt">>\nYes. I killed my younger brother.\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n<<timed 128s>><<replace "#srt">>\nAt the beginning we killed our mother. So that's the beginning.<<if visited() lt 2>><<endif>>\n<</replace>><</timed>>\n\n\n<<audiotag>>\n

\n\nThey chuck coins in the tunnels too.\nIn a bunker like this,\nYahara writes in his diary\nthat before the final rout,\nhe took the time\nto destroy all his papers\nand rearrange the furniture\n“to leave a good impression”.< >\n\n\nI found one Kinjo\nin one of your listings,\nI was obsessed by that boy\nwho had killed his family\nto obey a tacit order\nengraved on his child's mind.\n“No one falls into\nenemy hands alive”.< >\nHe is in Yahara's book,\none of the many boys of Okinawa. Not even soldiers,\nthey're just trying to help out,\nobeying orders.\nYahara describes him\ngoing out by night,\nunder fire,\nto get sugar-cane\nfor survival.< >\nThen he ran home and\nhid under the bed, like a puppy.\nAnd Yahara thinks of his own son\nand he starts to have doubts\nabout the War.< >\nBut the other Kinjo,\nwill I ever get to understand him?<<n isl>>

Gentleness! Is history written\nwith gentleness?\nDo you honour gentleness\nwhen you're a dragon?\nSo Okinawans hated violence?\nThey had it coming.\nA peaceful isle\nout of the world,\nout of History, would become the stage\nof the bloodiest battle of all time.< >\nA happy, life-loving woman\nended up to be chosen\nto encounter death.\nI can recognise myself\nin that little island,\nbecause my most unique,\nmy most intimate suffering\nis also the most banal,\nthe easiest to name.\n< >\nSo I can as well give it a name\nthat sounds like a song,\nlike a movie,\n<<hov "Okinawa mon amour..." "A reference to 'Hiroshima Mon Amour,' directed by Alain Resnais, 1959">><<n title>>

[img[./img/mouse.jpg][game]]<<im>>

[img[./img/belk.png][title]]<<im>>\n\n

\nThe Knowledge-standard…\nWhen you saw the knowledge\navailable on the net,\nyou could smile.\nBut that was exactly their game:\nto circulate information\never further and faster\nIn past times, to lend\nweight to money,\nthey sought a dense, rare material\nto act as a pledge\ninside coffers.\nThey chose gold.< >\nNow money has become\ninvisible and volatile,\nso the new power needed a pledge\nthat was invisible and volatile too.\nThey found Knowledge.\nAtoms of knowledge\ncrossed through our screen.< >\nIt was into Knowledge's black holes\nwhere this century's dreams\nof power fell, this unending century.<<n suicide>>

\nSuch was William Gibson's vision\nwhen he wrote <span class="hover" title="Neuromancer is a 1984 science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, considered one of the earliest and best-known works in the cyberpunk genre. Set in the future, the novel follows Henry Case, a washed-up hacker hired for one last job, which brings him up against a powerful artificial intelligence." >Neuromancer\nand invented Cyberspace:\nHe saw a <span class="hover" title="The Sargasso Sea is a region of the Atlantic Ocean; unlike other seas, it is bounded by currents rather than land. It is unique in that its algue not only floats freely but reproduces vegetatively (ie. from a single parent without producing seeds or spore).">Sargasso Sea,\nfull of binary algae.\nOn that image we Neanderthals\ngrafted our own visions,\nour thoughts and memories,\nour pitiful scraps of information.\nBut none of us knows\nwhat a city is.< >\nThis is the stuff you used to write.\nYou wrote at night, late,\nsitting at the computer,\nbefore you logged out.\nI'd find it in the morning\nwhen I logged in.\nYou had been working at your game,\nand I was about to work on my book.\nComputer at night, barnow's delight.\nComputer in the morning,\ntomcat's warning.< >\nYou said we were two eights,\neight hours for you,\neight hours for me,\neight hours for us both. <<n "forboth">>\n\n

And the burning man, Gustave. You told me his name was Gustave.\nI'd seen him a hundred times.\nNobody had ever filmed\na man burning alive so close,\na lulu for war documentaries.\nThe unknown soldier, in full kit,\nholding his own flame.\nHe was carted around battlefields,\nlike a war-artist on tour\nwith a unique act.\nGustave in the Philippines,\nGustave in Okinawa.< >\nI even saw him in a Vietnam movie,\nstill burning 20 years later.\nI viewed so much newsreel\nI knew each and every Gustave at birth.<<n burn>>\n

I don't know how to <<print $cmd>> <<n "title">>\n\n

Speaking of flags, the computer has flagged an error again. Time to repair the system; you know the drill. <<n title>>\n<<err>>\n<<prog 3>>

\n<video onloadstart="this.volume=0.05" src="./img/souvenir.mp4" autoplay></video>\n< >\n<<progdyn "title" 163>>\n<<audiotag>>\n\n

