Pathway to Japanese Literature

The sky hung dark and cloudy as the wind raged furiously.
Diamond-shaped waves rose across the water's surface.
Even the reed thicket—normally mist-shrouded—stood parched and battered by the violent winds.
Within the dim glow along the embankment, only the wind sweeping off eggplant-hued water carried true cold.
Chiho stoked the fire beneath the pot and walked down to the riverbank to meet Yobei, who was late.—However much she wrestled with solutions, none seemed forthcoming. To die clutching the child would shame her before society, yet dying alone felt cowardly when she pitied that unregistered infant—still abandoned at the maternity hospital.

The blowing wind raged furiously, choking the breath away.
Above the water where choppy waves rose, a large star appeared.
On the uneven stone path leading down to the river, the weeds on both sides were being beaten down.
When she reached the shore, even the plank bridge—usually wet and slippery—was dry, creaking shrilly in the wind.

Like window glass, the sky's light along the embankment glowed crimson, lingering.
After crossing the small plank bridge and peering across the dark water, she saw Yobei chest-deep in the river, facing away.

“Grandpa!”

Perhaps because the wind carried her voice away, Yobei remained silently facing away in the swirling water.
With her hand to her mouth and leaning forward, Chiho called out again in a loud voice.
When she shouted with a booming voice that resonated through the water, Yobei slowly turned around.

“Dinner’s ready!”

“Yeah…”

“What’s wrong with you? Getting into the water like that.
You’ll catch your death of cold…”

Yobei walked toward the water’s edge, pushing against the resisting current as he swayed his body heavily from side to side.
The lingering crimson light sank away, and Yobei’s face now appeared like that of a black beast.
There was a rank smell of algae.
Nearby, waterfowl were crying.
That Yobei had gone into the water left Chiho with a vague sense of unease.

“You’ll catch a cold.”
“Grandpa.”
“Don’t do anything reckless...”

“I let the net get away, so I was searchin’ for it.”

“Hmph, but it’s still cold out—don’t push yourself…”

“Yeah... Is Matsu awake?”

“She isn’t awake.”

“Hmm... The wind’s really howling... Gonna get worse come night.”

Soaked through, Yobei walked past Chiho with his sturdy frame.
Around his thighs, the wet pants clung.
The froth of white deutzia flowers blooming in the hedge by the back door billowed like laundry in the wind.
Chiho ran to the kitchen and peered under the pot.
The fire had burned out completely.
When she hurriedly added pine needles and firewood, flames whirled up from within the thick smoke, and the metal parts of the bicycle on the earthen floor glowed red in the fire.

Chiho fetched Yobei’s shirt and kimono from the storeroom.
Having discarded his wet clothes completely onto the earthen floor, Yobei stood naked before the hearth with a physique like a young man’s.
Seeing Yobei’s naked body reflected in the flames, Chiho felt an impersonal shame.

“Grandpa, you’ll catch cold…”

“Yeah… feels good.”

Yobei slowly rubbed himself from chest to navel with a dry hand towel.
The white cat Chiho had kept since before her marriage lumbered to a halt at Yobei’s feet.
On the small stove, broth boiled over from the pot.
Yobei put on his shirt, draped the kimono over his shoulders, then stepped up to sit cross-legged by the hearth and smoke.
Since returning that morning like someone transformed, Chiho had remained sullenly silent.
Though she’d waited for Ryūkichi day after day—thinking he might return today or tomorrow—half a year had slipped by unnoticed; yet she’d heard Anzō from the neighboring town returned four days prior.
They’d agreed their only path was to confess everything to Ryūkichi after consulting together, but whenever Chiho saw Yobei grow inexplicably morose, she felt restless—like prodding an unhealed wound.
For Chiho now, each day stretched interminably, life itself grown unbearable.
When she brought the mother-in-law’s meal to the back room, Matsu lay sleeping with eyes half-open.
Placing the tray by the pillow, she called “Mother, your meal’s ready,” but Matsu slept soundly.
Relieved rather than concerned, Chiho left the tray there and returned to the hearth.

