as queer as a clockwork orange

Yesterday during lunch, a woman sat across from me with a mango and a knife. After a quick inspection of the mango, she picked up the knife and started peeling it carefully from top to bottom. I watched as each slice of thin skin curled away from the hidden orange flesh underneath. She meticulously peeled off each piece of skin without a trace of flesh on them. I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the stories a lieutenant told in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. It was the story of how he witnessed the skinning of his superior, Yamamoto, by the Mongols when they were discovered on enemy ground. Each Mongolian troop had a professional who possessed extremely high technical skill in shearing off every inch of skin on the bodies of their prisoners. “They can take a man’s skin off the way you’d peel a peach. Beautifully, without a single scratch.” The Mongolian officer started off with the left arm, skinning him carefully as Yamamoto burst in screams of agony. Soon, each piece of skin was sliced off and handed to the other officers, blood still dripping from it. What was left of Yamamoto was a bright red lump of flesh immersed in its own puddle of blood. Just like the bright orange mango dripping mango juice. My lunch didn’t look so appetizing anymore.