Before I eat this fruit, before I experience the heavenly pleasure or hellish pain, I must record the unusual experience that I have undergone during the past four years. It is my duty to do so as a doctor of hematology. I am afraid it is too late now. Doctors of the world, doctors of hematology, genesiology, anesthesia, and biology, I urge you all to cooperate with the Singapore project team and discover the solution that will save the human species. There is little time left.
PART 1
It happened four years ago when I was the director of the department of hematology of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science. I was 50 years old.
On October 3, 1997, I went to Budapest, Hungary, to give a lecture on “Biologic studies of acute leukemia in childhood” at the 22nd Congress of the International Society of Hematology. After the congress, I flew to Romania to visit Bran Castle or the so-called Dracula Castle in the village of Bran in the Transylvania region, because I was a great fan of the Dracula movies, and had seen all of Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. I had long wanted to see the castle. Luckily, since the year 1997 fell on the 100th anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, commemorative events were being held in the village of Aref then.
When I reached Dracula Park at Aref, hundreds of Dracula fans and tourists were enjoying such events as Count Dracula’s Bride Contest; Prof. Raymond McNally’s lecture “In Search of Dracula;” Experiencing Stake Driving; and Dracula movies; and sales of Dracula books and goods. I joined almost all the festivities. I shook hands with Dracula. I even ate the very meal that Jonathan Harker ate in the novel.
The next day, I visited Dracula Castle. The castle was situated at a hillside of Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. Climbing the dark shadowy path to the castle, I suddenly saw an ominous castle through densely grown trees. The castle donjon was looking down upon me from above the hill. The roofs of the sharply protruded towers and enclosure brick walls were as red as blood, reminding me of numerous vampires and Count Dracula’s fangs.
I entered the castle. There were only a few visitors, probably due to the threatening weather. Going through small rooms, I reached Dracula’s bed room, dining room, music room, library, and the space where Dracula’s coffin lay. The black box let my imagination run wild. At any moment the lid would fling open, and Dracula would jump at me sinking his fangs deep into my neck, shedding blood. In one room a portrait of Dracula on the wall caught my eye. He had a white flower between his front teeth just like the red rose in Carmen’s mouth. Climbing down the secret spiral staircase, I went to the damp dungeon with scattered torture tools. It was suffocating. I climbed up the steep stairway again to the bright inneryard. I sat on a stone bench in front of an old draw well. After a while a middle aged woman in Romanian traditional clothing came and sat near me. She said, “Did you know this well was the entrance of the secret underground passage to the outside of the castle?” She was a veteran guide of the castle. In the course of the conversation, she told me about a singularly strange incident that occurred in the village of Pestera, 8 kilometers to the west of the castle.
“About 120 years ago in Pestera,” she continued. “Almost all the 600 villagers, including children and infants, within less than a year, died of an unknown disease which, a few survived villagers called ‘pale-white disease.’” As a doctor of hematology, I thought the “pale-white disease” was probably their name for anemia. I wondered, however, why such a large number of people died in such a short duration of time. I had an acute interest in the extraordinary death and decided to go to Pestera to investigate the real cause of the disease.
PART 1
It happened four years ago when I was the director of the department of hematology of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science. I was 50 years old.
On October 3, 1997, I went to Budapest, Hungary, to give a lecture on “Biologic studies of acute leukemia in childhood” at the 22nd Congress of the International Society of Hematology. After the congress, I flew to Romania to visit Bran Castle or the so-called Dracula Castle in the village of Bran in the Transylvania region, because I was a great fan of the Dracula movies, and had seen all of Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. I had long wanted to see the castle. Luckily, since the year 1997 fell on the 100th anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, commemorative events were being held in the village of Aref then.
When I reached Dracula Park at Aref, hundreds of Dracula fans and tourists were enjoying such events as Count Dracula’s Bride Contest; Prof. Raymond McNally’s lecture “In Search of Dracula;” Experiencing Stake Driving; and Dracula movies; and sales of Dracula books and goods. I joined almost all the festivities. I shook hands with Dracula. I even ate the very meal that Jonathan Harker ate in the novel.
The next day, I visited Dracula Castle. The castle was situated at a hillside of Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. Climbing the dark shadowy path to the castle, I suddenly saw an ominous castle through densely grown trees. The castle donjon was looking down upon me from above the hill. The roofs of the sharply protruded towers and enclosure brick walls were as red as blood, reminding me of numerous vampires and Count Dracula’s fangs.
I entered the castle. There were only a few visitors, probably due to the threatening weather. Going through small rooms, I reached Dracula’s bed room, dining room, music room, library, and the space where Dracula’s coffin lay. The black box let my imagination run wild. At any moment the lid would fling open, and Dracula would jump at me sinking his fangs deep into my neck, shedding blood. In one room a portrait of Dracula on the wall caught my eye. He had a white flower between his front teeth just like the red rose in Carmen’s mouth. Climbing down the secret spiral staircase, I went to the damp dungeon with scattered torture tools. It was suffocating. I climbed up the steep stairway again to the bright inneryard. I sat on a stone bench in front of an old draw well. After a while a middle aged woman in Romanian traditional clothing came and sat near me. She said, “Did you know this well was the entrance of the secret underground passage to the outside of the castle?” She was a veteran guide of the castle. In the course of the conversation, she told me about a singularly strange incident that occurred in the village of Pestera, 8 kilometers to the west of the castle.
“About 120 years ago in Pestera,” she continued. “Almost all the 600 villagers, including children and infants, within less than a year, died of an unknown disease which, a few survived villagers called ‘pale-white disease.’” As a doctor of hematology, I thought the “pale-white disease” was probably their name for anemia. I wondered, however, why such a large number of people died in such a short duration of time. I had an acute interest in the extraordinary death and decided to go to Pestera to investigate the real cause of the disease.
PART 2
Two days later, I hired a taxi and drove to Pestera. On the way to Pestera, the taxi climbed up and down a winding mountain road, passed through a tunnel, crossed a river, climbed again, and finally reached the hill top that commanded the view of the village of Pestera. I saw a narrow lake in the northern part of the village and a church steeple in the center. The three sides of Pestera were surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains and the fourth side was blocked by a wide river, an arm of the River Danube. The village was geographically separated from the neighboring villages and towns, making it an isolated island on land.
First, I visited Saint Evangelic Church, the oldest church in Pestera, because I thought there should be some old documents about the disease. The church was built in 1223, and was called “Red Church,” because when the Ottomanｓ army invaded the village in 1453, they killed all the villagers who hid themselves in the church, dyeing the stone floor of the church with blood.
When I entered the church, I heard a pipe organ sharply resonating all through the empty space. The crucified Jesus statue at the center of four tall candles on the altar was shining, reflecting the colorful afternoon light rays through the stained glasses. I felt a profound silence in the deafening solemn organ music. Suddenly the music stopped. I heard a footstep coming toward me.
“Are you the Japanese who telephoned me yesterday?” a skinny, tall priest asked me. His neck was so narrow that the roman collar he wore looked baggy. His Adam’s apple protruded conspicuously.
“Yes, I am a doctor of hematology from Japan. As I told you on the phone yesterday, I’ve come here to ask you a favor. I want to find out the real cause of the unusual ‘pale-white disease.’ Have you found anything helpful?”
“Yes, I think I have. We have the books of remembrance that record the names of the departed ones. Please come along with me. One of the oldest ones will serve you, I hope.”
So saying, he bowed before the cross and went to the right-side door of the church. I followed him. He went through the door into the cloister and walked on along the archways. The green grass in the churchyard was shining under the fall sun. At the dead end of the cloister, the priest descended the steps, walked along a dark half-underground path, and finally came to an old wooden door and stopped in front of it.
“This room is the second library of this church. It keeps historical documents since the foundation of this church,” he said and turned the key and pushed the door open.
The room was dark and smelled stale. In one corner was a wooden box and some old Christian pictures in frames were piled on it. Bookshelves stood at the three sides of the room. A headless wooden statue sat on the floor in front of a small window. The priest picked up one of the books from the shelf.
“This is the book of remembrance recorded in the eighteenth century,” he said and began to turn over the pages.
“There. This is the page that records the names of the victims of the disease.”
I looked at the page and saw a number of names with the date and age of their deaths. The dates were congested within a time span of four months from June to September in 1881. The book recorded the deaths of not only men and women but also of children. What the guide of Dracula Castle had said to me was true. When I continued thumbing through still more pages, an envelope fell from the book on to the floor. I picked it up and saw the letters written on the cover of the envelope. They said: TO DOCTORS OF BLOOD.
I asked the priest, who was apparently as curious as I, about the envelope, if I might open it.
“Yes, please. I didn’t know about it at all. What on earth can it be?” he was as curious as I.
The letter read:
“The total number of d------ caused by the pale-white disease is more than 600. The victims of the disease are adults, but children also became their victims. The population of our village three years ago was around 650. The only remaining survivors are the aged and infants. They -----, however, die soon. They have nobody to feed them. Dead ---- are lying in every house. No funerals. It is just a matter of time before my village will perish forever. The village is cursed.
“I am enclosing some fruit seeds. They are seeds of ‘Heavenly Fruit’ or ‘---- Fruit.’ Doctors of blood, please grow the seeds, study the fruit, and find out the cause and cure of the disease. I am dying now. I have no blood, no -----d. Probably I will be the last survivor in the village. God be with you.”
PART 3
Because the letter was more than 120 years old, some parts (indicated with the ----- marks) were decayed and unreadable, but I made out all of them except the last but one. They were, in the order of appearance, most probably ‘deaths,’ ‘will,’ ‘bodies,’ and ‘food’ for the last. I guessed the blank part of ‘---- Fruit’ might be substituted with ‘Divine,’ ‘Godly,’ or ‘Blessed.’
I looked in the envelope and found a small paper parcel. I unfolded it and found six tiny brown seeds, just about the same size as apple seeds.
“Father, I am a hematologist. I would like to grow the seeds and find out the cause of the disease. Could you give me the seeds?” I asked.
“With pleasure. I wonder why all my predecessors have failed to notice the letter. They may have neglected the request of the letter. Anyway, I think it a godly miracle that a hematologist like you has come to visit us all the way from Japan and found the letter.”
After staying in Romania for a few more days, I flew back to Japan with the seeds in my baggage.
The Tokyo Institute of Medical Science is situated in Minato Ward, Tokyo. More than 1,000 medical professionals including doctors, researchers, professors, post doctorial fellows work here. The department of hematology consisting of 78 researchers is on the 17th floor. It focuses on the blood diseases: disorders of red blood cell production, bleeding and clotting disorders, and hematologic malignancies such as leukemia. I live within a fifteen minute’s walk from the institution. My wife died four years ago from leukemia. My only daughter, Mikiko, is a student of Kyoto University majoring in medicine.
When I returned home on October 11, 1997, I first thought of asking a biologist to grow the seeds, but on second thought, I decided to grow them by myself because I remembered how my wife had grown the so-called Tutankhamen peas, which were believed to have been discovered in Tutankhamen’s tomb. She sowed the five 3300-year old seeds in a flower pot and put it in the sunny living room, and after six months of good care, she harvested rich violet-colored peas. Moreover, I had recently read in a newspaper that Dr. Ichiro Oga, a botanist, discovered three lotus seeds in a geological layer of Japan’s Yayoi era (2000 years ago), and succeeded in blooming one of them. I also thought of keeping a record of the growth of the seeds by taking their pictures. Since I had six seeds, I planted just thee of them so that I would be still able to try again with the other three in case the first three should fail. I planted each seed in a flower pot as large as a bucket, and put them in the living room. (All the pictures which recorded the growth of the plant are kept in the first drawer of my desk. You can also find them in My Picture folder in my computer.)
Four years passed. Though two of the seeds failed to grow, the third one grew into a 1.2-meter-tall tree with a trunk of 4 centimeters in diameter. It looked like an ordinary rubber tree with small dark green oblong leaves except that tendrils emerged out of most of the leaf nodes. There were about 20 tendrils altogether on the tree. Some of them were just 15 centimeters and others about 40 centimeters long. They were pale green color. Like pea tendrils, they were soft and flexible, but had no coils at the tip. They just hung down lazily, blown by the summer breeze. I wondered what the purpose of the tendrils if they did not coil around other plants. The leaves were vivid. Since the color of the leave veins were pale green against a deep green of the leaves, you could clearly see how each line of the veins ran on the leaf.
One day early October in 2001, I found some flower buds on the tree. How happy and moved I was to find the tiny buds after four years. “The flowers will soon bloom, and the fruits will soon ripen as the letter in Red Church mentioned. Success is just around the corner,” I thought.
A week later, when I was eating bread and butter for breakfast watching a morning news program on television, I smelled a strong sweet smell. I wondered where that lovely fragrance came from. I looked around the room and, lo! found some beautiful white flowers in full bloom on the tree. The buds had opened. The 120-year-old seeds from Romania had at last produced flowers. I rushed to the flowers. They were tiny, rose-shaped, flowers. I put my nose against the flower and smelled. How sweet, how flagrant, how sensual!
I breathed deep and smelled the flowers again. Suddenly, I felt dizzy and fell on to the ground. What happened? I stood up and saw the flowers. They were not white, but faintly reddish. I wondered, “It’s strange. When I saw the flowers just a minute ago, they were pure white. Why are they faintly reddish?” I came close to one of the flowers and put my nose near the flower, something unusual happened. I saw some tendrils rising as if they were cobras that were lifting their heads. Nonetheless, I smelled the flowers again. What a strong sweet smell! At that instant, I was startled. I saw some of the tendrils stick in my arms. I stood still watching them. The color of the tendrils began to turn red. Then to my surprise, I saw the color of the flowers turning red. All the leaf veins turned the color of blood. My blood! I fainted again and fell.