“She’s sleeping soundly…”
“Yeah… I see… She’s feelin’ good…”
“Grandpa, there’s some sake right there.”

On the brick in the corner of the hearth sat a small earthenware bottle containing sake.
Yobei took a dirty cup, sloshed cloudy sake into it, and drank.
Chiho served boiled rapeseed greens and soup into a large bowl while thinking about how Yobei must have felt when he had entered the water earlier.
It occurred to her that he might have been doing such a thing intending to die.
As she dwelled on such thoughts, tears began to overflow.
The wind roared like rain.
With this wind, even the last of the cherry blossoms would likely scatter.
Chiho served some broth-rice to the cat as well, placing the bowl at the edge of the raised floor.

“Ain’t that business with Ito been settled yet…”

In a small voice, Yobei asked.
Chiho, caught off guard, looked at Yobei with a start.
Though Chiho had always been petite and thin, after giving birth she seemed to have grown even smaller. For the first time, Yobei looked at her under the dim lamplight.
Ito was someone from Chiba who had offered to take Chiho's child, but according to the midwife, he now wanted a slightly more presentable baby—so the arrangement appeared to have fallen through.
Perhaps because it had been born prematurely, Chiho's baby was small with an almost simian face and a reddish-black complexion unlike ordinary infants.
The newborn passed meconium resembling crab excrement right after birth, its murky blackish skin mirroring that very dung color.
How ideal it would be if a kind adopter came forward straight from the birth straw.
There had been two potential adopters nearing her due month, but upon seeing the monkey-like newborn, both likely decided they wanted a more comely child.

As days passed, Chiho’s feelings grew more frantic. If no adopters came forward like this, she would have to discuss things with Yobei again. Yobei had also been waiting for the matter of the baby to be resolved, but from Chiho’s expression, he had realized that the conversation wasn’t progressing smoothly.

“Mr. Ito has also... lately changed his mind a bit and says he wants a boy now…”

It was difficult to admit that my child had been rejected because of its poor looks. Though her milk flowed abundantly, since it was a child they would give away regardless—believing it better to act quickly—she had stopped breastfeeding immediately after birth. Because of that, its small body was covered in wrinkles, and the sight of it waving its emaciated clenched fist was so pitiful one couldn’t bear to look. Because it made a tight fist with its thumb turned inward, whenever they let it grip hot water, they would find something dirty inside its clenched hand—like the grime that collects in kimono sleeves.

“Guess we gotta pay up after all…”

Chiho felt tears suddenly welling up.
She wiped her eyes with the hand towel at her waist.

Ryūkichi had been away at war for four years.
Between Chiho and him existed children named Taro and Kōkichi.
Chiho, left behind, came to live at the home of Ryūkichi's father Yobei, sparing no effort in helping with farm work.
Had things continued thus, all might have remained well... but...
Timid by nature, Chiho found herself unable to resist sudden physical temptations...
Once their bodies had mingled, she lacked the courage to sever that bond.
For a young woman, four years awaiting her husband's return proved an eternity.
That she had formed this vile pact with her husband's father—that such bestiality should be known even to the simplest country girl...
That Chiho, educated at a rural girls' school no less, should commit such transgression and even bear her father-in-law's child—this could only be fate's cruel jest.
While the child still grew in her womb, the war ended.
Each sight of demobilized soldiers made Chiho and Yobei feel sin's lash anew.
Matsu, her mother-in-law, lay paralyzed these five years, bedridden.
Though unafraid of household eyes, Chiho shuddered at facing her husband in such disgrace—the thought cut like blades.
While wives nationwide prayed for swift reunions... Chiho prayed each day might delay Ryūkichi's return.
She longed to beg forgiveness after giving birth—to stand before him cleansed.
Yet strangely... as distant things grew distant with each passing day, her affection for Yobei—this man sharing her daily bread—only deepened, its very intensity now tormenting her.
Ryūkichi's form had blurred like a balloon lost to empty skies.
Both Yobei and Chiho shared Tiger zodiac years.
Memories of two tigers—male and female—growling as they raged in shared confinement made Chiho's flesh burn.
With lips that whispered like some youth's sweet nothings... they crafted no secrets...

