2. Let Your Name Be Tokjai!
Tossapol was a university student
back then. I'm talking about fourteen and a half years ago. He found me in the
bushes in the cafeteria garden and decided right away to take me in. I was
about three or four months old. I was awfully cute, like the white of an egg.
Boil an egg, peel it, and put three black dots on it — there you have baby Tokjai.
How could Tossapol's soft heart resist such adorableness? He melted right there
in front of me, mixed into the heat of the asphalt, vanished on the spot. But
while he melted, many people didn’t. One of them was the dormitory's tyrannical
matron. You could kill her, but she still wouldn't let a dog past the student
dormitory door. Tossapol pleaded until he was hoarse, but he couldn't convince
her. So, he had no choice but to leave me in the garden. He tied me to a tree
with a very long rope and made a makeshift shelter to protect me from the rain.
I was there day and night. He never missed giving me food and water. He came at
lunchtime to check on me. If he was going to hang out with friends in the
evening, he'd stop by before sunset to feed me. He seems indifferent, but
Tossapol is responsible; his mind won't rest if there's a task awaiting his
attention. You could even say I had a hand in making him so responsible. What?
Why are you surprised? Surely, you're not hearing for the first time that the
transformed can one day transform their transformer! Anyway, let's not get into
heavy topics. If we dive in, we won't surface again. So yes, I stayed in the
garden, tied to a tree, under a little arbor.
The other students living in the
dorm gradually took an interest in me too. I quickly became everyone's dog.
Sometimes I'd go up to Tossapol's room hidden under his T-shirt, but I couldn't
stay the night. He was so afraid someone would complain. And he wasn't wrong —
even the slightest disturbance could be grounds for him to be kicked out of the
dorm. Though being in the garden was more advantageous for me — an unparalleled
opportunity to understand life and observe humans. I learned one by one who was
friend and who was enemy. I barked a lot with my thin little voice, wagged my
tail, and made myself liked by every passersby. My rope was long, so I often
forgot I was tied to a tree. My brain wasn't developed enough yet to question
whether that was good or bad. My food was always in front of me, and so was
everything that wasn't food! My life consisted of sleeping, eating, and
circling the garden. In short, I was happy — if being loved doesn't make a
living creature happy, what else could? There was just one problem — a big
problem, not just a little big, but a very big problem…
There are many stray dogs on
campus. They're everywhere because they know university students love to share
their food and affection. Wherever there's shade or a street vendor, several of
my kin are sure to be stationed. The dogs here fill their bellies one way or
another. So new dogs keep coming to campus until an equilibrium is reached. By
"equilibrium," I mean: you'll go hungry, and when you find food,
you'll pounce on it. No one dies of starvation, but no one gets fat either. If
there's enough food to make some dogs fat, new dogs inevitably enter the campus
from outside. That reduces the per capita food supply. If famine threatens, the
weak — especially newborns, the elderly, and the sick — die, and the per capita
food supply increases. Still, it's a more comfortable environment than outside
the campus because the walls around the campus act as a deterrent to outsiders.
In short, because the internal equilibrium point is slightly higher than the
external one, the inside is more attractive.
Anyway, one day I'm eating the
boiled rice that Tossapol put in front of me, mixed with broth from the
meat-and-noodle soup, along with small pieces of meat. My tongue is practically
dancing in the soup, my nose drunk on the smell of meat — if I didn't rein in
my short legs, I'd fall right into the bowl. Even if the world collapsed on my
head at that moment, I wouldn't care — that's how lost in it I was. And right
then, a black shadow appeared beside me. What's this? A huge black dog. He'd
come right up next to me and was eyeing my food. Do I look like an idiot? I barked,
but he couldn't care less! And my voice is so tiny — maybe I should say I
"yelp." This dark monster relies on his size. I walk toward him — he
retreats a couple of steps, but that's it. He knows I can't do any harm to him.
