Chapter 13
Yodogo
“I can’t stand it anymore. Please make this noise less noisy”
“If we do it, then what is the point. Annete please increase the volume to 115 decibels. Play “bitter sweet symphony”.”
A year before meeting doctor Jamal from Pakistan, who introduced new method of brain transplantation, some sort of a breakthrough of its kind, I was taking unconventional courses of music therapy from Dr. Ehrmann, who believed and persuaded my father that it somehow relieved my condition.
He goes: “Unprotected human ear can spend 8 hours a day exposed to 85 decibels without the risk of hearing loss the level of freeway lawns, crowded restaurant etc, 115 decibels is the sound of a loud rock concert . Your safe exposure time is only half a minute, but will increase it to 3 minutes. I’m sorry fellow but you’ll have to listen the whole song from beginning till the end”
It was a rainbow colored headset like an astronaut helmet equipped with a digital screen and sound proof fixers, similar to pioneer VR headsets of 90s. They left me alone inside a narrow room without any furniture or anything else, but an armchair I was sitting in.
Last thing I remember, was getting brutally beaten by Herman near the creek then I fainted. Now I’m back in time, within my memory borderlands. How come?!
Music goes:
Dam-dam-dam da –da da- Dam-dam-dam dam dam da”
'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet”
Music was getting louder and louder accompanied by visualization of metamorphosis of various patterns and colors on the display in front of my eyes. Then world became dimmer an image appeared, projecting interior of an airliner with no one on board, it was one of the creepiest moments of my “hibernation”. Plane was passing through variances in air density, wildly shaking the seats. Music getting louder and louder. I look around and saw a black rigged smudgy cat-sized creature hovering above my head. The beast didn’t have eyes, nose or mouth but it somehow detected my presence, getting ready to attack on its prey.
“No, please- get me out of here! Help! Doctor, I can’t take this anymore, take this damned headset off. Oh my God! Stop it.”- all my efforts to remove the helmet were in vain. It wasn’t like being stuck in a virtual reality game. Fear getting all over me, the creature was about to jump onto me any moment. And it did. Somehow getting into my sound and water proof helmet, covering my face with its humid and corrugated exterior.
“No, take it off me, take this damned think off me”
Then something happened instantly, creature dissolved as someone took off my helmet. No. It was me who removed it – not helmet but a black sleeping mask. I really was inside a plane, overburdened with Asian passengers most of whom appeared to be asleep in a faint light coming from behind the curtains.
“Tss…You’ll wake up everyone. You were having a nightmare” – it was cute face Japanese girl in her late twentieth, seated next to me. “My mother says never eat late-night snack, it generates bad dreams”
Cabin was classic Asian interior with no LED screen or any other interesting gadgets on the backside of every seat. Just footrest, folding tray, ashtray, pocket for reading stuff to put and seat belt. Yeah, and the square shaped red call button. Must be some kind a ‘lowest-cost flight’. Problem is I didn’t recall, travelling on plane resembling a transit bus rather than commercial airliner. Couldn’t get any sense of safety and comfort in this cabin design. There was not enough space for passengers to move around. For a moment, I even doubted there was active air pressurization, to avoid from high altitude hypoxia.
“Where is the doctor?”- I shouted yet not sure where I was, but I didn’t remove her thin and snow white soft hand stroking my face, she leant her face closer to mine to comfort me , her dim red lips inches from mine. She was the the first Asian girl, I have seen, with perfectly round mole near her mouth. So beautiful she was, running shockwaves through my veins.
“Your’re travelling with someone else?”- she asked with her kiddish voice.
“No…”- I answered hesitantly, still resisting my temptation not to kiss her magnetic leaps in front of everyone. I caught creepy eyes of several passengers, with an angry look on their face.
“Hey mind your own business” – I shouted at them. They returned to their seats, using indecent language, “putdowns” in Japanese. She leaned back to her seat and blushed without saying any word.
I turned my face to see flight attendant walking to my seat
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re bothering other passengers. It’s a sleeping time. So please sit back and relax. Don’t make loud noise’ then she disappeared out of sight.
“What were those angry men , in front seat, saying to me?”
Her pretty face blushed so hard that I could feel a heat coming from her face.
“They were addressing me, not you. Conservative “daddies”. They think I’m flirting with Italian”
“Italian. Are you kidding. I’m more Asian than European. I’m, from Azerbaijan?
She smiled: “I thought you were Italian. Looking like one actor from a movie, I can’t remember your name. Which country are you from, you said?