It was simply that, as if by chance encountering their sworn enemy, the two Tiger-year bodies resonated.

The house consisted of just four rooms arranged in a cross shape, with the northern section being a wooden-floored kitchen.
Next to the kitchen was a storage room containing Chiho's belongings.
Initially sleeping in the eastern six-tatami room, Chiho's family eventually moved to Yobei's six-tatami quarters—a space suited for permanent bedding—to avoid daily futon arrangement.
A single high window with brown-clouded glass blocked all outside views.
Closed sliding doors turned daytime into twilight.
Before the family altar in a built-in closet lay bedridden Matsu.
Yobei's bedding came next, then the two children's in the center.
Thus every inch filled.
Year-round Chiho crawled into bed last after the children.
Seven-year-old Taro often shouted mornings: “Grandpa! You crawled into my futon last night!
What a messy sleeper!” he’d laugh.
Four-year-old Kōkichi lisped: “Grandpa... scary dream?”
Chiho flushed before them.
Yobei turned sullenly away—he too must have suffered.
Each night he schemed ways to drink.
Sake transformed him into a sentimental slob.
Returning drunk to Chiho’s fury, he’d nuzzle his head against her apologetically.
On heavy-drinking nights before wide-eyed Matsu, he’d weep remorse.
To Yobei, daughter-in-law Chiho remained pitifully endearing.
The loneliness binding them through Ryūkichi’s absence resonated like shared solitude.

Realizing Chiho too was unbearably lonely, he would stroke her back as if doting on his own daughter, wanting to comfort her with lullabies.
That endearing quality gradually turned brazen, until even this urge to devour her couldn’t be chalked up to sake alone...
She wasn’t a good-looking woman, but her skin had a mochi-like suppleness.
Her eyes gleamed.
Though her eyebrows were sparse and her face perfectly round, only her brown eyes held beauty.
Her hair too was red and curly.
Back when she attended K Town Practical Girls’ School, Yobei had often passed her on the street.
She’d been an utterly unremarkable girl.
Yet when he considered how this girl he’d once dismissed now stood as Ryūkichi’s bride—how events had unfolded till today—Yobei marveled at fate’s strange workings.
After drowning himself in drink and sleeping awhile with thunderous snores, Yobei would stir at midnight driven by primal need.
In the dark, whether Matsu lay awake mattered not at all.
Thought and action existed in separate realms.
A feverish sensation gripped him—as though he might shed his very skin.
Each day brought fresh atonement.
Come nightfall, his pity-laced love for Chiho crested violently.
The firmer his daytime resolve grew, the wilder Yobei’s nocturnal imaginings raged once dusk fell.
When she became mere animal in his mind’s eye, neither pity nor compassion remained.
His consciousness sharpened cruelly until self-loathing overwhelmed him.
Returning to his bedding brought bitter remorse toward his son—and with it, revulsion for this woman called Chiho.
Not just her either—all humanity curdled in his gut.

That disgust turned him into an old man even more ill-tempered than before, and after Chiho went to a maternity hospital in Arakawa Ward to give birth to her child, Yobei spent his days doing nothing but fishing.
Fishing became his sole pleasure.
Since Yobei alone couldn’t care for the two children, Chiho asked him to entrust them to her family home in Katsushika.
Her mother and sister had recently become vegetable black market vendors.
Her sister Fusako had been married, but ever since her husband was called to duty during the Second Sino-Japanese War and died in battle, her strong-willed, almost masculine nature led her to shoulder loads of vegetables and sell them across Tokyo’s neighborhoods—remaining childless all the while—until she had managed to save up a modest sum.
When vegetables were scarce, she would go to Shizuoka for mandarins or to Shinshu for apples.
Even after the war ended, they had continued their trade without pause.
Though they didn’t haul massive loads like male transporters—since apples would get confiscated one in every three trips, leaving no way to stay afloat—they began mixing in goods like miso and sesame when making purchases, which actually brought rising profits.

