While I cannot approve of all your acts, I stand in awe of your position since your capture, and dare not oppose you lest I be found fighting against God; for you speak as one having authority, and seem to be strengthened from on high.
- Letter from a “Christian Conservative” addressed to John Brown after his imprisonment (1861)
An alarm bellowed from the loudspeaker. “It’s 6:30! Time to wake up!” The speaker sounded cold and unpassionate.
Misha, Maya and other catfolk of Tokyo Metropolitan Special Education Facility No. 011 woke up, ready for another long day. Their room was cramped, with fifty beds in a space that should have six at most. There was no proper ventilation, heating, or cooling to deal with whatever the Japanese climate decided to throw at them. “Hardship breeds character and purifies immorality.” is what they said, though the lack of proper accommodation was mostly due to budgetary reasons a smidgeon of ever-present sadism.
All the catfolk, with the same drab white uniform that had stopped being white a long time ago, lined up at the conference hall at the middle of this horrible complex. Posted along the winding corridors were slogans that were supposed to be motivational, like “Work is what sets you free.” and “To overcome your animal nature is done by discipline and obedience.”. These slogans really only worked as material for gallows humor in practice.
Maya and Misha ended up in the front of the lines assembling at the room. There they could see the overseer of the facility, flanked by guards and dressed up in the sharpest suit that they could as if to taunt their prisoners. Behind them was the flag of Japan, a Rising Sun flag and a portrait of the incumbent emperor that made him look most pompous. It was clear that the people that worked in these facilities came from the most zealous and insecure kind.
“Is this thing working? It is… Ahem!” The overseer’s voice echoed over the speakers. He was reading from a pre-made script that sat in his hands “Dear students, we welcome another day in the furthering of your education to beat your animalistic instincts. Only through work can you become a proper part of our great Japan! Now, extend gratitude to His Imperial Majesty for granting you amnesty!”
The “students” had already been forced to recite and memorize this part a myriad times over:
Thousands of years of happy reign be thine;
Rule on, my lord, until what are pebbles now
By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides the moss doth line.
Most of the “students”, who were young and mostly uneducated, didn’t understood anything from the anthem full of obsolete words. Yet they sung to please the overseer and to apparently “bless” this emperor that they had never seen once in their miserable lives. Maya was a bit tired that day; she was just randomly flapping her mouth to appear as if she was singing.
The overseer’s voice ringed throughout the hall after the anthem ended. “Number 44, Maya! Bring her here!” Maya couldn’t do anything as the guards brought her onto the stage, in front of the overseer. She was terrified; what child wouldn’t be terrified in such a situation?
The overseer grabbed the little Maya by the collar. She could hardly breathe as they spoke. “You! Why aren’t you singing?! Why wouldn’t you want to glorify His Imperial Majesty?”
Maya, still in her tired and fussy state, committed a grave mistake. “’Cause he’s such a massive prick for puttin’ me here!” she said and struck at the portrait of the emperor with one of her hands. The hall became so silent that one could hear a pin drop.
Pins dropping could no longer be heard when the overseer spoke after joining the pause. They were furious, but they took care to not look offended by some meek catgirl. They took out their sword, all good officers carried a sword, from their scabbard. “You dogs are all the same, never understanding anything until you’re shown the stick and beaten down. Haruto, hold that arm that dared strike His visage. Make sure she doesn’t move.”
One of the guards seized Maya, forcing her to hold one of her arms out in a straight line. The crowd of “students” watched, none of them daring to stop what was happening on the stage. “Now, little dog, I am going to be merciful in making an example out of you. My grandfather would have gone for the head back in his days; be grateful that you live in better times.”
The overseer swung the sword downwards, hammering the nail that stuck out.
“N-no… Have mercy!”
Brown was awoken by the semi-lucid cries of Maya. Her face was one belonging to someone who was great pain, and she was shaking with a cold sweat running through her brows. She was breathing rapidly, gasping for air.
Brown decided that it’d be best to wake her up from whatever nightmare was ailing her. He gently shook Maya by her shoulders. “Young lady, are you fine?”
Maya opened her eyes to find Brown looking straight at her. He was a scary sight to see waking up, with his hair and beard having gone unkempt from a month of lacking proper care and the lack of proper lighting helping in making him look straight out of a horror movie. She instinctively grabbed one of the shoulders of Brown to push him away, before her brain finally finished processing the fact that the old man in front of her didn’t mean any harm.
“I-I-I-” A dam full of once bottled emotions broke open once she realized that she was safe. Still holding on to the shoulder of Brown, Maya began crying while trying but failing to speak. She then hugged the old man tightly Brown was rhythmically rocking her back and forth while singing to lull her back to sleep. “It’s all going to be fine, young lady…” Her breathing became calmer and tears subsided until she was back to sleep once more, still holding on to Brown.
One more peaceful year passed in the Tamaside Patisserie, though calling it an “abandoned patisserie in the middle of nowhere” would be inaccurate by this point. The former patisserie had become somewhat of an unofficial charity thanks to the overwhelming amount of support Brown had gotten from his ventures into the city. Brown wasn’t too interested in hoarding extra items that his household didn’t need, so he had begun distributing what he didn’t need to the homeless men and catfolk of Tama River.