Two days later, I hired a taxi and drove to Pestera. On the way to Pestera, the taxi climbed up and down a winding mountain road, passed through a tunnel, crossed a river, climbed again, and finally reached the hill top that commanded the view of the village of Pestera. I saw a narrow lake in the northern part of the village and a church steeple in the center. The three sides of Pestera were surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains and the fourth side was blocked by a wide river, an arm of the River Danube. The village was geographically separated from the neighboring villages and towns, making it an isolated island on land.
First, I visited Saint Evangelic Church, the oldest church in Pestera, because I thought there should be some old documents about the disease. The church was built in 1223, and was called “Red Church,” because when the Ottomanｓ army invaded the village in 1453, they killed all the villagers who hid themselves in the church, dyeing the stone floor of the church with blood.
When I entered the church, I heard a pipe organ sharply resonating all through the empty space. The crucified Jesus statue at the center of four tall candles on the altar was shining, reflecting the colorful afternoon light rays through the stained glasses. I felt a profound silence in the deafening solemn organ music. Suddenly the music stopped. I heard a footstep coming toward me.
“Are you the Japanese who telephoned me yesterday?” a skinny, tall priest asked me. His neck was so narrow that the roman collar he wore looked baggy. His Adam’s apple protruded conspicuously.
“Yes, I am a doctor of hematology from Japan. As I told you on the phone yesterday, I’ve come here to ask you a favor. I want to find out the real cause of the unusual ‘pale-white disease.’ Have you found anything helpful?”
“Yes, I think I have. We have the books of remembrance that record the names of the departed ones. Please come along with me. One of the oldest ones will serve you, I hope.”
So saying, he bowed before the cross and went to the right-side door of the church. I followed him. He went through the door into the cloister and walked on along the archways. The green grass in the churchyard was shining under the fall sun. At the dead end of the cloister, the priest descended the steps, walked along a dark half-underground path, and finally came to an old wooden door and stopped in front of it.
“This room is the second library of this church. It keeps historical documents since the foundation of this church,” he said and turned the key and pushed the door open.
The room was dark and smelled stale. In one corner was a wooden box and some old Christian pictures in frames were piled on it. Bookshelves stood at the three sides of the room. A headless wooden statue sat on the floor in front of a small window. The priest picked up one of the books from the shelf.
“This is the book of remembrance recorded in the eighteenth century,” he said and began to turn over the pages.
“There. This is the page that records the names of the victims of the disease.”
I looked at the page and saw a number of names with the date and age of their deaths. The dates were congested within a time span of four months from June to September in 1881. The book recorded the deaths of not only men and women but also of children. What the guide of Dracula Castle had said to me was true. When I continued thumbing through still more pages, an envelope fell from the book on to the floor. I picked it up and saw the letters written on the cover of the envelope. They said: TO DOCTORS OF BLOOD.
I asked the priest, who was apparently as curious as I, about the envelope, if I might open it.
“Yes, please. I didn’t know about it at all. What on earth can it be?” he was as curious as I.
The letter read:
“The total number of d------ caused by the pale-white disease is more than 600. The victims of the disease are adults, but children also became their victims. The population of our village three years ago was around 650. The only remaining survivors are the aged and infants. They -----, however, die soon. They have nobody to feed them. Dead ---- are lying in every house. No funerals. It is just a matter of time before my village will perish forever. The village is cursed.
“I am enclosing some fruit seeds. They are seeds of ‘Heavenly Fruit’ or ‘---- Fruit.’ Doctors of blood, please grow the seeds, study the fruit, and find out the cause and cure of the disease. I am dying now. I have no blood, no -----d. Probably I will be the last survivor in the village. God be with you.”
PART 3
Because the letter was more than 120 years old, some parts (indicated with the ----- marks) were decayed and unreadable, but I made out all of them except the last but one. They were, in the order of appearance, most probably ‘deaths,’ ‘will,’ ‘bodies,’ and ‘food’ for the last. I guessed the blank part of ‘---- Fruit’ might be substituted with ‘Divine,’ ‘Godly,’ or ‘Blessed.’
I looked in the envelope and found a small paper parcel. I unfolded it and found six tiny brown seeds, just about the same size as apple seeds.
“Father, I am a hematologist. I would like to grow the seeds and find out the cause of the disease. Could you give me the seeds?” I asked.
“With pleasure. I wonder why all my predecessors have failed to notice the letter. They may have neglected the request of the letter. Anyway, I think it a godly miracle that a hematologist like you has come to visit us all the way from Japan and found the letter.”
After staying in Romania for a few more days, I flew back to Japan with the seeds in my baggage.
The Tokyo Institute of Medical Science is situated in Minato Ward, Tokyo. More than 1,000 medical professionals including doctors, researchers, professors, post doctorial fellows work here. The department of hematology consisting of 78 researchers is on the 17th floor. It focuses on the blood diseases: disorders of red blood cell production, bleeding and clotting disorders, and hematologic malignancies such as leukemia. I live within a fifteen minute’s walk from the institution. My wife died four years ago from leukemia. My only daughter, Mikiko, is a student of Kyoto University majoring in medicine.
When I returned home on October 11, 1997, I first thought of asking a biologist to grow the seeds, but on second thought, I decided to grow them by myself because I remembered how my wife had grown the so-called Tutankhamen peas, which were believed to have been discovered in Tutankhamen’s tomb. She sowed the five 3300-year old seeds in a flower pot and put it in the sunny living room, and after six months of good care, she harvested rich violet-colored peas. Moreover, I had recently read in a newspaper that Dr. Ichiro Oga, a botanist, discovered three lotus seeds in a geological layer of Japan’s Yayoi era (2000 years ago), and succeeded in blooming one of them. I also thought of keeping a record of the growth of the seeds by taking their pictures. Since I had six seeds, I planted just thee of them so that I would be still able to try again with the other three in case the first three should fail. I planted each seed in a flower pot as large as a bucket, and put them in the living room. (All the pictures which recorded the growth of the plant are kept in the first drawer of my desk. You can also find them in My Picture folder in my computer.)
Four years passed. Though two of the seeds failed to grow, the third one grew into a 1.2-meter-tall tree with a trunk of 4 centimeters in diameter. It looked like an ordinary rubber tree with small dark green oblong leaves except that tendrils emerged out of most of the leaf nodes. There were about 20 tendrils altogether on the tree. Some of them were just 15 centimeters and others about 40 centimeters long. They were pale green color. Like pea tendrils, they were soft and flexible, but had no coils at the tip. They just hung down lazily, blown by the summer breeze. I wondered what the purpose of the tendrils if they did not coil around other plants. The leaves were vivid. Since the color of the leave veins were pale green against a deep green of the leaves, you could clearly see how each line of the veins ran on the leaf.
One day early October in 2001, I found some flower buds on the tree. How happy and moved I was to find the tiny buds after four years. “The flowers will soon bloom, and the fruits will soon ripen as the letter in Red Church mentioned. Success is just around the corner,” I thought.
A week later, when I was eating bread and butter for breakfast watching a morning news program on television, I smelled a strong sweet smell. I wondered where that lovely fragrance came from. I looked around the room and, lo! found some beautiful white flowers in full bloom on the tree. The buds had opened. The 120-year-old seeds from Romania had at last produced flowers. I rushed to the flowers. They were tiny, rose-shaped, flowers. I put my nose against the flower and smelled. How sweet, how flagrant, how sensual!
I breathed deep and smelled the flowers again. Suddenly, I felt dizzy and fell on to the ground. What happened? I stood up and saw the flowers. They were not white, but faintly reddish. I wondered, “It’s strange. When I saw the flowers just a minute ago, they were pure white. Why are they faintly reddish?” I came close to one of the flowers and put my nose near the flower, something unusual happened. I saw some tendrils rising as if they were cobras that were lifting their heads. Nonetheless, I smelled the flowers again. What a strong sweet smell! At that instant, I was startled. I saw some of the tendrils stick in my arms. I stood still watching them. The color of the tendrils began to turn red. Then to my surprise, I saw the color of the flowers turning red. All the leaf veins turned the color of blood. My blood! I fainted again and fell.
PART 4
When I fell, the tendrils let go of my arms．Ｔhe plant with reddish flowers and leaves stood there as if nothing had happened.
“It was sucking blood. Was it my imagination?” I was bewildered. I could not believe what had happened. I wondered if it had been an illusion. To make it sure, I again stood up and went near the strange plant. When I approached within 30 centimeters of the plant, all the tendrils, as if they had smelled my blood like blood-sucking vampires, became erect and floated in the air at me again. That was not an illusion. This is a fact! Some tendrils aimed at my face and neck, and others at my arms and hands. I went within the reach of the tendrils intentionally. They stuck my arms and began to suck my blood. I grabbed some tendrils and tore them. I saw blood dripping from their cut edges. My hands were stained with blood. I lost control. I became so frightened, so furious that I trembled and said to myself, “I must destroy this monster right now.” I rushed into the room to fetch pruning scissors and a saw.
When I drew open the tool box drawer, the telephone rang. I was startled. It was from my daughter, Kimiko. She said that she was planning to go to London to attend a four-week intensive English language course during the winter vacation and that she might not be able to come back home on New Year’s Day.
“You can’t come home? That’s too bad. So, do you have enough money for the trip?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, dad. I have earned enough money. You know I have been tutoring two high school students. Kyoto University students are in high demand. They pay more to us than other university students. Besides, guess what, dad, I’ve got a prize money of 500,000 yen. ‘How come?’ I was selected Miss Kyoto at the Kyoto Beauty Festival last month. I didn’t tell you about that, but it was televised by the Kyoto Broadcasting System. Can you believe it? Out of 591 applicants.”
“Oh, so, you have exposed your body to the public? How shameless! You are pretty, I know. Like Mother, like daughter. Your mother was, to tell you the truth, Miss Hiroshima.”
“What a surprise! I didn’t know that. So, you married a shameless girl, didn’t you?” she said.
“So, when are you planning to come home?”
“I don’t know. Probably during the next summer vacation.”
Since Kimiko entered the university two years ago, I was alone at home. I sometimes felt lonely. I wished she would finish her doctorial course as soon as possible and work at the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science.
I forgot about the plant. My rage and fear had subsided. I came to myself and thought, “Wait a moment. That strange tree had flowers. That means they will soon bear ‘heavenly fruits’ as the old Romanian letter mentioned. I went out to the garden and looked at the plant. The flowers were more reddish. The color of the leave veins that were reddish thirty minutes ago had turned pale white, their original color. All the blood in the tendrils and leaves must have been carried to the flowers. The tree stood peacefully with its tendrils dangling in the sunny fall breeze. Was it a dream? Did it actually happen? I looked at some of the leaves carefully and saw some blood stains on them. Yes, it really happened. This strange plant grows on water and blood, I thought.
I remembered that some plants ‘eat’ insects. Some of the carnivorous plants have pinchers. Once insects, attracted by the smell, stand at the rim of the pinchers, they are trapped and fall to the bottom of the pincher and are digested.
But I had never heard of blood-sucking plants. Did the villagers in Pestera, Romania, suffer from the ‘pale-white’ disease because of this plant? Did the plant suck their blood? Unbelievable. Of course I was attracted by the sweet smell, but I was not trapped. I jumped away from the dreadful plant when I noticed the singular phenomenon. Why didn’t the villagers back away from the plant before their blood was sucked too much? Did they keep letting their blood be sucked until they had anemia and died? If the tree was so strong, and if the tendrils were strong enough to hold their bodies so tight that they couldn’t get away from the tree, why didn’t they destroy the tree before it was too late? I wondered.
PART 5
Every day after the dreadful incident, I looked at the flowers full of curiosity. They became larger and more beautiful, day after day. The pinkish flowers continued to attract me by emitting the sweetest fragrance that I had ever smelled. It was difficult to resist going near the bloodsucking plant. I desired to draw my lungs full of the enchanting smell. I craved to put my nose on the flowers to smell them.
There was a battle between the Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in my mind. The Jekyll in me refused to approach the plant, “Don’t go there, or your blood will be sucked and you will be sick. Destroy the plant as soon as possible.” But the Hyde whispered into my ear, “Go and smell the flowers before they die. Giving a little of your blood doesn’t matter at all. If you feel any bit of danger, you can always step away from it or tear the tendrils.”
I yielded to the Hyde. Driven by some instinctive force, I approached the plant and smelled them, feeding it with my blood at the same time. The flowers were in bloom for about a week during which time they sucked my blood three or four times. Little did I blame myself for succumbing to the plant. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Any man yields to the most beautiful woman on earth. Any woman yields to the most handsome man in the world. Nobody can resist eating the most delicious dish ever served. I followed my instinct, but gave my blood with discretion because I, a hematologist, knew that the lost blood cells would be instantaneously supplied with newly created blood cells on condition that the amount of the lost blood was not fatal.
After ten days, the petals of the flowers became brown and dry. In the end, they fell from the plant, leaving ovaries. It would be a week or two before the ovaries developed into fruits, I thought.
One afternoon while I was watching the tree, I began to wonder, “Why does the plant suck blood? What has caused the plant to suck blood? Isn’t it a mutation of the plant? Then, what is the cause of the mutation? How did it happen? There should be some cause for sucking blood and the mutation. What is it?” Then I remembered the village of Pestera where I got the seeds. Pestera was about 8 kilometers from Dracula Castle. Dracula sucked blood. Dracula and the sucking plant. There should be some relationship between them. I must study about Dracula, I thought.
I went to a library. After reading several books on Dracula, I found out that Dracula originated from a man named Vlad Dracula, also known as “Vlad the Impaler.” He was the prince of Walachia, Romania. In 1460 when Ottoman Turks invaded Walachia, he drove them out, capturing 23,000 Ottoman soldiers. He executed them by impalement. The stake was inserted into the body through the anus and emerged from the mouth. The victims were hung upside down on the stakes on the banks of the Dnube, which ran on the eastern side of Pestera. When the Ottomans attacked Walachia again in 1462, they were again defeated and 40,000 prisoners of wars were executed by impalement on the same banks. Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, a city near Pestera, exhibits dozens of decayed stakes discovered in Pestera.