Even if I hop and jump, I can't reach his neck. I looked around to see if
anyone would help, but there's no one in sight. It's between eight in the
morning and eleven — the time when students are most numerous, but the campus
is emptiest. But I don't give up — even though I'm small, I can still protect
my food. I keep growling, showing my teeth, running toward this black dog to
strike fear into his pitch-black heart. And then, suddenly, I feel a sharp pain
in my scruff, my feet leave the ground, and the world starts spinning around my
head. My barks are replaced by high-pitched screams that sound like a baby
crying. Yipe, yipe, yipe… It hurts so much. The first time in my life I'm
bitten, the first time a stranger's teeth pierced my flesh. How was I supposed
to know what pain felt like, how was I to know it could kill me? The black dog
flings me to the other corner of the garden. Thank goodness for my rope. I
can't go too far, but when I hit the ground, my head feels strange anyway. It's
as if all my strength has been drained, the blood in my veins froze, my muscles
became rigid. My head is on the ground; blood seeping from behind my ears mix
with the dirt. I see the black dog then — he's gobbling down my food. I hear
him smacking his lips as he happily swallows the meat, watching him twist his
tongue like a snake, leaving not a scrap of meat in the bowl. Then everything
slowly went dark. At first, I thought it was early evening, but it's not — it's
something else. It's as if the dog in front of me grows so huge that he
swallows me, the garden, the entire campus. Everything goes pitch black. Such
utter darkness that even with my eyes open, I can't see a thing.
When I open my eyes, I'm in
Tossapol's room. There are five or six students around, all in shorts and
shirtless. In the corner, a fan is humming, its drone grating on my ears. One
of the students is playing guitar; two are humming a song whose lyrics they
don't fully know. One is by the window preparing his instant noodles. The
others' voices come and go — they're joking among themselves. My eyes are open,
but I can't walk. My legs won't hold me. I noticed then the white cone around
my neck. Is it to keep me from looking behind me, I wonder, or is that black
dog still… No, no — what would a dog be doing here with Tossapol nearby? The
top of my head is incredibly itchy. I try to scratch it with my back paw but
can't. The slippery plastic surface of the cone keeps me from reaching the
itchy spot. I try rubbing my head on the ground — still can't. I flip over,
hoping the top of the cone might touch the itch and relieve it a little. No —
this thing around my neck is so rigid. It's not some flimsy thing made from unused
kitchen odds and ends; it's clearly designed to stop me from touching my wound
with my paws. But I don't give up — I wiggle around desperately where I lie,
hoping it might help, that I might just reach that spot on my head.
Tossapol lifts me into the air
when he sees me spinning circles on the ground with my rear. "It's time to
give you a name," he says in a gentle voice. The festive tone in his voice
confuses me. So, the situation is better than I thought. Meaning this pain,
this dizziness, this party of fleas on my head… Are these signs of improvement,
or am I dying and Tossapol, in a last effort, trying to fool me? "Were you
very scared of that black dog?" he asks. Scared? I don't know fear — I
never have and never will. I was a little startled when I first saw that big,
dark menace, that's all. Wouldn't anyone freeze if someone two or three times
their size suddenly appeared beside them? Anyone in my place would have turned
to stone. The guitar-playing kid says, "Put the animal down. Look, the
poor thing's in shock." Tossapol puts me down. I push myself, trying to
stand, leaning on my trembling knees, but I'm dizzy. I take a couple of
staggering steps — I look like the crabs I would later see at the seaside, emerging
to greet the evening sun. I fell immediately. "Let your name be Tokjai[1],"
he says. "Since you were so frightened, since you were so scared
shitless." The guitar-playing kid stops. "What did you say? Tokjai?
Really?!" Tossapol nods slightly. He lifts me back up to face level and
looks into my eyes, which I can barely keep open. "Yes, his name is Tokjai
from now on." They laugh — I don't know if it's at the strangeness of my
name or at my eyes, loosened by the anesthesia. They laugh; my stomach churns.
They roar with laughter, and in me, waves rise. Then a force pushes at my gut —
a scoop pressing from my stomach to my throat and then to my mouth, tearing out
everything inside me… I spasm and vomit all over Tossapol's bare chest.
