Escape

In 1970s Japan, at the height of social unrest, Satoshi Kirishima was a member of the “Scorpion Cell” of the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front, a new left-wing extremist group. Considered a wanted criminal, the young Kirishima went on the run, under constant fear of being caught. He became a day laborer to make ends meet, and several decades ago, he began a live-in job at a construction company in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, under the alias Hiroshi Uchida. While he found moments of respite through hobbies, he remained haunted by the presence of his former friends—those who struggled in prison, those who fled the country, and those who took their own lives. In 2024, at the age of 70, Kirishima found himself hovering between life and death in a hospital bed with a terminal cancer diagnosis. As his consciousness fades, memories of his time on the run with his…