Fusako had not seen Chiho for a long time and thus did not know the situation at the Kawakami household, but her mother Ume seemed to sense the changing relationship between Chiho and Yobei.
Since Yobei was a short-tempered man, she had simply been avoiding bringing up such topics, but deep down, Ume was terribly worried about her daughter's circumstances.

Chiho gave birth to a girl.

Without a single relative attending to her, it had been a painful, difficult birth.
The pain was so severe she felt she hadn’t suffered like this even when bearing Taro and Kōkichi.
At the Kawakami house—where there had been two bicycles belonging to Ryūkichi and Yobei—Yobei sold his own, converted it into cash, and had Chiho take it.
As they were small-scale farmers without land who surprisingly kept little money on hand; for Yobei, using his savings for childbirth expenses made him feel unable to face Ryūkichi—he had decided it would be best to pretend his bicycle had been stolen.

Even when he heard a girl had been born, Yobei wasn’t particularly happy. Ryūkichi had a daughter named Shimoe who died of pneumonia at eleven—were she alive now, she’d be twenty-three and in her prime.Yobei grew pleasantly drunk.The prospect of Ryūkichi’s return no longer brought anxiety—it even comforted him.He wanted to see him soon.The image surfaced of Ryūkichi in uniform aboard a Liberty ship from radio reports.The madness with Chiho had settled into its ordained place...Yet he thought not everything could stay buried.As this weighed on him,Yobei felt loneliness like sinking through waterbed.Perhaps it was the sake weakening his resolve—had Chiho’s call come moments later,Yobei might have stayed mid-river,winds howling,nets dragging him under.

As he waded gradually deeper into the water, the cold became paradoxically unnoticeable; while the surface churned with choppy waves, the depths below flowed gently with a dense, lukewarm current. The cry of a bird like a water rail screeched faintly in the distance, yet it still caught his ear. Yobei waded gradually into the riverbed step by step, his eyes fixed on the water’s surface. The desolate, oil-colored water gradually darkened its hue within the dusk. The water spray was cold. Yet, the reflection of the river's light was as crisp as autumn itself.

“How much money d’we need to put up?”

Yobei’s sunken eyes glinted sharply.
When asked how much should be offered, Chiho couldn’t state the sum required to match the current inflationary rates.
While there were those who targeted such unfortunate children for money—offering up to 10,000 yen for a child of good lineage—generally speaking, one had to provide at least 1,000 or 2,000 yen.

“Did you have it put in the newspaper?”

“Yes, I had it put in once, but there’s been no response.”
“An advertisement you’d need a magnifying glass to read costs eighty yen in the new newspaper.”

In her heart, Chiho thought she would try asking Mr. Ito one more time.
Her heart raced with anxiety, yet merely getting through each day made her pity this child more than her older boys.
She felt it would die soon if taken away.
Her own selfishness had strengthened her resolve not to lose the child—even though she’d just left the maternity hospital this morning, she couldn’t stop worrying about the baby since earlier.
In another corner of Chiho’s mind lingered the thought of confiding in her sister and having her take the child as her own.

“It’s alright.”
“I’ll take care of this myself, so you don’t need to worry about it, Grandpa…”

Yobei stopped his hand holding the cup midway and stared fixedly into space.
His large ears drooped with age, yet his narrow forehead still retained a youthful sheen.
Under thick eyebrows streaked with white hairs, small sunken eyes glared red and inflamed.

“Things’ll work out… Shouldn’t we try arrangin’ the money?”

“Yeah… but—this is just my idea—I’m thinkin’ of talkin’ to my sister ’bout it… What d’you think…?”
“And before Mr. Ryūkichi comes back, I’m thinkin’ of goin’ out to work as a maid or anythin’…”
“Hmm, what ’bout Taro an’ Kōkichi?”