I trembled to imagine the forest of the impaled. The blood of more than 60,000 victims was shed on the banks of the Danube in the village of Pestera. I concluded that Vlad’s impalement had something to do with the mutation of the plant, because the seeds of the dreadful plant came from Pestera, and it was in Pestera that the infinite amount of blood was shed.
Two weeks later, of several ovaries, only one of them developed a slightly reddish tiny fruit, about the same size with a grape. Four and a half years after I brought the seeds from Romania, the tree finally bore a fruit. How happy I was! I congratulated myself on the success. I waited till the fruit ripened fully. Day by day the color of the fruit turned more and more reddish until one day it fell off the branch. Now I can eat it. Now I can eat the heavenly fruit and solve the secret of the pale-white disease. I brought it to my mouth.
When I fell, the tendrils let go of my arms．Ｔhe plant with reddish flowers and leaves stood there as if nothing had happened.
“It was sucking blood. Was it my imagination?” I was bewildered. I could not believe what had happened. I wondered if it had been an illusion. To make it sure, I again stood up and went near the strange plant. When I approached within 30 centimeters of the plant, all the tendrils, as if they had smelled my blood like blood-sucking vampires, became erect and floated in the air at me again. That was not an illusion. This is a fact! Some tendrils aimed at my face and neck, and others at my arms and hands. I went within the reach of the tendrils intentionally. They stuck my arms and began to suck my blood. I grabbed some tendrils and tore them. I saw blood dripping from their cut edges. My hands were stained with blood. I lost control. I became so frightened, so furious that I trembled and said to myself, “I must destroy this monster right now.” I rushed into the room to fetch pruning scissors and a saw.
When I drew open the tool box drawer, the telephone rang. I was startled. It was from my daughter, Kimiko. She said that she was planning to go to London to attend a four-week intensive English language course during the winter vacation and that she might not be able to come back home on New Year’s Day.
“You can’t come home? That’s too bad. So, do you have enough money for the trip?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, dad. I have earned enough money. You know I have been tutoring two high school students. Kyoto University students are in high demand. They pay more to us than other university students. Besides, guess what, dad, I’ve got a prize money of 500,000 yen. ‘How come?’ I was selected Miss Kyoto at the Kyoto Beauty Festival last month. I didn’t tell you about that, but it was televised by the Kyoto Broadcasting System. Can you believe it? Out of 591 applicants.”
“Oh, so, you have exposed your body to the public? How shameless! You are pretty, I know. Like Mother, like daughter. Your mother was, to tell you the truth, Miss Hiroshima.”
“What a surprise! I didn’t know that. So, you married a shameless girl, didn’t you?” she said.
“So, when are you planning to come home?”
“I don’t know. Probably during the next summer vacation.”
Since Kimiko entered the university two years ago, I was alone at home. I sometimes felt lonely. I wished she would finish her doctorial course as soon as possible and work at the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science.
I forgot about the plant. My rage and fear had subsided. I came to myself and thought, “Wait a moment. That strange tree had flowers. That means they will soon bear ‘heavenly fruits’ as the old Romanian letter mentioned. I went out to the garden and looked at the plant. The flowers were more reddish. The color of the leave veins that were reddish thirty minutes ago had turned pale white, their original color. All the blood in the tendrils and leaves must have been carried to the flowers. The tree stood peacefully with its tendrils dangling in the sunny fall breeze. Was it a dream? Did it actually happen? I looked at some of the leaves carefully and saw some blood stains on them. Yes, it really happened. This strange plant grows on water and blood, I thought.
I remembered that some plants ‘eat’ insects. Some of the carnivorous plants have pinchers. Once insects, attracted by the smell, stand at the rim of the pinchers, they are trapped and fall to the bottom of the pincher and are digested.
But I had never heard of blood-sucking plants. Did the villagers in Pestera, Romania, suffer from the ‘pale-white’ disease because of this plant? Did the plant suck their blood? Unbelievable. Of course I was attracted by the sweet smell, but I was not trapped. I jumped away from the dreadful plant when I noticed the singular phenomenon. Why didn’t the villagers back away from the plant before their blood was sucked too much? Did they keep letting their blood be sucked until they had anemia and died? If the tree was so strong, and if the tendrils were strong enough to hold their bodies so tight that they couldn’t get away from the tree, why didn’t they destroy the tree before it was too late? I wondered.
PART 5
Every day after the dreadful incident, I looked at the flowers full of curiosity. They became larger and more beautiful, day after day. The pinkish flowers continued to attract me by emitting the sweetest fragrance that I had ever smelled. It was difficult to resist going near the bloodsucking plant. I desired to draw my lungs full of the enchanting smell. I craved to put my nose on the flowers to smell them.
There was a battle between the Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in my mind. The Jekyll in me refused to approach the plant, “Don’t go there, or your blood will be sucked and you will be sick. Destroy the plant as soon as possible.” But the Hyde whispered into my ear, “Go and smell the flowers before they die. Giving a little of your blood doesn’t matter at all. If you feel any bit of danger, you can always step away from it or tear the tendrils.”
I yielded to the Hyde. Driven by some instinctive force, I approached the plant and smelled them, feeding it with my blood at the same time. The flowers were in bloom for about a week during which time they sucked my blood three or four times. Little did I blame myself for succumbing to the plant. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Any man yields to the most beautiful woman on earth. Any woman yields to the most handsome man in the world. Nobody can resist eating the most delicious dish ever served. I followed my instinct, but gave my blood with discretion because I, a hematologist, knew that the lost blood cells would be instantaneously supplied with newly created blood cells on condition that the amount of the lost blood was not fatal.
After ten days, the petals of the flowers became brown and dry. In the end, they fell from the plant, leaving ovaries. It would be a week or two before the ovaries developed into fruits, I thought.
One afternoon while I was watching the tree, I began to wonder, “Why does the plant suck blood? What has caused the plant to suck blood? Isn’t it a mutation of the plant? Then, what is the cause of the mutation? How did it happen? There should be some cause for sucking blood and the mutation. What is it?” Then I remembered the village of Pestera where I got the seeds. Pestera was about 8 kilometers from Dracula Castle. Dracula sucked blood. Dracula and the sucking plant. There should be some relationship between them. I must study about Dracula, I thought.
I went to a library. After reading several books on Dracula, I found out that Dracula originated from a man named Vlad Dracula, also known as “Vlad the Impaler.” He was the prince of Walachia, Romania. In 1460 when Ottoman Turks invaded Walachia, he drove them out, capturing 23,000 Ottoman soldiers. He executed them by impalement. The stake was inserted into the body through the anus and emerged from the mouth. The victims were hung upside down on the stakes on the banks of the Dnube, which ran on the eastern side of Pestera. When the Ottomans attacked Walachia again in 1462, they were again defeated and 40,000 prisoners of wars were executed by impalement on the same banks. Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, a city near Pestera, exhibits dozens of decayed stakes discovered in Pestera.
I trembled to imagine the forest of the impaled. The blood of more than 60,000 victims was shed on the banks of the Danube in the village of Pestera. I concluded that Vlad’s impalement had something to do with the mutation of the plant, because the seeds of the dreadful plant came from Pestera, and it was in Pestera that the infinite amount of blood was shed.
Two weeks later, of several ovaries, only one of them developed a slightly reddish tiny fruit, about the same size with a grape. Four and a half years after I brought the seeds from Romania, the tree finally bore a fruit. How happy I was! I congratulated myself on the success. I waited till the fruit ripened fully. Day by day the color of the fruit turned more and more reddish until one day it fell off the branch. Now I can eat it. Now I can eat the heavenly fruit and solve the secret of the pale-white disease. I brought it to my mouth.
PART 6
That instant, I remembered what was written in the letter I found in the Red Church. The letter said, “…study the fruit, and find out the cause and cure of the disease.” “Then, it is probable that the fruit was somehow the cause of the disease,” I thought. “The fruit might be fatal. I must be careful.”
That instant, I remembered what was written in the letter I found in the Red Church. The letter said, “…study the fruit, and find out the cause and cure of the disease.” “Then, it is probable that the fruit was somehow the cause of the disease,” I thought. “The fruit might be fatal. I must be careful.”
I took the fruit to the kitchen and washed it. I took a knife and cut it into halves. I cautiously licked one of them. It tasted sweet. I paused for a while. No symptom of poison or palsy. I cut the other half into small pieces, picked up one of them, and put it in my mouth. I fearfully chewed it.
It melted slowly on my tongue, emitting a sweet fragrance. It tasted sweet. I waited for a while again. No unusual symptom. “OK. This is not poisonous,” I thought. I popped the rest of the fruit into my mouth all at once. I tasted it. Strangely enough, at first, it tasted like ripe pomegranates, then like ripe figs, and finally like red wine. The taste changed three times. I had never tasted anything like that. I thought the forbidden fruit of Eden must have tasted like that.
Then, I began to feel slightly drunk, and at the same time felt good. I felt some sensation, some sexual sensation. Gradually the sensual feeling began to penetrate all of my body. My heart began to beat faster and faster. My blood began to rush into my penis. It stiffened. I panted. I could not keep standing. I fell. Voluptuous sensation ran higher and higher and higher until it exploded in my brain. I had an orgasm. My limbs trembled with ecstasy. I swooned with excitement. I could not move. I felt as if I were in heaven.
Looking at the ceiling with my back on the floor, I wondered, “What was that? I did not have sex. I did not masturbate. Yet, I felt twice as strong orgasm as the one I had experienced before. I felt as if I had had sex with Eros. I experienced the most extreme pleasure. Now, I understood the meaning of “heavenly fruit” in the letter.
I looked at the magical plant. It stood there as if nothing had happened. The leaf veins were as pale green as before. The tendrils hung down as before, too. I wanted to eat the fruit again. I desperately wanted to experience the heavenly ecstasy. I desired the plant to flower again. “I must wait patiently until the next flower bloomed, but when will it be? Will it be next year or earlier than that?” I wondered. I approached the plant to see if the tendrils would rise and stick in my arms and neck, but they did not. They just hung down in the air uselessly.
“Should I report the incident to the staff members of the department of hematology?” I wondered. “Should I tell them that the plant I keep in my garden sucks blood and bear fruits that let you experience an orgasm? Nobody would believe it. Do I have to make them believe it? Do I, as the head of the department, have responsibility to disclose the secret of the plant? Is this a public matter or a private matter? As a scholar of hematology, I think I must share the singular experience with the staff, but what will happen if I bring the plant and the fruit to the laboratory of the Institute of Medical Science? The 78 members of the department might damage the precious plant in the course of hematological experiments. Besides, scholars of reproduction and biology will also show interests. They might also damage the plant in the process of experiments. Then I can no longer enjoy the sensual pleasure, that heavenly orgasm. The plant is mine. The letter clearly mentioned that the doctors of blood would study the seeds and the fruit. I am a doctor of blood. I can study the plant by myself. It is not too late to make my findings public after I have completed the study of the plant.” I invented my own excuses for not making the plant public. I wanted to monopolize the ecstasy plant for myself.
From that day on, I continued to water the plant, to pull out the weeds, and to move the flower pot constantly to a sunnier place in the living room. I waited for the next flower to bloom. I said to myself, “If the plant produces another flower, I will give my blood to it as much as possible so that the fruit will be richer, so that the heavenly feeling will be much stronger.”
Then after two months it bore six flowers.
It melted slowly on my tongue, emitting a sweet fragrance. It tasted sweet. I waited for a while again. No unusual symptom. “OK. This is not poisonous,” I thought. I popped the rest of the fruit into my mouth all at once. I tasted it. Strangely enough, at first, it tasted like ripe pomegranates, then like ripe figs, and finally like red wine. The taste changed three times. I had never tasted anything like that. I thought the forbidden fruit of Eden must have tasted like that.
Then, I began to feel slightly drunk, and at the same time felt good. I felt some sensation, some sexual sensation. Gradually the sensual feeling began to penetrate all of my body. My heart began to beat faster and faster. My blood began to rush into my penis. It stiffened. I panted. I could not keep standing. I fell. Voluptuous sensation ran higher and higher and higher until it exploded in my brain. I had an orgasm. My limbs trembled with ecstasy. I swooned with excitement. I could not move. I felt as if I were in heaven.
Looking at the ceiling with my back on the floor, I wondered, “What was that? I did not have sex. I did not masturbate. Yet, I felt twice as strong orgasm as the one I had experienced before. I felt as if I had had sex with Eros. I experienced the most extreme pleasure. Now, I understood the meaning of “heavenly fruit” in the letter.
I looked at the magical plant. It stood there as if nothing had happened. The leaf veins were as pale green as before. The tendrils hung down as before, too. I wanted to eat the fruit again. I desperately wanted to experience the heavenly ecstasy. I desired the plant to flower again. “I must wait patiently until the next flower bloomed, but when will it be? Will it be next year or earlier than that?” I wondered. I approached the plant to see if the tendrils would rise and stick in my arms and neck, but they did not. They just hung down in the air uselessly.
“Should I report the incident to the staff members of the department of hematology?” I wondered. “Should I tell them that the plant I keep in my garden sucks blood and bear fruits that let you experience an orgasm? Nobody would believe it. Do I have to make them believe it? Do I, as the head of the department, have responsibility to disclose the secret of the plant? Is this a public matter or a private matter? As a scholar of hematology, I think I must share the singular experience with the staff, but what will happen if I bring the plant and the fruit to the laboratory of the Institute of Medical Science? The 78 members of the department might damage the precious plant in the course of hematological experiments. Besides, scholars of reproduction and biology will also show interests. They might also damage the plant in the process of experiments. Then I can no longer enjoy the sensual pleasure, that heavenly orgasm. The plant is mine. The letter clearly mentioned that the doctors of blood would study the seeds and the fruit. I am a doctor of blood. I can study the plant by myself. It is not too late to make my findings public after I have completed the study of the plant.” I invented my own excuses for not making the plant public. I wanted to monopolize the ecstasy plant for myself.
