The Project of Tatsuo Takahashi

Paul has never seen anything like it. Even now, standing beside the overseer, only metres from the Imperial Transporter, Paul has to rub and shake his head, not once but twice.

“Amazing,” says the overseer, his hands on his hips and his relaxed belly hanging over his belt. He removes his fedora, rubs his bald head and looks at Paul with small dark eyes. “Is it everything you expected?”

“Yes,” Paul replies. “And much more.”

The overseer smiles, shakes his head and puts his hat back on. In the distance Paul sees a company hovercraft passing. On board some workers are returning home to the main base. When they see Paul they yell through the open windows and punch the air with their fists. Others wave bottles of beer in celebration. Paul smiles. For now at least, the workers can return home to be among friends and family. They may even forget, for a brief time, the work that is fast consuming their lives.

Some labourers take a moment to admire the project one last time in silence. The Transporter, made of the finest stainless steel, is indeed a sight. It stretches from the ground base, or foyer, to the sky and beyond. From Earth, one can’t see the end of it. The tower when completed will end somewhere in Earth’s atmosphere. From there people will one day join accompanying spacecraft. Paul likens it to a giant airport in space.

But for the most part, the Transporter is really one gigantic elevator. In all, there are fifty elevators, each holding up to one hundred people. While one ascends in these elevators, one can marvel at will through the glass at the desert landscape, until one is surrounded by nothing except space. It tests Paul’s imagination to even ponder the cables stretching through the building.

The project was the mastermind of a Japanese entrepreneur, Tatsuo Takahashi. Everyone told Takahashi this project was impossible. More importantly perhaps, they told him it was unprofitable. The eccentric Japanese businessman, of course, ignored the criticism. And now, after years of toil, here stands his beautiful vision. Some report the project is almost done. Unfortunately Tatsuo Takahashi, a hero of the people, never saw the project completed this far. He died several years ago, not long after the foundations alone had been laid, and the first sections installed. His son, who people called “an inept businessman”, quickly took over the project. At the time, the labourers believed the project was cursed. But the engineers assured the workers all was well. They reminded them that this project was going to be dangerous even from the beginning. They mentioned in great detail the Hoover Dam that had cost hundreds of lives. All through history, the engineers boasted, men perished in the name of advancement. Who could listen to such oratories without being seduced? The engineers asked the workers, “Would you all not sooner die for a cause, when so many die for nothing?” And the project managers devised ways to make sure the workers stayed faithful to the project. They invited priests to visit the tower to give it their blessings. Of course these religious ceremonies were done with workers in attendance. “The tower,” said the priests, “is symbolic of man’s ability to embrace God, despite His infinite distance from us.”

Paul must have been staring a long time at the tower, because when he looks around he sees the overseer has vanished. Where, he does not know. Paul gazes once more at the tower. Its grey steel panels shine against black steel in the twilight. Along the polished black steel, a painted gold line runs like tapestry along the tower’s edge. This gold lining is said to symbolise something personal to Tatsuo Takahashi. But what exactly, Paul does not know. He guesses the symbolism was Oriental.

“What a sight,” Paul says, tilting his head back. He gazes at the Transporter until he loses his breath. It looks at this moment even more striking for the apricot sunlight slicing over it and the singing black birds circling the loftiest regions. A worker points at these black birds from the company hovercraft that soon will disappear.

At last Paul is alone with the magnificent tower. How people managed to build the creation at all is a mystery. The building stretches thousands of miles. Many times communication broke down between the distant sections. Tradesmen, architects and engineers were often confused. However, somehow progress continues, if only slowly.

The project has been so long and exhausting that strange reports have surfaced. To everyone’s disbelief, men often return from the sections unable to recognise colleagues, friends and even family. Yet despite such terrible stories, workers prevail. It isn’t because they love the work or even the project. They have simply devoted so much time to the construction that they can no longer possibly do anything else.

For some labourers the project has taken on the affectionate seduction of a beautiful lady. They refer to the Transporter tenderly. Others regard it with an irony that they themselves are unaware of. For when they talk of the Transporter, they do so with a serene resignation. They almost commiserate how the project is a labour of love, a burden they are happy to bear—unfair though it is. This reaction always makes Paul contemptuous. But even he relates somewhat to this strange attitude. Then there are those who seem to be indifferent to the project. They merely put their heads down and work like robots. For what they lack in imagination, they make up for in blind and impeccable faith. Or so it seems.

Sometimes Paul imagines the project is losing its lustre. But by all appearances the project continues to mesmerise even the most hardened workers. How many times has Paul himself dreamt of it in his sleep! In short the tower symbolises every-thing. Therefore, Paul surmises, it symbolises nothing.

The masters, meanwhile, ignore the suffering peasant workers. The overfed and sulky leaders know humans will adapt to anything. Even a slave may sometimes believe he is a king. Besides, the poor will always suffer. The poor, they deduce, do not have choices. Furthermore, people have an instinct for not only mastery, but for slavery. They require leadership. What people need most of all is someone who will put a boot in their face at one moment, before embracing them in a brutal but protective embrace the next. That is how the masters would have justified their cruelty had they ever been made accountable. But Paul does not envision that ever happening.

The leaders believe no uprising will occur among the workers. Even so, overseers have taken precautions to keep the labourers faithful. To achieve this goal, they call upon the highest of authorities. They call upon God.

At first some workers respond with suspicion towards the priests. However, the priests at last convince them of the tower’s sacredness. Almost all the workers come to believe in the tower as holy and as their connection with God. When the workers die from exhaustion, they believe the world will remember them as the redeemers of mankind. No task, they believe, is more important. Were the world to end tomorrow, this tower may alone testify to man’s quest for God’s forgiveness.

Some workers believe even if they die their handiwork will survive. But this is doubtlessly absurd. History in the end, Paul concludes, remembers no one. Still the workers toil, although at moments they despair. For how can they know if the electricians hundreds of miles away will ever complete their tasks? These workers fear they will die before the project’s end. So how can they know their effort isn’t in vain? After all, there is always the possibility the project will fail.

But even this thought, tragic as it is, is nothing compared to the dread of others. Some workers believe the project will indeed succeed. However, the project was never meant to be complete. From the beginning, the Transporter needed to be infinite. Those of this opinion will often stop work on the steaming hot afternoons. They will call up into the shafts to the workers ahead. After all, those above them should have known more than they did. But the workers only hear their own cries echoed back to them. And when they gaze up at the tower, to which they see no end, some become so anxious they roll up their sleeves, throw aside their tools, and leap suddenly to their deaths.

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