Why do material objects\ndisplay such endless,\nwillful mockery?< >\n\nIf it could be turned to energy,\nthe world could do without oil.\nWhy is it whenever I ask friends\nto taste my Tarte Tatin,\nmy speciality, my triumph,\nall the teaspoons dematerialise?\nAnd why at coffee time\ndo we stir the sugar with forks?\nSo shaming.< >\nAnd why does a monkey\nsteal one of my socks every night,\njust one,\nto see me scrabble in the morning\nand leave with odd socks?\nShame again.<<n isthat>>\n\n

I only know it happened\nin the Kerama islands,\nwhere we went on a day\nso glorious.\nA massacre seemed unimaginable.\nThe view over the archipelago.\n“The fractal islands on Klein blue”,\nyou said,\nsimple as ever.< >\n<<hov "Kannon" "Also known as 'Guanyin', a Chinese Buddhist bodhisattva adopted by many Eastern religions.">>,\nGoddess of Mercy's temple,\nher statue behind glass\nthat made her appear\nin her place,\nin the sky.\nThere was also\na magical Okinawa weaver.<<n myths>>

<<widget "levlink">>\n<<if $textlv eq $args[0]>>\n<<link `"Level " + $args[1] + ""`>><<goto $args[2]>><</link>><<else>>Level <<print $args[1]>><<endif>>\n<</widget>>\n\n\n\n\nIn conversation, I still mention the levels we used to give to people when we spoke. When someone came and said: “I am Catholic, or Communist, or Anarchist”, or any other bigotry, we would say: <<levlink 1 "One" "oneb">>!\n< >\nWe'd laugh so much! When they were funnier, or wittier, we'd say: <<levlink 2 "Two" "twob">>!\n\n< >\n<<if $textlv lt 3>>But it never went higher<<endif>>\n\n<<if $textlv gte 3>>\nThen:\n<<levlink 3 "Three" "threeb">>, \n or <<levlink 4 "Four" "fourb">><<endif>>.\n< >\nThe Game became such a standard that we could do nothing unless we gave levels to everything in life.\n< >\nBut nothing ever reached <<levlink 5 "Five" "fiveb">>. I remember one day I said to you: “Must one die to get to Level Five?”\n< >\n<<if $textlv eq 0>><<progdyn "title" 15>><<endif>>

Am I going mad?\nI used to see you\neverywhere,\nI recognised you from afar,\nI went back to the places we loved,\nthe Jardin des Plantes,\nthe little farm\nat the Bois de Boulogne,\nthe shore beneath the Golden Gate\nwhere Kim Novak feigns suicide\nin Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo…\nI'd see a man from behind,\nlooking at parrots,\nor sitting among goats,\nor leaning against a rail,\nand it would be you.< >\nThen I'd come closer,\nhe'd turn round, be someone else.\nI'd wonder how anyone\ncould replace you so fast.\nIn my moment of distraction,\nnot more than a split second…\nNow it's the same in the Network.< >\nSomeone calls, it's you,\nI know by tell-tale signs,\na special word only we would use.\nThen I'd question him,\nand he'd shy away,\nnot like you anymore.\nThen another sign.\nIs this a game?\nIs it you teasing me?< >\nOne day, one woman\nknows too much,\ntoo much about you, about me,\nabout the Game, about everything.\nWe are plugged into the masks gallery.\nI ask her to show me hers\nand on the screen I see this.<<n maskimg>>\n

\n\nThe south of Okinawa\nis an anthill\nwith thousand of caves and tunnels\nfortified by High Command.\nThe frontline is at Shuri,\nwhere Ushijima's headquarters were.\nWith him, General Cho,\na hardline nationalist,\ninvolved in the coup d'etat\nin Manchuria in 1931,\nthe Sino-Japanese prelude\nto World War Two.< >\nThere is also <<hov "Colonel Yahara" " Colonel Hiromichi Yahara (1902-1981) was the senior staff officer in charge of operations of the 32nd Japanese Army at Okinawa during the American invasion of that island during World War II.">>,\na man as reflective\nas Cho is loud.\nHe too plays by the book.\nReading the archives, you find proof\nthe three of them know:\ntheir mission's suicidal.\nThe battle cannot be won.\nYet there were bombastic bulletins\nand tracts proclaiming victory.\nDoubters received drastic punishment.\nIn April and May,\nCho launched mad counter-attacks.\nSince the battle is lost,\nsamurai spirit is what counts.< >\nThe Japanese soldiers practising\nbayonet drill\non live prisoners,\nor choking babies in caves\nso the enemy don't hear them,\ndon't sound so samurai-like.\nBut those committing suicide\nwith grenades\nin the subterranean Navy HQ\nare truly in the grand tradition.\nBut <<hov "Maginot Lines" "The Maginot Line , named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications.">> never hold.\nOutside, the US attack progresses.<<n yahara2>>\n