The laughter intensifies; the
walls of the room seem to close in on me. "First Tokjai, now we're also
grengjai[2],"
I say to myself. Tossapol stands there as if unsurprised. Not the slightest
complaint shows on his face. He pulls a tissue from a box under the bunk bed
and cleans the yellow vomit trickling down his chest. "The vet said he
might vomit — it's from the anesthesia." One of the students handed me a
wide cushion. "Here, lay your Tokjai down on this. If you keep lifting him
in the air and shaking him like a toy, this is what you get. Let the animal
sleep. He has stitches on his head. He won't fully be awake for at least twelve
hours." I lay on the cushion and then fall in sleep — a deep, unbroken
sleep. Dreamless, waveless; I drift for hours in a deep burgundy void, as if
lightly brushing against the softness of velvet. The cone stays on my head for
a week, and it's a good thing. Because of it, my wound doesn't get infected,
and I heal quickly. After that, the barking and running resumed. The matron
lets me stay in the dorm. It turns out she saw my tiny body lying in blood on
the ground, and as soon as she saw me, she took me to the vet in her own car.
Then she gave Tossapol strict instructions: "I'll pay the vet fee. Don't
worry. Raise the puppy in your room from now on. As long as no complaint
reaches the university rector's office, I'll protect you. I don't think anyone
will complain anyway. Just don't let him bark at night. This animal can't live
in the dormitory garden. He got lucky today and survived, but if other dogs
attack him tomorrow, we won't be able to save him. Look how that raging dog's
teeth pierced your little dog's tiny head!"
That's how it happened. Almost
fifteen years have passed since that incident. I remember all the details as if
they happened yesterday. The trick isn't remembering — it's being able to tell
yourself, to make yourself accept your own weaknesses and stupidities. Looking
at the Tokjai of years ago, not belittling him, not scolding him, trying to
understand the decisions he made. That's the sincerity every confession to
oneself must have; otherwise, voicing memories loses its value. As they drift
from reality, they become meaningless and turn into empty talk. If I'd brought
these memories to mind ten years ago, I might not have been able to recall
much. I would have been ashamed of myself, of what I lived through, afraid that
the charisma of Tokjai, who once commanded everyone in this village with his
power and authority, would be scratched. But now I'm old, in my "I don't
care about anyone" phase. I have no authority to lose, no charisma to
scratch. So, for me, the shy postures of young girls who tug at their swimsuits
the first time they go to the beach, poisoning their day with the worry
"Is this too revealing?" — that's long behind me. Because one of the
most important things I've learned in my fifteen years of life is this: the
cause of shyness, victimhood, and touchiness isn't the places that are exposed
and visible to others. It's what you hide. Those who have nothing to hide, who
don't nurse an ego ready to be crushed, who aren't bothered to see themselves
as ordinary — they have nothing to be ashamed of, victimized by, or offended
about. Yet it seems I needed to grow older, to have life roll over me, to
realize this truth. Some lessons aren't learned just by observing, listening to
people, or dozing in front of libraries. The price is high. You pay once, and
the veil lifts from your eyes. After that, you spend the remaining hours of
your life thinking you're different from others, imagining that your future
tomorrows will be better than your past yesterdays. And you don't live long
after learning some truths. You can't — some truths are too heavy; you can't
carry them for long…
"Tokjaaaiii, Tok Tok Tok…
Where are you?"
They're calling me. I think the
meal is over. Though it's probably not. Father eats faster than everyone. While
the others continue eating, he comes to me, fills my bowl, and pats my head. I
should go now — enough nostalgia. Life can't handle sentimentality, but for
some reason, the older I get, the more I enjoy digging up the past. Every scent
in my nose, every sound filling my ears corresponds to a second, a moment of my
fifteen-year life. Today's episode was because of the magnolia tree beside me.
Its trunk is outside the garden, but its branches hang over inside, shedding
onto this spot everything beautiful about it. Whenever it drops its flowers, it
drags me back to the unageing past, breaking down the locked doors of memories.
There was also a magnolia tree in the garden where the black dog bit my head.
Yes, now I remember. I'd admire its thick branches spreading from its huge
trunk, watching with wonder this tree's majestic posture defying gravity.
"Tokjaaaiii, come on, my
baby. Your food is ready. Look, the ants will eat it if you don't."
