BY CHRISTOPHER BARNARD

Copyright is held by the author.

KENMOKU TADASHI decided that “A. J. SPLATT and D. WEEDON: researchers on urinary incontinence,” deserved their own individual entries as well as a joint entry. He entered “SINA MOVAHED: Iranian chess grandmaster (‘seen a move ahead’)” under both his names, and cross-referenced them. It took him some time to choose which category to put him under, but he decided on “BRAINY PEOPLE,” where he could join “Marilyn vos SAVANT: highest recorded IQ.”

While he was doing this, he heard in the background, on the Nine O’clock News, more reports of people behaving strangely, such as living in the middle of rice fields or spending their days under weeping willow trees.

Initially this phenomenon had been laughed off as a TikTok craze. Or perhaps a return-to-nature cult. Or some kind of anti-government protest. Such explanations did not hold up for long.

The behavioural experts suggested it was a form of mass psychosis, a manifestation of the madness of crowds, which would sooner or later run its course.

But from almost the very beginning Kenmoku was aware of what was happening. He was a nominative determinism collector. He knew a name could exert a mysterious force over a person. It inclined him or her to do certain things and behave in certain ways. He himself had experienced this from early childhood.

Kenmoku’s name was written with the characters “see+eye+accurate.” A name that was invaluable in helping him navigate his way through life.

Throughout all his studies at school, and later in life, his name had been his friend. It opened his eyes to what most people could not see.

He had heard terms such as “autism,” and “on the spectrum” when still very young. He had been teased when as a child, and been called “weird.” Those days were now behind him, but he was nevertheless careful not to broadcast his abilities.

It was plain that what the News was reporting were cases ofnominative determinism, or nom det as he called it. But he was the only person who recognized it as such.

Unfortunately this was not a benign, useful nominative determinism, such as the type that helped him, or made Sina Movahed a chess champion. Or William Wordsworth an advocate for copyright law.

Besides his gift with words.

It was an aggressive form. Names were taking over people. They were hijacking them. People no longer owned their names. Names owned people. That was why there were Tanakas (“rice-field middle”) in the middle of rice-fields. Tanaka was in the rice-field not of his own volition, but because his name wished it so.

He had not heard of similar developments in China or Korea, and he knew why. Surnames in those countries are overwhelmingly made up of one character. But in Japan one-character surnames are rare. The majority of surnames consist of two characters and some have three, or even four characters.

There are names in which the characters meant such things as “middle village”, “high bridge,” “east mountain,” “horse place,” “owning cormorants,” “wild boar crotch,” “little birds play,” “honourable hand-wash.”

These were rich and exciting and interesting names. There were enough characters in these names to contain stories, and the names wanted their stories heard. They wanted to live out their stories — unfettered by humans, but by, unavoidably, using humans.

Their tales had long been suppressed. Now, was their time to tell them. Kenmoku did not know why this had now become the time, but it had.

The irony was though the names were verbal entities, namely names, they had no actual voices. They could not make themselves heard. But what they could do was to make their presence felt by their actions on humans.

As weeks passed, names started to hijack more and more people.

People were behaving in strange ways. Some wanted to live in horse stables or cow sheds. This was dangerous, but not as dangerous as going into deep woods to meet bears.

Kenmoku had no choice but to notify the authorities about nominative determinism, and then later the media. He was ignored. Persistent efforts were in vain. It was not inaccurate to say that he was fobbed off as if he was an eccentric. This made him more determined.

He set up social media channels to spread the word. He tried to quell panic by explaining that what everyone was observing was occurring sporadically, both geographically and with regard to only certain names. Thus, it was not the case that everyone with the name Tanaka, roughly 10% of the Japanese population, would be living in the middle of a rice-field.

He needed a great deal of courage to take these steps since his policy in life was to not attract attention to himself nor to his special abilities. But he had to save Japan!

He was accused of spreading misinformation and disinformation, and thereby causing panic.

His social media posts were all censored, and then banned. He was wise enough to empty his bank accounts before they were frozen.

He saw what the future might hold, so he used a large portion of this money to buy a good stock of preserved foods, medical supplies, a wide range of tools, and fuel. If the worst came to the worst, he could always find a safe haven. He knew of caves and deserted mountain huts where he could safely hole up.

But for the time being, Kenmoku would help Japan as best he could. His task was to convince people to change their names to what were probably safer names. No one could stop him from talking on street corners, handing out flyers, and enlisting supporters.

In Japan it is exceedingly difficult to officially change one’s name. But people can write their names in roman letters (“Tanaka”) or one of the two syllabic scripts used in Japanese. Or in everyday usage, shorten the name to one character so the name probably has no story to tell — or at least only a simple and innocuous one.