When Taro and Kōkichi were mentioned, Chiho found herself unable to respond.
"I wonder if he couldn’t just take a new wife," Chiho thought from the depths of her heart.
Alongside the feeling that she hoped things wouldn’t turn bloody, various thoughts—like wishing Ryūkichi would decisively choose a new wife—were crackling through Chiho’s mind like embers.

She thought she must not receive sympathetic charity from Ryūkichi. She thought it didn’t matter whether he beat her, kicked her, or treated her cruelly in any way. She felt that she—this spineless woman—needed to be thoroughly abused. And yet, Chiho couldn’t bring herself to feel hatred toward Yobei. Even if its head were severed on the chopping block, only the torso of a river sand fish would keep twitching—it was this lucid, animalistic sensation alone that now squirmed like an earthworm along Chiho’s spine.

The wind weakened, and the sound of rain striking the tin roof could be heard.
A tepid late-spring night wind blew in from nowhere in particular.
Scooping black rice that seemed mostly barley, Chiho began eating listlessly beside Yobei, who was drinking cloudy sake.

Depending on the wind’s direction, the sound of the river could be heard.
Yobei placed the empty cup on the tray and listlessly watched the cat licking the bowl.

“Grandpa, I’ve finished eating, so I’ll be going back now.”

“Yeah…”

“Please don’t go getting any strange ideas. If Grandpa gets such ideas, I can’t just sit still either…”

Yobei was blinking his eyes wearily. Moths with long, ephemeral legs fluttered around the dim electric light. Yobei was fifty-seven and Chiho thirty-three, yet both seemed to perceive their fates as little more than those of unthinking children… Both of them thought only Ryūkichi was terrifying. Yet, their love for Ryūkichi was as pure as faith itself.

When it seemed Matsu had awakened, Chiho set down her chopsticks and went to the inner room. Under the dim electric light, Matsu was eating her meal with trembling hands, scattering rice grains as she moved.

“Mother, I didn’t know you’d woken up.”

Diligently pulling the tray closer, Chiho fed her mother-in-law as one would a child. Ryūkichi was one year younger than Chiho—what people called a wife older than her husband—but perhaps due to her petite frame, Chiho appeared younger than her years.
After graduating from Practical Girls’ School, she had worked for about two years as a ticket seller at Keisei Electric Railway’s Shibamata Station.
Until she married Ryūkichi at twenty-five, she had never been involved in any romantic entanglements, and even as she aged, she maintained a childlike appearance from the very start.

Chiho and Ryūkichi had a good marital relationship.
Ryūkichi had worked as a conductor for the Keisei Electric Railway for about two or three years; afterward, he made a living by helping Yobei with farming and engaging in brokerage-like activities such as land transactions.
He was a hot-tempered man who had dropped out of middle school, but with his straightforward nature that people found likable, he looked two or three years older than Chiho.
Tall and lanky, he appeared weak at first glance, but his core was sturdy—some said he was ideally suited for the infantry.

Chiho stayed that night.

The next day, when Chiho opened her eyes, Yobei was already up.
Under a serene, cloudless sky, a lingering haze hung in the air, and the embankment’s green grass, drenched by last night’s rain, shone with an almost piercing vividness.
Japanese bush warblers were singing.
The storm shutters by the hearth had also been thrown open, and a pleasant breeze was blowing through.

Yobei was sitting cross-legged by the hearth, counting money.
Just because she had never before seen him do such a thing, Chiho was shocked and silently went down to the kitchen.

“Oi…”

Yobei called.
When Chiho turned around, Yobei—still sullen—was counting bills while,

“Take this today and make sure to plead properly…”

He must have been saving new yen little by little by selling potatoes, brokering eggs, and peddling river fish—in the lunch basket that their child took to kindergarten, there still remained five or six hundred yen in new currency.