From that day on, I continued to water the plant, to pull out the weeds, and to move the flower pot constantly to a sunnier place in the living room. I waited for the next flower to bloom. I said to myself, “If the plant produces another flower, I will give my blood to it as much as possible so that the fruit will be richer, so that the heavenly feeling will be much stronger.”
Then after two months it bore six flowers.
PART 7
A mere sight of the white flowers excited my sensuality. The sweet fragrance added to it. I approached the flowers and smelled them, expecting the peculiar movement of the tendrils. I was not afraid of loosing my blood because I knew I could always get away from the plant if I wished. I smelled the flowers. All the tendrils rose and stuck in my neck and arms. I did not feel any pain. They began to suck my blood. The color of the tendrils began to turn reddish, and then the leaf veins also began to turn reddish. I felt a little dizzy, but could not help continuing to feed the flowers my blood. I felt as if my brain were obeying some mystic order. Then little by little some of the white flowers began to turn pinkish. I felt dizzier, yet, at the same time I felt good. I felt sensual pleasure run through my body. I felt dizzier and dizzier until at last I could no longer keep standing and fell. At that moment all the tendrils let go of my body.
Lying on a tatami mat, I thought, “What was it that aroused pleasure in my body while the plant was sucking my blood? I felt good then. The tendrils must have been injecting some chemicals that stimulated sexual pleasure. What the tendrils were doing was similar to the behavior of a mosquito. I heard that mosquitoes first inject paralyzing chemicals into the part of the body they are going to stick, and then they suck the blood. Because of the injected chemicals, you do not feel any pain. You feel itchy only after they have finished sucking and leave your body, that is, only after they stop paralyzing you with the chemicals.
I looked at the flowers. Only the top two flowers had turned reddish, but the rest of the four flowers were still pinkish. “I want to turn all of them red because I want to eat as much fruit as possible to enhance the sexual feelings. But I must have lost much blood. I must recover my blood, first,” I thought. I would have to wait for at least two or three days before I started to give my blood to the plant again. During the next few days, it was difficult not to approach the plant because the sweetest fragrance filled my room, inviting me to come near the plant in the same way Lorelei drew the sailors to her, but I forced myself not to go near it.
After three days passed, I recovered fully and on the fourth day I let the plant suck my blood again. The tendrils rose and stuck. All four flowers turned reddish. I felt dizzy, feeling the sweet pleasure. I said to the plant, “Suck, suck, suck my blood. Suck as much blood as you want, and bear rich fruit.” Then, just before I was about to fall, all the tendrils went off my arms and neck. “Ah, they left my body. The plant has had enough blood. It knows when to stop sucking blood. I am relieved.” I said to myself. I saw the flowers. All of them were as red as a red rose. Though I had lost some blood and had been weakened, I felt sexual excitement.
All I have to do now was just to wait for the plant to bear fruit. I had fed enough blood to all the six flowers. Therefore, it would be natural that the plant would produce six pieces of rich fruit, which would give me heavenly pleasure. Last time it took about 25 days before the plant bore fruit.
Day after day I looked at the flowers. They did not emit any irresistible fragrance. I did not have to feed it my blood. Peaceful days passed. I resumed my academic experiments and studies without being troubled by the plant. I devoted myself to the work of the director of the department of hematology.
Ten days later, looking at the red flowers, I began to understand why as many as 600 villagers in Pestera died. They must have fed their blood to the plants too much, developed anemia, and died. Died? No. I am alive, though I gave the plant enough of my blood. The plant did not suck my blood more than necessary. Therefore, the plant is not fatal. Then, what caused such a mass death? I must study the nature of the plant itself. What is the original form of the plant before the mutation?
With this question in mind, I went to the National Diet Library. Among the limitless number of botanical books, I narrowed them down to herb-related books because the plant enhanced the sensual feeling. The librarian recommended several books. I picked up a Japanese version of The Illustrated Book of Herbs by Barbara Hey. It covered subjects from aromatherapy to natural remedies and cosmetics with beautiful photographs and water colored pictures. As I was turning the pages under the item of ‘sexual health herbs,’ I found several sexual enhancers for men and women. The explanation read, “These herbs provide a number of safe, natural ways to boost sexual desire, pleasure, and fulfillment.” Looking at each illustration of the herbs one by one, I finally came to a herb plant that looked very similar to the blood sucking plant. Its name was Muira Puama, known as “the Viagra of the Amazon.”
A mere sight of the white flowers excited my sensuality. The sweet fragrance added to it. I approached the flowers and smelled them, expecting the peculiar movement of the tendrils. I was not afraid of loosing my blood because I knew I could always get away from the plant if I wished. I smelled the flowers. All the tendrils rose and stuck in my neck and arms. I did not feel any pain. They began to suck my blood. The color of the tendrils began to turn reddish, and then the leaf veins also began to turn reddish. I felt a little dizzy, but could not help continuing to feed the flowers my blood. I felt as if my brain were obeying some mystic order. Then little by little some of the white flowers began to turn pinkish. I felt dizzier, yet, at the same time I felt good. I felt sensual pleasure run through my body. I felt dizzier and dizzier until at last I could no longer keep standing and fell. At that moment all the tendrils let go of my body.
Lying on a tatami mat, I thought, “What was it that aroused pleasure in my body while the plant was sucking my blood? I felt good then. The tendrils must have been injecting some chemicals that stimulated sexual pleasure. What the tendrils were doing was similar to the behavior of a mosquito. I heard that mosquitoes first inject paralyzing chemicals into the part of the body they are going to stick, and then they suck the blood. Because of the injected chemicals, you do not feel any pain. You feel itchy only after they have finished sucking and leave your body, that is, only after they stop paralyzing you with the chemicals.
I looked at the flowers. Only the top two flowers had turned reddish, but the rest of the four flowers were still pinkish. “I want to turn all of them red because I want to eat as much fruit as possible to enhance the sexual feelings. But I must have lost much blood. I must recover my blood, first,” I thought. I would have to wait for at least two or three days before I started to give my blood to the plant again. During the next few days, it was difficult not to approach the plant because the sweetest fragrance filled my room, inviting me to come near the plant in the same way Lorelei drew the sailors to her, but I forced myself not to go near it.
After three days passed, I recovered fully and on the fourth day I let the plant suck my blood again. The tendrils rose and stuck. All four flowers turned reddish. I felt dizzy, feeling the sweet pleasure. I said to the plant, “Suck, suck, suck my blood. Suck as much blood as you want, and bear rich fruit.” Then, just before I was about to fall, all the tendrils went off my arms and neck. “Ah, they left my body. The plant has had enough blood. It knows when to stop sucking blood. I am relieved.” I said to myself. I saw the flowers. All of them were as red as a red rose. Though I had lost some blood and had been weakened, I felt sexual excitement.
All I have to do now was just to wait for the plant to bear fruit. I had fed enough blood to all the six flowers. Therefore, it would be natural that the plant would produce six pieces of rich fruit, which would give me heavenly pleasure. Last time it took about 25 days before the plant bore fruit.
Day after day I looked at the flowers. They did not emit any irresistible fragrance. I did not have to feed it my blood. Peaceful days passed. I resumed my academic experiments and studies without being troubled by the plant. I devoted myself to the work of the director of the department of hematology.
Ten days later, looking at the red flowers, I began to understand why as many as 600 villagers in Pestera died. They must have fed their blood to the plants too much, developed anemia, and died. Died? No. I am alive, though I gave the plant enough of my blood. The plant did not suck my blood more than necessary. Therefore, the plant is not fatal. Then, what caused such a mass death? I must study the nature of the plant itself. What is the original form of the plant before the mutation?
With this question in mind, I went to the National Diet Library. Among the limitless number of botanical books, I narrowed them down to herb-related books because the plant enhanced the sensual feeling. The librarian recommended several books. I picked up a Japanese version of The Illustrated Book of Herbs by Barbara Hey. It covered subjects from aromatherapy to natural remedies and cosmetics with beautiful photographs and water colored pictures. As I was turning the pages under the item of ‘sexual health herbs,’ I found several sexual enhancers for men and women. The explanation read, “These herbs provide a number of safe, natural ways to boost sexual desire, pleasure, and fulfillment.” Looking at each illustration of the herbs one by one, I finally came to a herb plant that looked very similar to the blood sucking plant. Its name was Muira Puama, known as “the Viagra of the Amazon.”
PART 8
After some research, I found that Muira Puama was a small plant that grew in tropical South America and tropical Africa. It blooms white flowers all the year around. The main benefits are:
1. for erectile dysfunction and impotency
2. as an aphrodisiac and libido promoter
3. as a tonic (tones, balances, strengthens)
4. for reduction of fatigue and depression
Further study of the “potency wood” revealed that early European explores brought Muira Puama back to Europe and grew it. Today a similar plant named Euromuira Puama, which is smaller but blooms larger flowers than Muira Puama, grows in areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
This was a surprising discovery. Romania is one of the countries that surround the Black Sea. I concluded that Euromuira Puama on the banks of the Danube in Pestera must have mutated into the blood sucking plant as a result of the bloodshed of the impaled 60,000 Ottomans.
When two more weeks passed, the plant bore two small red fruit. They were the same size as a grape. I ate them, felt strong sexual pleasure, and had an extraordinary orgasm, beyond description. I kept the seeds of the fruit in a drawer of my desk. I thought of planting them in case the present plant died. I had more than 15 of them including the ones I got from the first fruit.
The next new flowers opened in less than two months. Exactly speaking, it took only six weeks, that is, two weeks earlier than before. “The plant bloomed earlier because I gave it enough blood,” I imagined. Then within two weeks, about a week earlier than before, the plant bore two tiny fruit. This was a little disappointing because I had expected to get six fruit. I ate them, felt heavenly sexual sensation, much deeper and much stronger than normal sexual intercourse. After the orgasm, my whole body, hands and legs, kept trembling for more than 10 minutes.
From April 4 to 6, the 66th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Hematology was held at the International Conference Center in Kyoto. More than 4,000 doctors and scholars from all over the world participated in the seminars, lectures, case reports, and symposiums. I chaired the symposium No. 9, entitled “Bone marrow dysfunction." Dr. Norbert Mow, President of the Singapore Society of Hematology, gave a special lecture on “Genetic Control of Blood Cell Development.”
Dr. Mow was one of my academic friends. We both studied hematology at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo, and completed our Ph. Ds. We studied, ate, drank, sang songs, and played tennis together. After earning a Ph.D., he went back to Singapore to practice medicine. That was almost thirty ago.
On the second day, after the plenary session which ended around six o’clock p.m., Dr. Mow and I went to a Japanese restaurant Kiccho to commemorate our reunion. We enjoyed the taste of tempura and sashimi, talked about the days we spent during the doctorate course, and dank a lot. I got drunk and began to talk to him about the blood-sucking plant and the orgasm although I had intended to keep it a secret.
Dr. Mow said, “Are you drunk? I don’t believe you.”
“I know. I know you don’t believe me, but this is true, Norbert. The plant sucks my blood. And, and….” I forced myself to say it articulately but found it difficult to do so under alcoholic influence. “When I ate the fruit, you see, I felt a tremendous orgasm. I wish I had the fruit here and you could eat it.”
“You often cracked a joke when we were students. I don’t believe you. This is ridiculous. You are insane. Of course, I would be glad if I could feel such a sexual sensation again, but...”
“You can feel it as if you were young again. All right, then, I will send the seeds to you in Singapore. You should grow the plant. I insist.”
“OK. If you insist, I will do as you say though I still don’t believe you.”
After the hematology meeting was over, I sent the seeds to Dr. Norbert Mow in Singapore.
Dear Norbert,
… As I promised you in Kyoto, I am enclosing ten seeds of Euromuira Puama. The plant is called “the Viagra of the Amazon” or “potency wood.” The fruit will give you explosive sexual sensations and orgasms. It is also good for relieving depression and fatigue. No side-effects. I have become healthier, more active, and more vigorous. I am enjoying a “wonderful sex life.”
It will take about three years before you can harvest the fruit. I recommend you to plant the seeds in a big flowerpot and put it in a sunny room.
Caution: When it blooms, it emits a sweet fragrance and attracts you. That is the time when it needs your blood. Don’t be surprised. Give some of your blood. The tendrils will stick its tips into your arms, and suck your blood, but not much. You are a hetamologist, so I am not too worried about its bloodsucking, but I hope you will take precautions.
I put ten seeds in the envelop, and sent the letter to him, not realizing at all the grievous consequences.
The next flowers bloomed within five weeks, bearing fruit in ten days. The time span of the openings of the flowers gradually became shorter. The next flowers opened one month later and produced fruit in ten days. I knew that the plant bloomed all year around, but now it blooms within a month and ten days. I gradually became tired, exhausted from lack of blood. I needed blood. The plant sucked my blood about once every five weeks. It will kill me. It will destroy me.
I could destroy the plant. I could smash it into pieces. I could burn it to ashes, but the moment I decided to kill the monster, my desire to experience the ecstasy, the strongest and the most intense ecstasy, crushed my will to kill the plant. The Mr. Hyde in me was far stronger than the Doctor Jekyll. Emotion overwhelmed reason. If I must renounce the passion, I would rather become a brutal beast.
I said to myself, “This may be how the villagers perished. This is why they died from pale-white disease. They couldn’t get over the sexual desire. Who would have sex if you could feel orgasm ten times stronger than normal? Thus the villagers loved to have sex with the monstrous plant more than with a human mate. No sexual intercourse means no babies. No babies means no descendants. They didn’t care about the prosperity of their offspring. What they cared was not the future but the present. They needed blood just as I desire for it. What could they do to secure enough blood? What could they …?”