Slowly, a small village of tents had formed around the Tamaside Patisserie which now acted as a sort of community center (and a church with a few goers, led by John Brown). The first floor was now fitted with one big charcoal stove, food and seating, all for public use. The second floor was left to the Brown household. The Tamaside community (as it began to be called) had begun convening inside the patisserie once in a while for debate and to pool together their resources for their makeshift community. One such project was the renovation of the patisserie; a group of former construction workers helped install doors, windows, and even paint the building so that it didn’t look as depressing with its former drab gray walls and floors.
Brown quite disliked the fact that the Tamaside relied on donations to keep afloat. He was a frontiersman from birth, making him used to living autonomously. Thus, he had begun from the most basic need, that being food, to help the community less reliant on handouts. Brown surveyed land suitable for farming, he was known for his experience in surveying land back when he was in the United States, and began educating a group of volunteers on farming. He had to combine older 19th century knowledge with modern, scientific 21st century knowledge that he had read about in the library. Brown was beyond amazed when he saw the first harvest of rice and potatoes: modern cultivars of such plants combined with modern fertilizers exceeded anything from back in his time. Selling of excess food resulted in a tidy profit for the Tamaside community.
Another source of income, and a passion project, that Brown wanted to pursue was sheep and wool. Unfortunately, cattle was rare in Japan, especially sheep who numbered only in the thousands, nor did Brown have the means or capital to import animals. The climate of Japan wasn’t suitable for raising wool-growing sheep either, meaning that Brown had to completely give up on recreating the wool empire that he made back in America.
Moving on from the economy, with the help of Miss Watanabe who had begun spending more and time in the patisserie, an elementary level of education was set up for the younger folk. The education of the Brown sisters was going well. Maya had finally gotten over Latin script while Misha had already moved on to learning simple kanji.
Today was another day that had started peacefully. Brown was off in the fields, helping sow them and the sisters were spending their free time in the patisserie.
“Misha, look at what I can do!” said Maya as she took a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard. “In-com-pe-hen-si-ble-ty! How cool is that?”
Misha chuckled in response “That… er… wrong. Write… wrong.” She wrote her own name on the board. “美沙… er… this… uhm. Right. This right and… and… ah… more cool. Right cool.”
“Such a showoff…” said Maya as she heaved a sigh. Before she could concoct a suitable response to her sister, she was distracted by cries of distress coming from outside the patisserie.
“Help! Someone’s been injured! Or, actually, multiple people have been injured!”
“Do we have any doctors?”
“There are like ten former doctors here! Which ones?”
“Are we really going to have a debate over this? Grab the first few you can!”
The sisters rushed to the scene out of curiosity. There they saw a crowd formed around a group of beaten up catfolk. Like any other curious crowd, they had begun questioning whoever they could question.
“Was there a drunken brawl? What happened?” asked one of the crowd members.
One of the men who had escorted the injured was about to reply, when a reply as to “What happened?” revealed itself when the perpetrators showed up over the horizon.
The perpetrators in question were a mob of angry looking young men, holding various weapons like baseball bats, golf clubs and mall ninja grade katanas. Some of them were holding torches and flags, with one particularly large Rising Sun flag being held by someone next to their leader. They looked like a ridiculous knock-off version of a military parade.
The mob chanted in disunison while marching towards the patisserie. “Purge the vagrants! Long live the Sensible United Citizens’ Kindness, Edification and Rejuvenation Society, long live Japan!” This mob could be compared to a clown posse; the only difference being that most clown posses are respectable businesses that actually contribute to society in some manner.
A misshapen man who seemed to be the leader of the mob began addressing the crowd of Tamaside residents. “Vagrants who defile our beautiful Tama River, the citizenry of our great country demand that you cease occupying our land and cease the harboring of animalistic strays at once!”
The Tamaside crowd was filled with angry chatter. One of the bolder members shouted in response. “I’ve been livin’ here for a whole year, what have ya done ya right prick?!”
Their leader’s speech ceased not. “If you do not stop your wanton acts of anarchy and disobedience to the rule of law, then we shall have to take action to ensure that righteousness rules over this river.” He drew his sword to make what he meant clear.
Brown had returned from the farms by the time the group had reached the patisserie. He stepped forward towards their leader, making sure to look directly at him as he did so. Their leader tried to keep distance by pointing his sword towards Brown. “Young man, the residents of this river demand that you cease occupying their land and cease your wanton acts of aggression immediately.” Brown was still wearing gardening gloves since he had rushed over from the farms; he quickly took hold of his adversary’s blade with his hands uninjured. Brown twisted the blade before their leader could react (nor was the man skilled enough in combat defend himself if he could react), painfully twisting the man’s arm that held the grip. Their leader let the sword go, fell down, and began crying in pain while rolling on the ground.
The situation was now reversed; Brown held the sword and pointed it towards their leader. “‘Whoso mocketh the poor, reproachesth his Maker; and he that is glad at calamities, shall not be unpunished’. Do not forget this, young man. Skedaddle and never come back, for the Lord shall be with His poor and not on the side of chains!”
The leader’s aching arm made him unable to think anything fancy to counter Brown. There was too big of a crowd gathered near the patisserie for them to attempt anything today. “We- We shall return! Boys, this is only a tactical retreat!”
