Midnight Runner

By Pablo Amarna

In a society dominated by branded apartments, corporate omnipotence and social detachment, Imagawa is trying his best to endure a typically mundane salary man's life. When he tries to reject this facade of normality one surreal night, he meets an enigmatic woman who draws him into a beautifully haunting world that forces him to question his convictions and confront the shadow in his life.

Imbued with energy and relevance. Through Imagawa's unsettling story we follow individuals on life's blurred edges and their search for love and belonging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Amarna
• Release date: Dec 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370172528

Pablo Amarna

Pablo Amarna is an exciting new independent fiction writer with a deep passion for technology, culture, music and film. With a keen insight, his works are challenging and thought provoking. His globetrotting adventures have led him far and wide, and provides the material that helps him explore & explain this mad wonderful world!He is currently working on various projects, including a new short story collection, An Interview in Paradise, and a thrilling new action-adventure graphic novel. Discover more at https://www.pabloamarna.com.

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Midnight Runner

Pablo Amarna

Copyright 2017 Paul W. Daley

Published by Paul W. Daley at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in the novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. The author humbly begs your pardon.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

About Pablo Amarna

Connect with Pablo Amarna

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to those people who helped with this book; my editor James Phillips and to all those who provided support, talked things over, read, wrote, offered comments, assisted in the editing, proofreading and design.

Above all I want to thank Mackie and the rest of my family, who supported and encouraged me.

Prologue

There is a man who runs past my window when the streets are dark and empty and the neighbourhood sleeps. His shoes sound on the road most nights - slap slap clap slap clap. The sound is of someone either not well, or maybe in distress. Indeed, upon the first time, I thought it was the distinct sound of someone running from a pursuer.

My night runner does not pass every night, but each time he does I am made to feel numb, for he reminds me of the fear of my existence.

I have only glimpsed him once, his sweat drenched shirt flapping in the distance. I often wonder why he runs so hard at night. What compels him to leave the comfort of his own bed to burn his lungs in the humid city air? If I were to know such answers, maybe they might serve my own questions.

Some nights I rise to rush out and confront him. Why? I would demand to know. But each time I get only to my threshold. The door never swings open, as I am trapped as always by my own fear to engage with the world outside.

Chapter 1

Although it had been with me for as long as I could recall, my condition wasn’t always so acute. Despite my pain I managed to keep my job at Yoshino Ginko, working on their foreign accounts section using proprietary Shimada software. The job paid well and initially maintained my interest, until the novelty wore off. It wasn’t my chosen field which bored me, more so the way in which we were forced to work. Everything was proprietary or closed systems. In Nippon there was no room for open standards, or open source software. Innovation and free thinking were such taboo concepts that my attempts at introducing new and efficient methods through more elegant code had finally earned me total contempt from all my colleagues. Old Adachi san, our section chief, was the only one who afforded me any kind of acknowledgement. Actually, I really think my peculiarities amused him in some way.

Imagawa! he would call. What are we dreaming up today? I wish you’d write something to fix the air conditioning in East section. It’s hotter than a rat’s arse over there!

I would nod and sometimes laugh, for luckily his chides never went beyond gentle teasing. That plus the occasional drink at the local bar was the sum of our relationship. Home invitations for beer with the section chief would have been pushing it, but you could say Adachi san was the only person I could call a friend since moving to Osaka. Sometimes I would catch him looking at me in a strange way. Something akin to pity, or even compassion. Adachi had two younger brothers. One of which was a rising star in the Liberal Democratic Party, the other he never spoke of. I had a strong feeling I reminded him of that other brother.

Whatever the case, I was a complete oddball to Adachi and the rest of the team. And the fact was I felt the same about them. Not only my colleagues, but virtually everyone I came across in my brief life seemed weird. At first I thought there was something seriously wrong with me, as indeed did my parents. They felt they were doing what was right and best. But after endless visits to the Doctor and assorted specialists, they gave up trying to figure me out and left me to my own devices. I would spend countless hours alone, sometimes reading in my room, or perched high up in a tree somewhere in the woods near my home.