After some research, I found that Muira Puama was a small plant that grew in tropical South America and tropical Africa. It blooms white flowers all the year around. The main benefits are:
1. for erectile dysfunction and impotency
2. as an aphrodisiac and libido promoter
3. as a tonic (tones, balances, strengthens)
4. for reduction of fatigue and depression
Further study of the “potency wood” revealed that early European explores brought Muira Puama back to Europe and grew it. Today a similar plant named Euromuira Puama, which is smaller but blooms larger flowers than Muira Puama, grows in areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
This was a surprising discovery. Romania is one of the countries that surround the Black Sea. I concluded that Euromuira Puama on the banks of the Danube in Pestera must have mutated into the blood sucking plant as a result of the bloodshed of the impaled 60,000 Ottomans.
When two more weeks passed, the plant bore two small red fruit. They were the same size as a grape. I ate them, felt strong sexual pleasure, and had an extraordinary orgasm, beyond description. I kept the seeds of the fruit in a drawer of my desk. I thought of planting them in case the present plant died. I had more than 15 of them including the ones I got from the first fruit.
The next new flowers opened in less than two months. Exactly speaking, it took only six weeks, that is, two weeks earlier than before. “The plant bloomed earlier because I gave it enough blood,” I imagined. Then within two weeks, about a week earlier than before, the plant bore two tiny fruit. This was a little disappointing because I had expected to get six fruit. I ate them, felt heavenly sexual sensation, much deeper and much stronger than normal sexual intercourse. After the orgasm, my whole body, hands and legs, kept trembling for more than 10 minutes.
From April 4 to 6, the 66th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Hematology was held at the International Conference Center in Kyoto. More than 4,000 doctors and scholars from all over the world participated in the seminars, lectures, case reports, and symposiums. I chaired the symposium No. 9, entitled “Bone marrow dysfunction." Dr. Norbert Mow, President of the Singapore Society of Hematology, gave a special lecture on “Genetic Control of Blood Cell Development.”
Dr. Mow was one of my academic friends. We both studied hematology at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo, and completed our Ph. Ds. We studied, ate, drank, sang songs, and played tennis together. After earning a Ph.D., he went back to Singapore to practice medicine. That was almost thirty ago.
On the second day, after the plenary session which ended around six o’clock p.m., Dr. Mow and I went to a Japanese restaurant Kiccho to commemorate our reunion. We enjoyed the taste of tempura and sashimi, talked about the days we spent during the doctorate course, and dank a lot. I got drunk and began to talk to him about the blood-sucking plant and the orgasm although I had intended to keep it a secret.
Dr. Mow said, “Are you drunk? I don’t believe you.”
“I know. I know you don’t believe me, but this is true, Norbert. The plant sucks my blood. And, and….” I forced myself to say it articulately but found it difficult to do so under alcoholic influence. “When I ate the fruit, you see, I felt a tremendous orgasm. I wish I had the fruit here and you could eat it.”
“You often cracked a joke when we were students. I don’t believe you. This is ridiculous. You are insane. Of course, I would be glad if I could feel such a sexual sensation again, but...”
“You can feel it as if you were young again. All right, then, I will send the seeds to you in Singapore. You should grow the plant. I insist.”
“OK. If you insist, I will do as you say though I still don’t believe you.”
After the hematology meeting was over, I sent the seeds to Dr. Norbert Mow in Singapore.
Dear Norbert,
… As I promised you in Kyoto, I am enclosing ten seeds of Euromuira Puama. The plant is called “the Viagra of the Amazon” or “potency wood.” The fruit will give you explosive sexual sensations and orgasms. It is also good for relieving depression and fatigue. No side-effects. I have become healthier, more active, and more vigorous. I am enjoying a “wonderful sex life.”
It will take about three years before you can harvest the fruit. I recommend you to plant the seeds in a big flowerpot and put it in a sunny room.
Caution: When it blooms, it emits a sweet fragrance and attracts you. That is the time when it needs your blood. Don’t be surprised. Give some of your blood. The tendrils will stick its tips into your arms, and suck your blood, but not much. You are a hetamologist, so I am not too worried about its bloodsucking, but I hope you will take precautions.
I put ten seeds in the envelop, and sent the letter to him, not realizing at all the grievous consequences.
The next flowers bloomed within five weeks, bearing fruit in ten days. The time span of the openings of the flowers gradually became shorter. The next flowers opened one month later and produced fruit in ten days. I knew that the plant bloomed all year around, but now it blooms within a month and ten days. I gradually became tired, exhausted from lack of blood. I needed blood. The plant sucked my blood about once every five weeks. It will kill me. It will destroy me.
I could destroy the plant. I could smash it into pieces. I could burn it to ashes, but the moment I decided to kill the monster, my desire to experience the ecstasy, the strongest and the most intense ecstasy, crushed my will to kill the plant. The Mr. Hyde in me was far stronger than the Doctor Jekyll. Emotion overwhelmed reason. If I must renounce the passion, I would rather become a brutal beast.
I said to myself, “This may be how the villagers perished. This is why they died from pale-white disease. They couldn’t get over the sexual desire. Who would have sex if you could feel orgasm ten times stronger than normal? Thus the villagers loved to have sex with the monstrous plant more than with a human mate. No sexual intercourse means no babies. No babies means no descendants. They didn’t care about the prosperity of their offspring. What they cared was not the future but the present. They needed blood just as I desire for it. What could they do to secure enough blood? What could they …?”
PART 9
Then, I remembered the words in the letter in Red Church, “… The victims of the disease were adults, but children also became their victims.” At first, I thought that the words, “children also became their victims” meant that “the children became the plants’ victims.” On second thought, however, I realized the true meaning of the sentence. The word “their” meant “adults.” Therefore, the sentence meant “The children became the adults’ victims.” The adults gave their children’s blood to the plants. Probably they must have tied their children and offered them to the blood sucking plants like an ancient ritual just for their self-satisfaction. How dreadful! I had heard that starved parents at the end of the Muromachi Era (16th century) ate their children to survive. Also I knew that some plane crash survivors ate dead human flesh. Cannibalism might take place in the extreme situation of life or death. In the case of Pestera villagers, however, they killed their children not to survive but to get sexual pleasure. Moreover, it was probable that they killed one another merely to secure blood. Again, Instinct was stronger than Reason.
Thus, I understood the meaning of the words, “their victims,” but one more question remained. That was the blank part of the sentence, “They are seeds of ‘Heavenly Fruit’ or ‘---- Fruit.’ What word was it in the blank? I first thought of such words as ‘Divine,’ ‘Godly,’ or ‘Blessed.’ However, after I realized the horrifying truth, I began to think of a different word that would fit in the blank. I became curious. I opened the old letter and looked at the unreadable, faint, and dilute “word” and tried to decipher it. I looked at it carefully with a magnifying glass. I held the letter to the light but in vain.
“A Romanian language scholar may understand the ‘word,’” I said to myself. I telephoned Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and asked if there was any professor of the Romanian language. The woman at the end of the line said “Yes,” and told me the name of the professor. After making an appointment with Prof. Sato, I went to the university and met him.
He was about 50 years old with glasses and mustache. I introduced myself and showed him the letter. He took keen interest in the old letter and asked how I had gained it. I told about my visit to Dracula Castle, pale-white disease, Pestera, and Red Church. He looked as if he were listening to some mysterious fiction. Then, he looked at the letter, gazed at it, looked through it, and used a magnifying glass under a bright light. However hard he tried to decipher the ‘word,’ he could not read it.
“I am sorry I can’t make heads or tails of out it. It is too faint and too old,” he apologized and asked me with some hesitation if he could copy the letter so that he could use the letter as a precious teaching material of the Romanian language. With my consent, he went to the copying room and after 20 minutes he rushed back with a beaming smile.
“It’s ‘devil.’ It’s ‘devil.’ Dr. Yamada’”
I could not understand what he was talking about.
“What’s ‘devil’?” I asked.
“The word, the faint word. I have deciphered it. It means ‘devil.’”
“Devil?”
“Yes.”
“But how did you decipher it?” I asked.
“While I was copying the letter, I hit upon an idea. You see, I enlarged the faint word to 200 percent. And I adjusted the printing darkness in various degrees. I changed the degree step by step, and after several trials and adjustments, I finally perceived a letter on the copy paper. It read, ‘Dracle.’ ‘Dracle’ means ‘Devil’ in Japanese. So, Dr. Yamada, the phrase goes, ‘Heavenly Fruit or Devil Fruit.’”
I thanked Prof. Sato and left the university. After all, I had been selling my blood to the blood sucking devil to experience heavenly sexual pleasure. I was afraid all my blood would eventually be sucked by the devil. It was impossible to resist this Devil of Sexual Pleasure. It was his supreme order that I offer him my blood once every four or five weeks even though I knew that it would ruin my health. I began to be easily tired. I became weaker. Climbing only ten or fifteen steps of the staircase in a subway station made me exhausted. My colleagues in the institution inquired about my health, “You look tired these days. Are you all right?” “I am not all right,” I said to myself. “I am possessed by the devil. I am addicted to offering my blood to the devil. But, oh, the pleasure of sexual sensation. The heavenly experience. The extreme indulgence in Eros. But I must end the slavery to this god of sex. Or, I must find a way to secure blood. How can I get blood? How?”
PART 10
One day in the middle of February I hit upon a very good idea. Why haven’t I thought of this splendid idea before? The proverb says, “It is dark at the foot of a candle.” True, you can’t see the light if you stand under the lighthouse. Where am I standing? I am standing in the light. I am the director of the department of hematology of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science. I am, as it were, working surrounded by blood, full of collected plasma, red blood cells, patelets, and white blood cells. All the blood is at my service. I can arrange the necessary procedures to procure blood without being suspected by anyone.
The department of hetamology has a blood storage area for experiments and emergency transfusions. The blood was collected mainly through Red Cross activities, and was kept in the form of medical freezer bags at a temperature in the range of -2° to -20° C depending on the blood cells. If I wanted to use the blood for my own purposes, all I had to do first was to submit to the screening committee the document that stated the purpose and research methods for using the blood. I faked it. I called it “Experiments on temperature transition of human hemoglobin at body temperature.” It was granted. Now I could use the blood openly at any time under the disguise of a lofty aim. All I had to do next was to thaw the frozen blood at a temperature of 37° C. I asked a staff member in charge to do the job.
When the next flowers bloomed, I brought the thawed blood to my house hurriedly because thawed blood was effective within 40 minutes after it was melted. Since there were about 30 tendrils, I poured the blood into ten test tubes evenly. I put them on the test tube stand and brought it to the devil who was licking its lips.
As expected, all the tendrils began to rise and aimed at the stand. Each tendril seemed wondering which test tube it should first put its tip into. Soon one of them put its tip into one of the blood-filled test tube and began to wriggle its long tendril like a snake. Then the rest of the tendrils put their tips into the tubes competing with one another. They began to drink the blood. The test tubes clicked and clacked on the stand. The blood smell filled the room as if I were in an operation room. I looked at the plant. It was bending slightly toward the stand to help the tendrils on its upper part to reach it . Unable to reach the test tubes, they hovered in the air like the snakes on Gorgon. The tendrils within the reach of the stand were absorbing the blood, snaking and wriggling their bodies. They looked like a multiple headed serpent drinking red wine. When one of the vessels became empty, the tendril in the tube pulled its head out of it dripping blood, and then put it into the neighboring tube and competed in the blood sucking race with the one which had been sucking blood in the same tube. All the tendrils began to turn reddish as if they were drunk. All the flowers began to turn reddish like a shy, innocent girl. About twenty intoxicated serpents were fighting with each other for blood. The floor on which the stand lay was smeared with spilt blood and spotted with numerous blood stains.
I grinned. Then the grin turned to laughter. I could not help laughing. I could not constrain my happiness. All of my problems had been solved now. I could obtain any amount of blood at any time. I can enjoy my “sex life.” I can experience an orgasm. I can indulge in sexual pleasure. I felt a little guilty for using the donated blood, but I thought, “I have contributed to the development of the study of hetamology in Japan and abroad for many years. This should be a reciprocate present to me.” After fifteen minutes or so, the tendrils stopped sucking the blood, returned to the former position, and hung down from the branches of the plant as if a fierce battle had ended.
I expected that the plant would bear bigger fruit. In ten days after the devil sucked the tube blood, it bore as many as three pieces of red fruit, the largest number of fruit so far. I picked up one of the fruit in anticipation and ate it, but It did not taste as sweet as the ones I ate before. I did not feel sexual sensation so much. Disappointed, I ate the second one, but had the same disappointing result. The third one, though the reddest of the three, did not taste good nor sweet at all. All of them were discouraging. “The devil has taken revenge,” I thought. “It knew whether the blood was fresh or old. It needs fresh living human blood.”
PART 11
The following week in early July, I was so exhausted that I could not concentrate on my work. I needed blood. I needed rest. I had to recover my health.
One morning in July, it was difficult for me to get up. I was sick. I felt as if I had a heavy stone on my chest, and as if some lead filled my brain. My body needed to go away for change of air. I called the institute and told the deputy director that I would be absent for a week. I told him that I needed some rest because of exhaustion. He said, “Yes, that’s a good idea. You have looked tired all these weeks. We have been worried about your health, Doctor. Have a nice rest.”
Any place was OK as long as I could take a rest. I went to Tokyo Station and looked for a good place to go and stay, away from the devil. An advertisement on a travel agency window caught my eyes. “Visit Izu and meet the Dancing Girl,” it said. The Dancing Girl of Izu is the title of a famous novel written by Yasunari Kawabata. I read it when I was young. OK, I will visit Izu Peninsula. I took a super express.
After a two-hour ride, I arrived at Shuzenji Temple Station. Then I took a taxi to Shuzenji Spa. Unlike Tokyo’s noise and contaminated air, the spa was surrounded by a lot of comforting tall trees. The Katsura River that ran through the spa area was clean and beautiful with some tiny fish swimming in it. Just looking at them was refreshing. I enjoyed the scenery, ate delicious food, soaked in the hot spa, and walked along the river in the fresh air listening to the birds. As the days passed, I was gradually recovering.