\nThe next day there was\n<<hov "nothing" "A note from Chris Marker: The man in question died somewhat mysteriously after the trip to Okinawa. For those who love premonition signs,his last images were shot in the foreign graveyard of Naha. He said it'd be good to lie among the decaying tombs of the combatants of all the useless wars, including that of Commodore Perry's. Years before MacArthur, Perry came unasked to Shuri Castle, that World War II would turn to dust, whilst modernising Japan. As if this country needed a US soldier each century to enter a new era. Beside Perry's tomb he'd explained Oshima's comment, his: “Okinawa was sacrificed!”. Sute-Ishi, a term from the game Go: It means sacrificing a piece to save a game">>\n\nin the paper. At first, I thought\nthat he was fooling,\nthat he was a nobody.\nBut there's a dark space there.\nthinking back on it.\nNothing in the press.\nBut what if the death part\nwasn't fooling,\nonly the fame part?< >\nWhat if he'd only lied\nwhen he said\n“I am well-known”,\nto make me believe before he died\nhe was someone else,\nand I deprived him of that pleasure,\none last joy before dying?\nAnd I thought I've never\nmentioned you to a stranger before.< >\n\nI was told that, if you cut life at the root, if you are cut from\nthe root of life, you die. If in any strategic technique,\nyou need to consider saving yourself\nand sacrificing a victory card. And that, if we speak of Okinawa\nwith respect to Japan's main island,\nthat was the sacrifice. <<n title>>

\nI was in <<hov "Vézelay" "Vézelay is a fortified town in Eastern France. Famous for Vézelay Abbey, a UNESCO heritage site.">> for two days.\nI realised I'd forgotten the clue\nwhich distinguishes genuine capitals\nfrom restored ones.< >\nOr was it the other way round?\nI had the question, but\nwhere there should have been the answer\nthere was a blank.\nCould an angel scan my memory\nand find the clue\nwhich distinguishes\nremembrance from oblivion?< >\nAn angel, like in the Jewish legend\nyou used to love so much:\nOne second before birth,\nwe know all about everything.\nPlato used to say the same.\nBut, one second later,\nan angel gives us a pat\nand erases our memory, so man has\nthe honour of rediscovery,\nif he's up to it.< >\nDoes another angel come later\nwhen, willy-nilly, we've gathered\nour scraps of memory,\nlike refugees, and erase\nthe lot pat by pat?\nIf I forgot the clue\nto the capitals,\nso vivid last time\nI was there,\nwhat clues to you will I lose,\none by one?\nThe Gershwin <<hov "song" "No, no they can't take that away from me / The way you this /the way you that / They can't take that away. / But, yes, angels can. / They can take everything one day.">>\nwe loved,\nsung by <<hov "Sarah Vaughan" "Sarah Lois Vaughan (1924-1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed 'Sassy' and 'The Divine One' she won four Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award.">>.<<n cocoloco2>>

Afterwards, he sought\na glorious death in war\ncrossing enemy lines:< >\nHe was captured alongside soldiers\nwho had called capture dishonourable.\nMass suicides accompanied\nthe advance of US troops.\nTogether with Japanese executions\nand casualities of war,\nsome 150,000 civilians died in Okinawa,\na third of the population.\nNo other group suffered so,\nexcept in the Nazi camps.< >\nEuropeans, surviving this,\nmight have turned to Buddhism.\nKinjo found Christianity.\nHe became a minister.\nHe offers his memory\nto help others decipher theirs.\nHe wants Japan to acknowledge\nits war crimes,\nand mass suicides taught\nin school books,\nnot ignored, or called madness.\nHe wants what nations and men\nare least capable of:\nthat memory be faced,\nand forgiveness asked.<<n minister>>\n

\nAn English Captain came to Napoleon\nafter going around the Pacific,\nand described a strange little island,\nwherein “the natives had no weapons”.\n“No cannons?”, says the Emperor,\nsomewhat disgusted.\n“No cannons, no pistols,\nno muskets,\nno weapons at all.”\n“How do they wage war?”\n“They don't.\nThey're not interested.”< >\nNapoleon, outraged,\nconcluded that people\nwho don't love war\nare most “despicable”.\nSo thought the island,\nthe big dragon\nhidden in the island,\nready to pounce like a cat,\nlike a tiger\nwaiting for the proper time.\nTravellers enraged him,\ntravellers of all times,\nwith tales of Okinawan's gentleness.<<n gentle>>\n

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\nI'm not afraid of technology. Those who use technology as a weapon are not the same, though. The Battle of Okinawa was an atrocity becauase it was an ancient war fought with futuristic weapons.< >\n\nThose involved had no idea how to use the technology in their hands. The difference goes further because of our primitve "lizard brains." Technology advances on its own terms, independent of those who invented it.< > \nInventors and innovators are teleguided by people who are yet to be, for purposes that we hope are clear. But in the end, those purposes are, in fact, obscure.<<n endofgame>>

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Shoji Kinjo told her: "We were taught that Westerners\nwere demons. We were told\nif US troops captured us\nthey'd cut off our noses and ears,\ncut off our fingers.\nThey would drive tanks over our bodies,\nand rape our women. We would suffer horribly, then die."< >\n\n"We were so imbued with all this\nthat it seemed better\nto suppress our loved ones,\nthan leave them to the enemy,\nFor them, it would be a consolation\nto die by the hand of a loved one.\nFilled with this thought,\nwe lamented and, lamenting,\ninterrupted our mother's life."<<n recog>>