Each morning in junior high, I’d knock on the staffroom door, collect the key to that room in a disused part of the school and take myself up and lock myself in. Once there my imagination would roam wild as I looked out towards the rail tracks and the ever present crows. I’d sometimes get a rare visit from a teacher to see all was well. That was my life for most of those early school years. Collect my key, go to that room and sit all day alone. Poor mother would sometimes visit to collect me and check in with my form tutor. They could only provide her with general and cursory updates. He is doing his best. Always diligent. We have to wait and see. These things take time. After all, they were no experts on such cases themselves. Later, in my teens, I would ride the trains, criss-crossing the rail networks and making short stops at obscure and forgotten places. My favourites were the seaside towns, places like Zushi where I imagined people sometimes felt the same as me, and time would become immaterial as you sat and watched the sun go down.

I always thought trains were the best way to travel, a more civilised pace, and I could not see the attraction my peers saw in the high pitched wail of their scooters. I also thought that a train carriage would be an ideal place to talk to people, but this proved not to be the case in my world. Here there were no stray gazes, no hustling morning commuter’s Do you mind?, or sharing the sports pages with a stranger. No, this was civil inattention at its most extreme. In this world, people outside of your ‘normal’ spheres of activity simply did not exist. All of which I became more painfully aware, the older I got. As a child you were excused a few indiscretions, but as a teenager or young adult, expectations changed. Patterns of behaviour shifted and altered as codes of conduct were silently enforced with a slow creeping fear. So I grew apart from what few friends I had.

Then one summer everything changed. I had been living in a company apartment for over a year. Not as salubrious as it sounds, just one of the many drab cement block cubicles in the bordering twilight districts that the bank provided as a sad excuse for living quarters. It was either this or one of the Keiretsu branded ‘service’ apartments, integrated with a personalised concierge system, the latest artificial intelligence. I just couldn’t see the need. For me it was too much of an intrusion.

It was a normal Friday evening, and the team was having one of its regular after work bonding sessions at McCafferty’s, in Umeda. An Irish themed bar with dubious charm that everyone seemed to enjoy. I would normally try to politely decline any such invitations. But despite being relatively young, I was now a senior, and so was obliged to attend our section’s regular drink sessions. After all, a young executive should make every effort if he wished to advance. So I kept telling myself anyway, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

Adachi was trying his best to get the freshmen in the party spirit. He drew me in, too. A drinking game ensued, and young Kubota was trying his best to down a tall pint of Asahi malt, which was increasingly proving to be an insurmountable task for the ever enthusiastic junior engineer. I watched on, feeling almost out of body-like, as Kubota struggled to finish amidst tumultuous cheers of encouragement from his co-workers. There were similar times like these when I felt divorced from the moment and all those around me. What to some appeared harmless yet raucous fun, I saw as a desperate act of survival for those involved. Without the group’s favour someone’s prospects were essentially next to nothing. Thus, my behaviour pretty much amounted to slow and painful corporate suicide. I had almost gone past the point of caring, but back then I still struggled to make some semblance of effort and face.

Imagawa! Stop dreaming of new, ‘elegant’ code and show these young pups how we drink! Adachi wore a wry smile as he shouted. Inevitably, my turn had come round. There was a chorus of Imagawa! to which I grudgingly obliged with a dark glance towards Adachi. I raised the glass to my parched mouth and smelt the fresh aroma of malt. My thirst felt unquenchable. A long sip held everyone’s attention, then with two gorgeous gulps, I emptied the glass and slammed it down before wiping my chin, thirst slaked. The younger members sat mouths agape, begrudgingly impressed. Even Adachi looked on astonished.

Imagawa! You dark horse. when did you learn to drink like that?

I gave Adachi a sly look and retorted, Fixing other people’s code is thirsty work.

He laughed and muttered Yes of course, before flashing back a suspicious glance. I hadn’t said ‘your’ code, but it was still a little foolish of me. Whatever, I was tired and wanted to leave my present company.

I was granted an