On the evening of the fourth day while I was strolling along the river near the hotel, I noticed some red flowers blooming near Togetsu Bridge. “That’s strange. The flowers were white when I saw them on yesterday morning. Have they changed color?” While I was eating supper at the hotel, I asked a maid about the flowers. She said, “That flower is named Mizu-Fuyo. It changes its color according to the time of the day. In the morning it is white, but in the evening it turns red.”
The white flowers turn red. That devil flowers, too. They turn from white to red. Suddenly I remembered the portrait of Count Dracula on the wall of Dracula Castle. He had a white flower between his front teeth just like Carmen had a rose between her teeth. The shape of the white flower was similar to the flower of the devil plant. The flower Count Dracula had in his month must have been the flower of the blood sucking plant.
I reached a fantastic conclusion. The secret of Dracula’s blood sucking revealed itself. He must have enjoyed sexual pleasure by eating the fruit. He needed blood to feed the flowers. How did he obtain blood? He may have tried animal blood or blood from dead bodies. But knowing that such blood was not effective, he began to suck blood from a living human body. He may have killed various people, young and old, men and women. After testing each blood, he came to a conclusion that young woman’s blood was the best for growing big, rich fruit. That’s why Dracula sucked blood by sinking his teeth in a young woman’s neck. He sucked her blood just for his sexual pleasure. He preferred making ‘love’ with the devil plant to making love with a woman.
Dracula had his way of obtaining fresh blood, but how can I do so? I can’t dare to abduct a girl. I can’t dare to attack a girl and sink my teeth in her neck. I am not Dracula. I can ask young women to sell their blood, but they may think I am crazy. I thought of every possible way to obtain young woman’s blood without any suspicion of crime. But it was in vain.
I did not to want to spoil my body any longer. I am the director of the department of hematology and have a lot of academic as well as medical work to do. I don’t have such time to be indulged in sexual play with the plant. It is my enemy. The enemy must be extinguished. OK, then. I will destroy the devil plant once and for all. This is the best way. This was a sound judgment derived from a healthy body and mind.
I made up my mind. My determination became even stronger on the fifth day when I was returning to Tokyo. I made a simulation in the express train, “When I return home, the first thing I will do is to fetch the saw and the scissors in the drawers. I go to the plant, and tear all the leaves, all the tendrils, and saw the devil into pieces. It is easy.” Once I resolved this way, I felt relaxed. I breathed in a natural and relaxed way for the first time in months. “I should have made up my mind earlier,” I thought.
As I was looking at the landscape of rice fields passing backward through the window of the train, I wondered, “Why did only the villagers of Pestera suffer from the pale-white disease? Why didn’t the devil seeds spread around the villages and towns in the neighborhood, and all over Hungary?”
I remembered the village of Pestera. When I looked at the whole village from a hill, it was surrounded by steep Carpathian mountains on the three sides. And the fourth side was blocked by a wide river, the River Danube. I remembered my first impression of the village. I thought the village was like an isolated island on land. That was why villagers did not dare to go beyond the borders of the mountains and the river. Naturally, they lived their lives within the surrounded space of Pestera. That was more than 120 years ago and in a remote rural area. There were no radio, no television, no telephone, no nothing to communicate with the rest of the world. They did not have to communicate with them. They were probably content living their lives in the limited space.
PART 12
I arrived at Tokyo Station with full-fledged resolution to destroy the devil. The resolution was stronger than any other one that I had ever made in my life. I came to my house. Before I opened the door, I repeated the simulation, “The first thing I will do is to fetch a saw and scissors and cut the devil into pieces.”
I opened the door. Instantaneously, an irresistible sweet fragrance filled my nostrils. It almost staggered my resolution. I stopped breathing so as not to be paralyzed by the tempting smell. Trying not to look at the flowers and resisting the strong lure to come near them, I forced myself to go to the drawer to fetch the saw and scissors. Holding my breath, I said to myself, “OK, now I have got the saw and scissors. All I have to do now is to kill the devil.” I hurriedly approached the evil plant without breathing. I saw the flowers. They were bigger and more beautiful than ever before. There were more than twenty beautiful white flowers all in full bloom. “What a large number of flowe…!” I mumbled. That instant I breathed despite myself. I had held my breath for nearly two minutes and had been almost suffocated, and that was the end. The Hyde in me defeated the Jekyll.
The Hyde said to me, “Since there are so many flowers and all of them are so big, you will surely have no less than ten fruit which will be larger and richer than the ones you ate before. After experiencing the ultimate orgasm one last time, you can destroy the plant. Otherwise you will regret it.”
My reason must have been paralyzed by the magical fragrance. I was so resolute before entering my house. Now I did not care about my resolution at all. Damn resolution. Why have I made such a foolish resolution when I can enjoy the sweetest experience with the fruit? The present moment is my life. Why not enjoy what you can enjoy? I don’t care about my future. OK. I will feed the plant with my refreshed blood. Suck my blood. Suck my blood as much as you want. And bear richest fruit that I have ever seen. There!
I had thrown away the saw and scissors. I stood before the devil plant breathing the heavenly fragrance. How sweet! Then the tendrils began to thrust their tips into by hands and neck. Some had grown so long that they reached my legs and feet. Soon I began to feel fainted. “OK, in a short time, the tendrils will let go of my body. Hold on,” I encouraged myself. Then I could not keep standing and fell. “Now they will leave me this instant,” I said to myself.
As I had expected, all the tendrils let go of myself when I fell. They returned to their original position, but soon, a few tendrils began to hover above my body lying on the floor. I could not move, much less stand up because of anemia. I needed to take a rest. In an instant some other tendrils began to move again and aimed at my body. All the rest of them also resumed as if they had awaken from a temporary sleep. They reached my hands and arms and neck and nose and ears and legs and ankles and feet. They were like snakes. I saw the whole devil tree about 1.3 meters long bend over my body so that the tendrils could reach my body easily. The leaves covered my face and body with the tendrils sticking every part of my body. Some thrust the tips from the cuffs, from the collar, and from button holes, others tied my body and pierced the shirt and underwear and sucked my blood. Some of the tendril tips had become as sharp and hard as a needle. Hundreds of snakes all over my body are sucking my blood. Thousands of green needles are sucking my blood. They will kill me. Help! I had to flee from them as soon as possible. I could not move even an inch. Why! When had the plant become so strong? When had the tendrils turned so hard and sharp? I must do something to get away from the devil. I tried to roll over but in vain. I was so tightly fixed on the floor. This is the way the villagers died. This is the way. I have recognized it, but it is too late. Am I going to die in this misery? Am I? Isn’t there any way to …, yes, the cell phone! I managed to tear some tendrils and reached my pocket of the back side of the trousers. I pulled out the cell phone. I opened it. I moved my finger. I dialed 110. I desperately bent my body. My mouth reached within 10 centimeters from the phone. I heard a policeman. I fainted.
Then, I remembered the words in the letter in Red Church, “… The victims of the disease were adults, but children also became their victims.” At first, I thought that the words, “children also became their victims” meant that “the children became the plants’ victims.” On second thought, however, I realized the true meaning of the sentence. The word “their” meant “adults.” Therefore, the sentence meant “The children became the adults’ victims.” The adults gave their children’s blood to the plants. Probably they must have tied their children and offered them to the blood sucking plants like an ancient ritual just for their self-satisfaction. How dreadful! I had heard that starved parents at the end of the Muromachi Era (16th century) ate their children to survive. Also I knew that some plane crash survivors ate dead human flesh. Cannibalism might take place in the extreme situation of life or death. In the case of Pestera villagers, however, they killed their children not to survive but to get sexual pleasure. Moreover, it was probable that they killed one another merely to secure blood. Again, Instinct was stronger than Reason.
Thus, I understood the meaning of the words, “their victims,” but one more question remained. That was the blank part of the sentence, “They are seeds of ‘Heavenly Fruit’ or ‘---- Fruit.’ What word was it in the blank? I first thought of such words as ‘Divine,’ ‘Godly,’ or ‘Blessed.’ However, after I realized the horrifying truth, I began to think of a different word that would fit in the blank. I became curious. I opened the old letter and looked at the unreadable, faint, and dilute “word” and tried to decipher it. I looked at it carefully with a magnifying glass. I held the letter to the light but in vain.
“A Romanian language scholar may understand the ‘word,’” I said to myself. I telephoned Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and asked if there was any professor of the Romanian language. The woman at the end of the line said “Yes,” and told me the name of the professor. After making an appointment with Prof. Sato, I went to the university and met him.
He was about 50 years old with glasses and mustache. I introduced myself and showed him the letter. He took keen interest in the old letter and asked how I had gained it. I told about my visit to Dracula Castle, pale-white disease, Pestera, and Red Church. He looked as if he were listening to some mysterious fiction. Then, he looked at the letter, gazed at it, looked through it, and used a magnifying glass under a bright light. However hard he tried to decipher the ‘word,’ he could not read it.
“I am sorry I can’t make heads or tails of out it. It is too faint and too old,” he apologized and asked me with some hesitation if he could copy the letter so that he could use the letter as a precious teaching material of the Romanian language. With my consent, he went to the copying room and after 20 minutes he rushed back with a beaming smile.
“It’s ‘devil.’ It’s ‘devil.’ Dr. Yamada’”
I could not understand what he was talking about.
“What’s ‘devil’?” I asked.
“The word, the faint word. I have deciphered it. It means ‘devil.’”
“Devil?”
“Yes.”
“But how did you decipher it?” I asked.
“While I was copying the letter, I hit upon an idea. You see, I enlarged the faint word to 200 percent. And I adjusted the printing darkness in various degrees. I changed the degree step by step, and after several trials and adjustments, I finally perceived a letter on the copy paper. It read, ‘Dracle.’ ‘Dracle’ means ‘Devil’ in Japanese. So, Dr. Yamada, the phrase goes, ‘Heavenly Fruit or Devil Fruit.’”
I thanked Prof. Sato and left the university. After all, I had been selling my blood to the blood sucking devil to experience heavenly sexual pleasure. I was afraid all my blood would eventually be sucked by the devil. It was impossible to resist this Devil of Sexual Pleasure. It was his supreme order that I offer him my blood once every four or five weeks even though I knew that it would ruin my health. I began to be easily tired. I became weaker. Climbing only ten or fifteen steps of the staircase in a subway station made me exhausted. My colleagues in the institution inquired about my health, “You look tired these days. Are you all right?” “I am not all right,” I said to myself. “I am possessed by the devil. I am addicted to offering my blood to the devil. But, oh, the pleasure of sexual sensation. The heavenly experience. The extreme indulgence in Eros. But I must end the slavery to this god of sex. Or, I must find a way to secure blood. How can I get blood? How?”
PART 10
One day in the middle of February I hit upon a very good idea. Why haven’t I thought of this splendid idea before? The proverb says, “It is dark at the foot of a candle.” True, you can’t see the light if you stand under the lighthouse. Where am I standing? I am standing in the light. I am the director of the department of hematology of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science. I am, as it were, working surrounded by blood, full of collected plasma, red blood cells, patelets, and white blood cells. All the blood is at my service. I can arrange the necessary procedures to procure blood without being suspected by anyone.
The department of hetamology has a blood storage area for experiments and emergency transfusions. The blood was collected mainly through Red Cross activities, and was kept in the form of medical freezer bags at a temperature in the range of -2° to -20° C depending on the blood cells. If I wanted to use the blood for my own purposes, all I had to do first was to submit to the screening committee the document that stated the purpose and research methods for using the blood. I faked it. I called it “Experiments on temperature transition of human hemoglobin at body temperature.” It was granted. Now I could use the blood openly at any time under the disguise of a lofty aim. All I had to do next was to thaw the frozen blood at a temperature of 37° C. I asked a staff member in charge to do the job.
When the next flowers bloomed, I brought the thawed blood to my house hurriedly because thawed blood was effective within 40 minutes after it was melted. Since there were about 30 tendrils, I poured the blood into ten test tubes evenly. I put them on the test tube stand and brought it to the devil who was licking its lips.
As expected, all the tendrils began to rise and aimed at the stand. Each tendril seemed wondering which test tube it should first put its tip into. Soon one of them put its tip into one of the blood-filled test tube and began to wriggle its long tendril like a snake. Then the rest of the tendrils put their tips into the tubes competing with one another. They began to drink the blood. The test tubes clicked and clacked on the stand. The blood smell filled the room as if I were in an operation room. I looked at the plant. It was bending slightly toward the stand to help the tendrils on its upper part to reach it . Unable to reach the test tubes, they hovered in the air like the snakes on Gorgon. The tendrils within the reach of the stand were absorbing the blood, snaking and wriggling their bodies. They looked like a multiple headed serpent drinking red wine. When one of the vessels became empty, the tendril in the tube pulled its head out of it dripping blood, and then put it into the neighboring tube and competed in the blood sucking race with the one which had been sucking blood in the same tube. All the tendrils began to turn reddish as if they were drunk. All the flowers began to turn reddish like a shy, innocent girl. About twenty intoxicated serpents were fighting with each other for blood. The floor on which the stand lay was smeared with spilt blood and spotted with numerous blood stains.
I grinned. Then the grin turned to laughter. I could not help laughing. I could not constrain my happiness. All of my problems had been solved now. I could obtain any amount of blood at any time. I can enjoy my “sex life.” I can experience an orgasm. I can indulge in sexual pleasure. I felt a little guilty for using the donated blood, but I thought, “I have contributed to the development of the study of hetamology in Japan and abroad for many years. This should be a reciprocate present to me.” After fifteen minutes or so, the tendrils stopped sucking the blood, returned to the former position, and hung down from the branches of the plant as if a fierce battle had ended.
I expected that the plant would bear bigger fruit. In ten days after the devil sucked the tube blood, it bore as many as three pieces of red fruit, the largest number of fruit so far. I picked up one of the fruit in anticipation and ate it, but It did not taste as sweet as the ones I ate before. I did not feel sexual sensation so much. Disappointed, I ate the second one, but had the same disappointing result. The third one, though the reddest of the three, did not taste good nor sweet at all. All of them were discouraging. “The devil has taken revenge,” I thought. “It knew whether the blood was fresh or old. It needs fresh living human blood.”