Another suggestion he made was to reverse the characters used to write the name and pronounce the name according to the reversed characters. Thus “Honda” became “Dahon.” And so on.

Slowly, he felt he was making some progress against the authorities, who were looking for medical or psychological explanations for the phenomenon — some nonsense about a “mind virus.” Increasingly people listened to him, or developed their own solutions.

Some had the bright idea of cancelling out their names by marriage. So TAnaka marries NAKAta, and the names cancel out like a kind of equation. (Obviously finding the suitable partner was statistically improbable, but social media helped in these cases.)

Kenmoku advised constraining the behaviour of one’s actual name, putting it in jail as it were, by keeping all official documents, such as passports, in a metal box, and burying it in earth. (He had no evidence for the efficacy of this, but it seemed a reasonable, common-sense precaution.)

Monks at a Buddhist monastery discovered religious incantations kept nom det at bay, so chanting-groups were formed, with designated chanters. This offered some protection from nom det, while it allowed all those not chanting to get on with their business. (People soon got used to the distraction.)

Although these were stopgap measures, they did afford some people a respite from nom det.

But they amounted to no more than putting a finger in the dyke.

***

Despite all these many efforts, nom det was still spreading. The hijacking of people by their names continued for more than a year. Abating for months in certain areas, and rising up again, or jumping to another part of the country.

The names were becoming more and more aggressive.

Several people with the character “cliff” in their name had been found dead at the bottom of cliffs or high buildings. Autopsies revealed signs of defensive wounds. It was rumoured they had fallen after a struggle with their name.

Others with some kind of “water,” such as “middle river,” in their names met watery graves. Again, under suspicious circumstances.

“River” surnames are so common it would not be an exaggeration to say that every Japanese person knows at least one person with the character “river” in his or her surname. The realization of this sent not a panic, but a cold chill, palpable, throughout the nation. People quietly and gingerly went about their business, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible. As if physically hiding from nom det.

What if “tree” names were next on the list for hijacking-murder? Or “mountain” names?

All government and media efforts to hush up the truth of murder-by-name failed. People could not be fooled.

The transport and distributions systems were by now crippled. Trains had to have two and then three, and then four people in the driver’s cab, some of whom would also act as chanters, because no one knew what any particular driver was going to do. Air transport became impossible.

The infrastructure of the country was collapsing. Industrial and agricultural output plummeted. Food could hardly be delivered to the cities. Japan’s much vaunted system of convenience stores and their almost perfect logistic systems were no more. The delicious desserts, worthy of fine hotels, sold as a matter of course at these stores, were a thing of the distant past. Now, at times even bottled water was unavailable.

Kenmoku was among many others who followed the government instructions on growing vegetables on urban balcony spaces. He was now living in a city full of parks and railway embankments that had been dug up and turned over to agricultural use. He loved the greenery, but hidden behind it was death. And craziness.

His gorge rose at the sight of people outside pet shops clamouring to buy rabbits and hamsters. In male and female pairs only.

Foreigners living in Japan stepped in to do many jobs, but unless they spoke and read Japanese to a high level, what they could do was limited. Thousands of volunteers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau came to Japan. They could do slightly more complex jobs since they there was little difference between the Chinese characters used in those countries and the characters used in Japan. (Because of radical post-war simplification of Chinese characters in the People’s Republic, people from the mainland were not useful.)

Many ethnic Chinese from Chinatowns in Japan, with “safe” single-character names, spoke Japanese as their native language, so they helped run the infrastructure.

***

And, after a year, just as suddenly as it had started, nom det petered out, and vanished. No one knew why. It was likened to the spread, and then disappearance, of a virus in a pandemic.

People wanted to return to their jobs but in many cases there were others already doing them. As these new people saw themselves as saviours of Japan, they were reluctant to give up theirs. Why should they?

In fact, they deserved a huge payout. Equal to many years of GNP. They had saved the Country.

These events were the beginning of the Japanese Civil Disturbances.

***

By now, Kenmoku had established his well-provisioned isolated base deep in the mountains. He had collected more than a dozen followers with carefully chosen safe, names (just in case aggressive nom det returned) who also possessed survival skills.

He was delighted when a couple of Buddhist monks and one nun, all with fine, resonant voices expressed a desire to join the group. It would be tough on them, but he would persuade them to keep at it, day and night. One could not be too careful.

Here in the mountains, they would sit out the civil disturbances.

***

Christopher Barnard worked for many years in the field of Japanese/English linguistics and lexicography. He is now an independent jewellery designer in Tokyo. He has recently started writing fiction, and has had some small success with  the following internet publications: Flash Fiction Magazine and Andromeda Magazine.