The Ark Sakura by Kōbō Abe Page A

and smoothly. I listened, and heard only the rumble of the sea, murmurings of conches, drops of water falling—whether near or far was impossible to say.
    It was too quiet. I pushed the door open still farther, went inside, and stood on the cedarwood deck. The insect dealer followed behind, gripping my belt. If what we had just come through were the gangway, this would be the hatch, not the deck. We were on the top landing of the stairs leading down into the hold. There was a damp green smell, and perfect silence. Nothing more. What had happened to the invaders? I felt an uneasy premonition.
    I had not yet told the insect dealer, but the entire ship was booby-trapped to guard against trespassers. This very staircase leading down into the hold was a dangerous trap. It appeared to be the only way down, but the boards from the fourth step to the seventh held a nasty surprise: on one side they were fastened down with a spring hinge, while the other side was left free so that anyone putting his weight on them was bound to slip and fall. It was twenty-three feet to the bottom. An unlucky fall could easily prove fatal. The only safe way to go up and down was to use the ladder propped inconspicuously alongside the stairs.
    Assuming you managed to pass this first hurdle, you still had to get by the stairs leading up to the bridge, a sort of terrace off the first hold. (I always refer to it as the bridge, although technically it’s my own cabin—the captain’s quarters.) Set foot on those stairs without first pushing the cancel button, and a fusillade of skyrockets will instantly fire. Put a hand on the drawer of my desk, and a spray can of insecticide will go off in your face. Nor would it be wise to show any interest in the bookmark stuck invitingly in my diary: Merely reaching for it would trigger an ultraviolet warning device, sending out a shower of crushed glass I made by grinding up old light bulbs. Individual fragments are as thin as mica and as sharp as razors; once they get in your hair you can’t brush them out, and if you tried to shampoo them out, your scalp would be cut to ribbons.
    I had never expected any of this to be put to use. I had thought of it lightly as a sort of protective seal on the ship until the crew officially came on board. What got me started was a small Austrian utility machine that I bought to make duplicate keys. One day I used it to make a tiny screw to fasten on the sidepiece of my glasses. Next I repaired a fountain pen, and then added some parts to a used camera. Gradually it became a consuming passion, and I went around fixing, adding to, and remodeling everything I could lay hands on.
    My masterpiece was an automatic air gun. It was no ordinary air gun; apart from a slight thickness of the shaft, it looked exactly like an umbrella. Unfortunately, there was no way to attach a sight, so I was forced to omit that feature. As a result, it could be used only at extremely close range, and never did achieve as much as I hoped in my war on rats—the original purpose for which I’d designed it. As an umbrella, however, it functions admirably. If I ever put it up for sale in that department store rooftop bazaar, it would certainly do better than the water cannon, anyway.
    But what if I did inflict injury on a trespasser, I now wondered—would I be legally responsible?
    After an interval that might have been two seconds, or twenty, the steel door clanged shut of its own accord, the reverberations conveying a vague sense of immense weight. The insect dealer switched his penlight on, but the shaft of light illuminated nothing; it only tapered off and disappeared, emphasizing the depth of the darkness (the room was 225’ X 100’ X 60’). He cast his voice into the blackness.
    “Anybody here?”
    “Yes.” The response came bundled in reverberations, and the beam of a flashlight bounced back. “You kept us waiting long enough. Hurry and turn on the lights, please.”
    It was the shill, no doubt