PART 11
The following week in early July, I was so exhausted that I could not concentrate on my work. I needed blood. I needed rest. I had to recover my health.
One morning in July, it was difficult for me to get up. I was sick. I felt as if I had a heavy stone on my chest, and as if some lead filled my brain. My body needed to go away for change of air. I called the institute and told the deputy director that I would be absent for a week. I told him that I needed some rest because of exhaustion. He said, “Yes, that’s a good idea. You have looked tired all these weeks. We have been worried about your health, Doctor. Have a nice rest.”
Any place was OK as long as I could take a rest. I went to Tokyo Station and looked for a good place to go and stay, away from the devil. An advertisement on a travel agency window caught my eyes. “Visit Izu and meet the Dancing Girl,” it said. The Dancing Girl of Izu is the title of a famous novel written by Yasunari Kawabata. I read it when I was young. OK, I will visit Izu Peninsula. I took a super express.
After a two-hour ride, I arrived at Shuzenji Temple Station. Then I took a taxi to Shuzenji Spa. Unlike Tokyo’s noise and contaminated air, the spa was surrounded by a lot of comforting tall trees. The Katsura River that ran through the spa area was clean and beautiful with some tiny fish swimming in it. Just looking at them was refreshing. I enjoyed the scenery, ate delicious food, soaked in the hot spa, and walked along the river in the fresh air listening to the birds. As the days passed, I was gradually recovering.
On the evening of the fourth day while I was strolling along the river near the hotel, I noticed some red flowers blooming near Togetsu Bridge. “That’s strange. The flowers were white when I saw them on yesterday morning. Have they changed color?” While I was eating supper at the hotel, I asked a maid about the flowers. She said, “That flower is named Mizu-Fuyo. It changes its color according to the time of the day. In the morning it is white, but in the evening it turns red.”
The white flowers turn red. That devil flowers, too. They turn from white to red. Suddenly I remembered the portrait of Count Dracula on the wall of Dracula Castle. He had a white flower between his front teeth just like Carmen had a rose between her teeth. The shape of the white flower was similar to the flower of the devil plant. The flower Count Dracula had in his month must have been the flower of the blood sucking plant.
I reached a fantastic conclusion. The secret of Dracula’s blood sucking revealed itself. He must have enjoyed sexual pleasure by eating the fruit. He needed blood to feed the flowers. How did he obtain blood? He may have tried animal blood or blood from dead bodies. But knowing that such blood was not effective, he began to suck blood from a living human body. He may have killed various people, young and old, men and women. After testing each blood, he came to a conclusion that young woman’s blood was the best for growing big, rich fruit. That’s why Dracula sucked blood by sinking his teeth in a young woman’s neck. He sucked her blood just for his sexual pleasure. He preferred making ‘love’ with the devil plant to making love with a woman.
Dracula had his way of obtaining fresh blood, but how can I do so? I can’t dare to abduct a girl. I can’t dare to attack a girl and sink my teeth in her neck. I am not Dracula. I can ask young women to sell their blood, but they may think I am crazy. I thought of every possible way to obtain young woman’s blood without any suspicion of crime. But it was in vain.
I did not to want to spoil my body any longer. I am the director of the department of hematology and have a lot of academic as well as medical work to do. I don’t have such time to be indulged in sexual play with the plant. It is my enemy. The enemy must be extinguished. OK, then. I will destroy the devil plant once and for all. This is the best way. This was a sound judgment derived from a healthy body and mind.
I made up my mind. My determination became even stronger on the fifth day when I was returning to Tokyo. I made a simulation in the express train, “When I return home, the first thing I will do is to fetch the saw and the scissors in the drawers. I go to the plant, and tear all the leaves, all the tendrils, and saw the devil into pieces. It is easy.” Once I resolved this way, I felt relaxed. I breathed in a natural and relaxed way for the first time in months. “I should have made up my mind earlier,” I thought.
As I was looking at the landscape of rice fields passing backward through the window of the train, I wondered, “Why did only the villagers of Pestera suffer from the pale-white disease? Why didn’t the devil seeds spread around the villages and towns in the neighborhood, and all over Hungary?”
I remembered the village of Pestera. When I looked at the whole village from a hill, it was surrounded by steep Carpathian mountains on the three sides. And the fourth side was blocked by a wide river, the River Danube. I remembered my first impression of the village. I thought the village was like an isolated island on land. That was why villagers did not dare to go beyond the borders of the mountains and the river. Naturally, they lived their lives within the surrounded space of Pestera. That was more than 120 years ago and in a remote rural area. There were no radio, no television, no telephone, no nothing to communicate with the rest of the world. They did not have to communicate with them. They were probably content living their lives in the limited space.
PART 12
I arrived at Tokyo Station with full-fledged resolution to destroy the devil. The resolution was stronger than any other one that I had ever made in my life. I came to my house. Before I opened the door, I repeated the simulation, “The first thing I will do is to fetch a saw and scissors and cut the devil into pieces.”
I opened the door. Instantaneously, an irresistible sweet fragrance filled my nostrils. It almost staggered my resolution. I stopped breathing so as not to be paralyzed by the tempting smell. Trying not to look at the flowers and resisting the strong lure to come near them, I forced myself to go to the drawer to fetch the saw and scissors. Holding my breath, I said to myself, “OK, now I have got the saw and scissors. All I have to do now is to kill the devil.” I hurriedly approached the evil plant without breathing. I saw the flowers. They were bigger and more beautiful than ever before. There were more than twenty beautiful white flowers all in full bloom. “What a large number of flowe…!” I mumbled. That instant I breathed despite myself. I had held my breath for nearly two minutes and had been almost suffocated, and that was the end. The Hyde in me defeated the Jekyll.
The Hyde said to me, “Since there are so many flowers and all of them are so big, you will surely have no less than ten fruit which will be larger and richer than the ones you ate before. After experiencing the ultimate orgasm one last time, you can destroy the plant. Otherwise you will regret it.”
My reason must have been paralyzed by the magical fragrance. I was so resolute before entering my house. Now I did not care about my resolution at all. Damn resolution. Why have I made such a foolish resolution when I can enjoy the sweetest experience with the fruit? The present moment is my life. Why not enjoy what you can enjoy? I don’t care about my future. OK. I will feed the plant with my refreshed blood. Suck my blood. Suck my blood as much as you want. And bear richest fruit that I have ever seen. There!
I had thrown away the saw and scissors. I stood before the devil plant breathing the heavenly fragrance. How sweet! Then the tendrils began to thrust their tips into by hands and neck. Some had grown so long that they reached my legs and feet. Soon I began to feel fainted. “OK, in a short time, the tendrils will let go of my body. Hold on,” I encouraged myself. Then I could not keep standing and fell. “Now they will leave me this instant,” I said to myself.
As I had expected, all the tendrils let go of myself when I fell. They returned to their original position, but soon, a few tendrils began to hover above my body lying on the floor. I could not move, much less stand up because of anemia. I needed to take a rest. In an instant some other tendrils began to move again and aimed at my body. All the rest of them also resumed as if they had awaken from a temporary sleep. They reached my hands and arms and neck and nose and ears and legs and ankles and feet. They were like snakes. I saw the whole devil tree about 1.3 meters long bend over my body so that the tendrils could reach my body easily. The leaves covered my face and body with the tendrils sticking every part of my body. Some thrust the tips from the cuffs, from the collar, and from button holes, others tied my body and pierced the shirt and underwear and sucked my blood. Some of the tendril tips had become as sharp and hard as a needle. Hundreds of snakes all over my body are sucking my blood. Thousands of green needles are sucking my blood. They will kill me. Help! I had to flee from them as soon as possible. I could not move even an inch. Why! When had the plant become so strong? When had the tendrils turned so hard and sharp? I must do something to get away from the devil. I tried to roll over but in vain. I was so tightly fixed on the floor. This is the way the villagers died. This is the way. I have recognized it, but it is too late. Am I going to die in this misery? Am I? Isn’t there any way to …, yes, the cell phone! I managed to tear some tendrils and reached my pocket of the back side of the trousers. I pulled out the cell phone. I opened it. I moved my finger. I dialed 110. I desperately bent my body. My mouth reached within 10 centimeters from the phone. I heard a policeman. I fainted.
PART 13
When I awoke, I couldn’t comprehend where I was. Gradually my eyes came into focus. I found myself lying on a bed. I saw an intravenous line hanging from a blood bag hanging from the ceiling. A nurse was sitting beside the bed. Looking half surprised and half relieved, she said, “Oh, god, you’ve come to yourself at last. You’ve been unconscious for almost two days.” Then she called a doctor through the room interphone.
A doctor came accompanied by a nurse. He said, “Dr. Yamada. Are you all right? We’ve been worried about you. Do you remember me? I attended your hematology class when I was a medical student at Tokyo University.”
“Yes, I remember. You’re Mr. Hayashi. You were an excellent student.”
“Thank you for remembering me. Dr. Yamada, can you see through the window the building of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science? This is the attached hospital.”
“Is that so? It’s nice I am near my institute,” I said. “Well, may I ask why I have been hospitalized?”
“You don’t remember anything? You were carried here in an ambulance the day before yesterday. You looked awful. You looked pale, your lips, your face, all pale white. You were suffering from extreme anemia. You see, when I ran your blood tests, your hemoglobin level was only 3.1. Your blood pressure was extremely low. Rapid heart beat, and short breath.”
I knew that a normal hemoglobin level for a man was between 13.5 to 16.5 grams per deciliter.
“So I had a blood transfusion?”
“Yes, an urgent one. But, Doctor, your bone marrow function was normal. The size, shape and color of your red blood cells were also normal. So, I can’t understand why you have developed such an extreme anemia. You’ve lost your blood so suddenly. What has happened to you, Dr. Yamada? It is as if Dracula had sucked your blood.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t believe me, but actually Dracula sucked my blood. I have a Dracula plant in my house that sucks blood. A devil plant. You think I am telling a joke, but this is true. The plant sucks my blood, and I am addicted to the sucking.”
The nurses looked at each other and giggled.
Dr. Hayashi said, “You are a wonderful joker as ever. I remember enjoying your class because you made us laugh with jokes. All right, all right. I believe what you say.” The doctor had a look of doubt.
I retorted, “I know anemia sometimes damage your normal thinking because of lack of oxygen in the brain, but I am not crazy. If you think I am joking, come to my house to see the Dracula plant.” I knew that whatever I said would sound untrue to him.
“Dr. Yamada, when you recover, I will visit you. It will be my pleasure to have the honor of meeting Count Dracula. But it will take at least ten days before you can leave the hospital.”
After Dr. Hayashi and the nurses left, I remembered how I had desperately struggled with the fierce blood sucking devil. The hard and strong tendrils. The bent tree. I was nearly killed. I had told my address to the police on the cell phone before I fainted. It’s an irony that a hematologist is suffering from anemia. What a hematologist I am to have my blood sucked by the devil. I thought, “It will take ten days before I recover. The plant will bear fruit then. This time, I will not eat the fruit. I will kill it once and for all.” I felt dizzy and went to sleep.
A week passed, but I did not feel any better. I still felt fatigue, dizziness, and lightheadedness. I sometimes had a rapid heartbeat. Also I felt chest pain.
After a thorough examination, Dr. Hayashi told me that I had jaundice and liver disease and that I had some heart problems, too. Oh, lack of blood causes such numerous diseases. What have I been doing in the past 60 years as a hematologist? I am suffering from blood disease, and I can’t do anything at all to cure it. I know the cause of my anemia. I know how to cure. It will take some more weeks. I need more blood transfusion, folic acid and vitamin B12 supplements, iron supplements, and injections of synthetic erythropoietin.
Two weeks passed. I was gradually recovering my health. Dr. Hayashi told me that I could leave the hospital in another week. During the third week, I received a letter via the institution from Dr. Norbert Mow in Singapore whom I had given some seeds of the plant. I had completely forgotten that I had given them to him. I shouldn’t have given them. They are such a vicious, murderous devil. I should have written to him to destroy the seeds immediately before it was too late.
The letter said that the plant had born three pieces of fruit and that he ate them. The effect of the fruit was tremendous. He felt what I felt. He was in the electrifying heaven and paradise of sexual pleasure, far stronger than the normal sex. At the end of the letter, he said that he had organized a project team that would study the marvel of the plant. The team, he said, consisted of three hematologists, two botanists, a genesiologist, and an anesthesiologist. He added that out of the seven scholars, four were from Singapore, two from Britain, and one from Canada. He wanted me to join the team.
Did he? Did he oraganized a team? What a shocking thing he did! Without my permission, without my consent, without noticing me, Nobert organized a team! I have been keeping the plant a secret for the past four years, but he made it public. I got angry, but on second thought, I reflected my attitude about the bloodsucking plant. I had a rotten spirit to monopolize the secret of the plant to myself. If I were a true scholar of hematology, I should have made it public earlier and studied the plant from multiple perspectives. Thinking this way, I softened my anger.
But, as for the growth of the fruit, it bore fruit so early. Why? It is strange. It is less than a year since I gave him the seeds. It had taken me about three years to get the first fruit. But how come he got the fruit so early? Probably the climate of Singapore influenced the growth, or the seeds were new and not 120 years old.
Anyway, the seeds will spread first in Singapore, Britain, and Canada, and then to all over the world. Dr. Norbert Mow had opened a Pandora’s box. That means blood sucking all over the world. Blood sucking means victims. Victims mean the destruction of human species. What could I do to stop it? It would be too late.
After four weeks, I left the hospital completely recovered from anemia. Once again I was determined to destroy the evil plant.
THE LAST PART
Before I left the hospital, I said to Dr. Hayashi, “Would you like to see the Dracula plant? Why not come to my house with me? I think you are still doubtful about my story.”
I wanted him to accompany me to my house because I was really scared to enter my house alone. Dr. Hayashi looked embarrassed.