“Azerbaijan…No clue? Caucasus mountains. Caspian sea, rings a bell?
“Caspian sea? You mean the largest lake on the earth. You bet it rings a bell. I took geography lessons as every single girl in my country. Problem is I’ve never heard of your state. Is it some kind a southern province of Soviet Union.”
“Are you kidding me. Soviet Union? You’re too young to know that my home country was once part of this “Commuland”. No longer it is. Azerbaijan is a free , independent country, is a full member of UN…even once managed to become non-permanent member of Security Council. So Geography is not a ‘cherry picking’ subject. You have to keep yourself up to-date on the latest geopolitical developments.
“Really? Wow. Good for your country. I thought it was impossible to become independent from Soviet.
“What you mean by that?” – I sounded worried.
She didn’t have any slightest clue where I was going with it.
“I mean Soviet and US are main world powers now. That…”
“What year is it?” – I interrupted her abruptly.
“1970, March 31. Why?”
“Oh my God, it’s not one of my travelling memories. It’s a trap. Something is going to happen” – I looked around scared. “Son of bitch, Herman. Dragged me to his bad memory sector.” There was barely seen screen in front, above the curtain separating economy class from business class. My eyes caught ‘Japan Airlines Flight 351’ written in Italic above the Japanese translation on a navy blue background.
Everything happened in a split second. I heard several passengers on the front row scream and panic, as one Japanese man in a dark suit jumped up with a shining steel samurai sword on his hand. He grabbed nearby flight attendant serving drinks to awake passengers. Moment later someone turned all lights on, i could clearly see him putting the tip of katana on her back, intimidating loudly, in Japanese on the backdrop of turmoil.
“Suwatte! Shizukani shite” – he screamed. Then several other Asian men emerged from nearby business and first class sections, and from the galley brandishing katanas in their arms, as well. There were nine of them. Pretty girl who had been talking to me a moment ago, seem terrified by the whole scene.
“Who are they? What do they say?” – I asked anxiously
“They ask passengers to be quite and not leave their seats. I guess they are radical members of Japanese Communist League. They want to access to the cockpit, demand the pilot to open the door or they will stab the crew members one by one”.
I wasn’t sure whether they would negotiate a large sum of money for their extremist cause without hurting anyone or cut us into pieces out of sadistic urge. Nothing was for sure, inside twisted brain of Herman.
There was nothing I could do to stop them. “Where the heck is air marshal”- I thought. I wonder how did they manage to clear security at airport with so many lethal cold weapon unnoticed. Must be inside job.
What I read from their face, they were not fooling around. And pilot who grasped the seriousness of situation, complied with demands of left wing extremists and unlocked the entry to the cockpit.
“They want to divert the plane to North Korea. Land at Mirim Airport. And cockpit crew seem to comply. He just notified the ground control about hijack situation and forced change of the course.”
You son of ….. It was Herman, his dirty plan of reviving 1970s Yodogo Hijacking. North Korea meant even deeper levels of subconscious where I could stumble for centuries. I have to find the way out, before it enters the air space of Peoples Republic. He must have reconstructed this incident from his early memory. Wait a minute, there is a chronological inconsistence in this entire scenario. Herman is 45 years old tops. Even if he was a new born baby during the incident, he would have been 50 years old at least. I couldn’t understand how he rendered this memory. Maybe he had watched particular documentary on this incident on TV when he was kid. I doubt. Cos’ vizualized details in this dream were too realistic, to be seen on documentary. I had too many unanswered questions. I must find the way to leave the plane in time, before it touches down in Pyongyang . After failed attempts to open a new wormhole from my seat, I didn’t have much of a clue about my next steps. I saw no alternative but fighting those left wing extremists to stop them from diverting the plane. I was looking for any sharp or blunt object to arm with.
“Do you have scissors in your bag?”
“No I don’t, sorry. What are you up to? …I have a comb. Will it do?”
I ignored her ridiculous answer searching for anything that could be useful whilst attacking the terrorists. I checked the folding tray, the literature pocket…and my hand touched a small palm size and smooth object. I pulled it out. Believe it or not, it was…
“What is it, glowing? Are you some kind of secret agent or something” – she asked
“It’s a smartphone.
“Smart meaning clever . Or it is a new abbreviation”.
“Now I got a plan of escape. I’m getting out.
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The hijackers' motive was to find freedom in North Korea. Using North Korea as a base of operations, they could liberate South Korea from its oppression, then proceed to start workers' revolts across East Asia. (from Wikipedia)