“Dr. Yamada, I am very curious, but I’m sorry I can’t come with you because, as you know, I have meetings to attend and patients to see,” he said as if he were soothing a crying child. I got irritated.
“I know you are busy, but I am afraid I will be a victim of Dracula again because I am, to my shame, deeply addicted to the devil. The fragrance of the flowers of the plant cripples my power to destroy it. You see, as I told you, the tendrils of the plant thrust its tips into my body and suck my blood. You may not believe me. I understand. My story is ridiculous and supernatural. I wouldn’t believe my story if I were you. But, Doctor, I am telling you the truth. Everything I have said is true. You have to believe me. I am scared of entering my house alone. I desperately need someone to rescue me from the bind of the tendrils. If you can’t come with me, you could tell one of your staff members to come with me.”
Dr. Hayashi’s doubtful look began to disappear. He looked into my eyes and said, “Dr. Yamada, is it really true? Is it really true that you have a plant that sucks your blood?”
“How many times have I said that it is true?”
“OK, Doctor, to tell you the truth, I have been doubtful, but since you are so serious, I think I am inclined to believe you.”
“Now you’ve at last began to believe me,” I said with a happy smile.
“There goes another joke of yours, Doctor, I am not so easily fooled,” Dr. Hayashi said reproachingly.
“No, no, no. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I am serious. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I am serious. Just believe me,” I said desperately with a pleading voice.
“All right, if you say so, I believe you now. If it is true, I am most interested in accompanying with you to your house and see the plant, but I am really sorry I can’t leave the hospital today, but instead, I will tell one of the interns to attend to you.”
“OK, then, please choose a strong young man just in case.”
On the way home, I told the intern how the plant had captured me with the tendrils and how they had sucked my blood. I guessed that the plant might have some flowers when I returned home because it usually took about four weeks for the plant to bloom. I said to him, “The most important thing is not to inhale the irresistible fragrance, but to cut the tendrils into pieces first of all.
After about fifteen minute walk we stood in front of my house. Each of us had a kitchen knife which Dr. Hayashi borrowed from the hospital kitchen. I knew that a saw was not necessary because it was the tendrils and not the trunk that were dangerous. The tendrils were the devil’s hands. If it lost its hands, it couldn’t attack us.
I was fully satisfied with my strategy against the devil. It was perfect. I had a kitchen knife. I had a young strong man by me. He had a kitchen knife, too. I had confirmed that he had a cell phone with him. The first thing to do in the battle is to cut the tendrils into pieces. Even if this plan should fail, it would be impossible for the devil to suck blood from both of us at the same time. Either of us could always cut the tendrils.
I said to myself, “OK. I’ve won the battle. I will soon be free from the cruel slavery of the sexual pleasure, from the vicious circle. I can soon work in peace and sleep well. Just you wait, bloody devil. Just you wait. You will be sorry that you sucked my blood.”
I opened the door. It was not locked because I had been carried to the hospital in an ambulance. The door had remained open, I thought. When I entered the house, I was frozen to death. I couldn’t utter a word. I stood trembling for a moment and rushed to the living room. Oh, God, the most hideous, the most horrible, and the most disastrous thing had happened! I had seen a woman’s shoes at the entrance.
It was too late. I cried, “Mikiko! Mikiko! Mikiko!” My dearest daughter Mikiko was dead lying under the triumphant devil, which stood still as if nothing had happened. The devil had sucked Mikiko’s blood. It had sucked even the last drop of her blood. I knelt down and held her in my arms. She was so light. Her face was that of a skull. Her eyes were caved in. The skin of her hands and feet stuck directly on the bones. No flesh. What I held in my arms was dry bones with skin attached to them. She was as thin as a twig. She was a skeleton. She was a mummy.
I am sorry Mikiko. It’s all my fault. It’s my responsibility. My dirty desire to exult in the abnormal sexual pleasure killed you. I should have written to you not to return home. I should have destroyed the devil earlier. Tears did not come into my eyes. I hugged her. I stroked her cold cheeks.
I looked at the plant. It bore two pieces of fruit. Both of them were as large and red as an apple. They reminded me of the forbidden fruit.
Then, just looking at the fruit aroused my sexual pleasure.
THE END
12667 words
When I awoke, I couldn’t comprehend where I was. Gradually my eyes came into focus. I found myself lying on a bed. I saw an intravenous line hanging from a blood bag hanging from the ceiling. A nurse was sitting beside the bed. Looking half surprised and half relieved, she said, “Oh, god, you’ve come to yourself at last. You’ve been unconscious for almost two days.” Then she called a doctor through the room interphone.
A doctor came accompanied by a nurse. He said, “Dr. Yamada. Are you all right? We’ve been worried about you. Do you remember me? I attended your hematology class when I was a medical student at Tokyo University.”
“Yes, I remember. You’re Mr. Hayashi. You were an excellent student.”
“Thank you for remembering me. Dr. Yamada, can you see through the window the building of the Tokyo Institute of Medical Science? This is the attached hospital.”
“Is that so? It’s nice I am near my institute,” I said. “Well, may I ask why I have been hospitalized?”
“You don’t remember anything? You were carried here in an ambulance the day before yesterday. You looked awful. You looked pale, your lips, your face, all pale white. You were suffering from extreme anemia. You see, when I ran your blood tests, your hemoglobin level was only 3.1. Your blood pressure was extremely low. Rapid heart beat, and short breath.”
I knew that a normal hemoglobin level for a man was between 13.5 to 16.5 grams per deciliter.
“So I had a blood transfusion?”
“Yes, an urgent one. But, Doctor, your bone marrow function was normal. The size, shape and color of your red blood cells were also normal. So, I can’t understand why you have developed such an extreme anemia. You’ve lost your blood so suddenly. What has happened to you, Dr. Yamada? It is as if Dracula had sucked your blood.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t believe me, but actually Dracula sucked my blood. I have a Dracula plant in my house that sucks blood. A devil plant. You think I am telling a joke, but this is true. The plant sucks my blood, and I am addicted to the sucking.”
The nurses looked at each other and giggled.
Dr. Hayashi said, “You are a wonderful joker as ever. I remember enjoying your class because you made us laugh with jokes. All right, all right. I believe what you say.” The doctor had a look of doubt.
I retorted, “I know anemia sometimes damage your normal thinking because of lack of oxygen in the brain, but I am not crazy. If you think I am joking, come to my house to see the Dracula plant.” I knew that whatever I said would sound untrue to him.
“Dr. Yamada, when you recover, I will visit you. It will be my pleasure to have the honor of meeting Count Dracula. But it will take at least ten days before you can leave the hospital.”
After Dr. Hayashi and the nurses left, I remembered how I had desperately struggled with the fierce blood sucking devil. The hard and strong tendrils. The bent tree. I was nearly killed. I had told my address to the police on the cell phone before I fainted. It’s an irony that a hematologist is suffering from anemia. What a hematologist I am to have my blood sucked by the devil. I thought, “It will take ten days before I recover. The plant will bear fruit then. This time, I will not eat the fruit. I will kill it once and for all.” I felt dizzy and went to sleep.
A week passed, but I did not feel any better. I still felt fatigue, dizziness, and lightheadedness. I sometimes had a rapid heartbeat. Also I felt chest pain.
After a thorough examination, Dr. Hayashi told me that I had jaundice and liver disease and that I had some heart problems, too. Oh, lack of blood causes such numerous diseases. What have I been doing in the past 60 years as a hematologist? I am suffering from blood disease, and I can’t do anything at all to cure it. I know the cause of my anemia. I know how to cure. It will take some more weeks. I need more blood transfusion, folic acid and vitamin B12 supplements, iron supplements, and injections of synthetic erythropoietin.
Two weeks passed. I was gradually recovering my health. Dr. Hayashi told me that I could leave the hospital in another week. During the third week, I received a letter via the institution from Dr. Norbert Mow in Singapore whom I had given some seeds of the plant. I had completely forgotten that I had given them to him. I shouldn’t have given them. They are such a vicious, murderous devil. I should have written to him to destroy the seeds immediately before it was too late.
The letter said that the plant had born three pieces of fruit and that he ate them. The effect of the fruit was tremendous. He felt what I felt. He was in the electrifying heaven and paradise of sexual pleasure, far stronger than the normal sex. At the end of the letter, he said that he had organized a project team that would study the marvel of the plant. The team, he said, consisted of three hematologists, two botanists, a genesiologist, and an anesthesiologist. He added that out of the seven scholars, four were from Singapore, two from Britain, and one from Canada. He wanted me to join the team.
Did he? Did he oraganized a team? What a shocking thing he did! Without my permission, without my consent, without noticing me, Nobert organized a team! I have been keeping the plant a secret for the past four years, but he made it public. I got angry, but on second thought, I reflected my attitude about the bloodsucking plant. I had a rotten spirit to monopolize the secret of the plant to myself. If I were a true scholar of hematology, I should have made it public earlier and studied the plant from multiple perspectives. Thinking this way, I softened my anger.
But, as for the growth of the fruit, it bore fruit so early. Why? It is strange. It is less than a year since I gave him the seeds. It had taken me about three years to get the first fruit. But how come he got the fruit so early? Probably the climate of Singapore influenced the growth, or the seeds were new and not 120 years old.
Anyway, the seeds will spread first in Singapore, Britain, and Canada, and then to all over the world. Dr. Norbert Mow had opened a Pandora’s box. That means blood sucking all over the world. Blood sucking means victims. Victims mean the destruction of human species. What could I do to stop it? It would be too late.
After four weeks, I left the hospital completely recovered from anemia. Once again I was determined to destroy the evil plant.
THE LAST PART
Before I left the hospital, I said to Dr. Hayashi, “Would you like to see the Dracula plant? Why not come to my house with me? I think you are still doubtful about my story.”
I wanted him to accompany me to my house because I was really scared to enter my house alone. Dr. Hayashi looked embarrassed.
“Dr. Yamada, I am very curious, but I’m sorry I can’t come with you because, as you know, I have meetings to attend and patients to see,” he said as if he were soothing a crying child. I got irritated.
“I know you are busy, but I am afraid I will be a victim of Dracula again because I am, to my shame, deeply addicted to the devil. The fragrance of the flowers of the plant cripples my power to destroy it. You see, as I told you, the tendrils of the plant thrust its tips into my body and suck my blood. You may not believe me. I understand. My story is ridiculous and supernatural. I wouldn’t believe my story if I were you. But, Doctor, I am telling you the truth. Everything I have said is true. You have to believe me. I am scared of entering my house alone. I desperately need someone to rescue me from the bind of the tendrils. If you can’t come with me, you could tell one of your staff members to come with me.”
Dr. Hayashi’s doubtful look began to disappear. He looked into my eyes and said, “Dr. Yamada, is it really true? Is it really true that you have a plant that sucks your blood?”
“How many times have I said that it is true?”
“OK, Doctor, to tell you the truth, I have been doubtful, but since you are so serious, I think I am inclined to believe you.”
“Now you’ve at last began to believe me,” I said with a happy smile.
“There goes another joke of yours, Doctor, I am not so easily fooled,” Dr. Hayashi said reproachingly.
“No, no, no. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I am serious. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I am serious. Just believe me,” I said desperately with a pleading voice.
“All right, if you say so, I believe you now. If it is true, I am most interested in accompanying with you to your house and see the plant, but I am really sorry I can’t leave the hospital today, but instead, I will tell one of the interns to attend to you.”
“OK, then, please choose a strong young man just in case.”
On the way home, I told the intern how the plant had captured me with the tendrils and how they had sucked my blood. I guessed that the plant might have some flowers when I returned home because it usually took about four weeks for the plant to bloom. I said to him, “The most important thing is not to inhale the irresistible fragrance, but to cut the tendrils into pieces first of all.
After about fifteen minute walk we stood in front of my house. Each of us had a kitchen knife which Dr. Hayashi borrowed from the hospital kitchen. I knew that a saw was not necessary because it was the tendrils and not the trunk that were dangerous. The tendrils were the devil’s hands. If it lost its hands, it couldn’t attack us.
I was fully satisfied with my strategy against the devil. It was perfect. I had a kitchen knife. I had a young strong man by me. He had a kitchen knife, too. I had confirmed that he had a cell phone with him. The first thing to do in the battle is to cut the tendrils into pieces. Even if this plan should fail, it would be impossible for the devil to suck blood from both of us at the same time. Either of us could always cut the tendrils.
I said to myself, “OK. I’ve won the battle. I will soon be free from the cruel slavery of the sexual pleasure, from the vicious circle. I can soon work in peace and sleep well. Just you wait, bloody devil. Just you wait. You will be sorry that you sucked my blood.”
I opened the door. It was not locked because I had been carried to the hospital in an ambulance. The door had remained open, I thought. When I entered the house, I was frozen to death. I couldn’t utter a word. I stood trembling for a moment and rushed to the living room. Oh, God, the most hideous, the most horrible, and the most disastrous thing had happened! I had seen a woman’s shoes at the entrance.
It was too late. I cried, “Mikiko! Mikiko! Mikiko!” My dearest daughter Mikiko was dead lying under the triumphant devil, which stood still as if nothing had happened. The devil had sucked Mikiko’s blood. It had sucked even the last drop of her blood. I knelt down and held her in my arms. She was so light. Her face was that of a skull. Her eyes were caved in. The skin of her hands and feet stuck directly on the bones. No flesh. What I held in my arms was dry bones with skin attached to them. She was as thin as a twig. She was a skeleton. She was a mummy.
I am sorry Mikiko. It’s all my fault. It’s my responsibility. My dirty desire to exult in the abnormal sexual pleasure killed you. I should have written to you not to return home. I should have destroyed the devil earlier. Tears did not come into my eyes. I hugged her. I stroked her cold cheeks.
I looked at the plant. It bore two pieces of fruit. Both of them were as large and red as an apple. They reminded me of the forbidden fruit.
Then, just looking at the fruit aroused my sexual pleasure.
THE END
12667 words
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