“Can’t we manage with a thousand yen? Ask the midwife… Since we’re poor, if ya tell ’er we can’t pay more’n this, she might just help us out…”

“Yes, I’ll go now and discuss it properly.”

Chiho kept her hair disheveled and wiped her nose with the *monpe* cord, her face on the verge of tears.
The tears wouldn’t stop coming.
There were rumors that Ryūkichi’s return from China was drawing near.
Before returning to the maternity hospital, Chiho wanted to confide in her sister Fusako and seek her advice.
In the end, there was nothing to do but resign herself—no one would take such a baby...
It wasn’t as simple as finding someone to take it in like stray dogs or cats.
Though unfortunate that the baby wasn’t fair-featured, Chiho herself—having grown accustomed to the child she’d borne for nearly a month—could no longer judge its appearance through parental bias.
Only her pity grew stronger, and she desperately wanted Yobei to see it just once.
Before someone took it away somewhere, she wanted Yobei to see it just once—to hold it.

Chiho went down to the kitchen, lit the hearth, and made dumpling soup. When she went out to the back door, Deutzia flowers were scattered as if rice had been sown, and clusters of red azaleas were in bloom. The river water, hazy as if veiled in mist, glowed warmly in a pale green hue, and the lively voices of children passing beneath the embankment could be heard. Chiho thought of Taro and the others, her heart aching. If she could neither flee the house nor die—if all of it was for the children’s sake—then Chiho felt utterly helpless. As her thoughts grew more muddled, Chiho felt a lightheaded dizziness akin to mild cerebral anemia.

Having wrapped provisions in a furoshiki and brought a thousand yen in cash, Chiho returned to the maternity hospital, but the baby was suffering from terrible diarrhea.
According to the midwife, Mr. Ito had received a good-looking baby who would soon turn two from someone else.
Chiho was utterly disappointed.
Three days after entrusting the thousand yen to the maternity hospital and returning to consult Yobei again, Yobei was in a foul mood and did not speak for some time.

“It’s fate, so there’s nothing to be done. For now, I think we should have them keep it until we find someone to take it in, but I wanted to ask you too, Grandpa… It’s not like I’ve just been idling around either.”
“I’m at my wit’s end here.”

“Last night, Fusako came saying she wants someone to take in Taro and them.”

“Oh... It’s been over two months now... Boys do need such tending...”

Yobei said he had acquired bamboo shoots and was preparing to go sell them along with vegetables using a cart at Tokyo’s black market.

“Hey, Ryūkichi’s come back…”
Yobei said abruptly.
Chiho was startled and opened her eyes wide.

“Did a letter come?”

“Yeah, a telegram came from Sasebo.”

Yobei’s life had been another day of scraping by.
Chiho sat down on the veranda in a deflated posture.
In the square along the main road leading to the front entrance, stones were piled up like a mountain.
A large new wooden sign that read “Village-Owned Stone Storage Yard of Yagisato Village, North Katsushika District, Chiba Prefecture” was erected.
Chiho remained seated, reading the characters on the wooden sign over and over.
The ink characters would grow larger and shrink like insects.
A katydid was chirping peacefully.

“Grandpa. When will Mr. Ryūkichi be back?”

“He’ll likely arrive tomorrow or so…”

A dark-skinned man who looked like a merchant came to ask if there were any eggs.
Yobei, apparently familiar with him, brought out a basket of eggs from the room and held each one up to the light before placing about thirty into the man’s basket.
The man said he didn’t need change and left a hundred-yen bill.
Seeing his retreating figure, Chiho felt an inexplicable shudder.
She thought this must be what the god of death looked like.
One ear had shriveled small like a flower’s core, lacking an earlobe entirely.

“Ugh... What a revolting man...”

Chiho stood up and went to watch the man’s retreating figure for a while.
Yobei soon finished preparing, tied the cart to Ryūkichi’s bicycle, and left, saying, “I’ll be back by night.”

When Yobei left, Chiho went around to the back door and went up to the inner room.
Matsu, in her clumsy posture, was crawling to clean the bedpan.

“Do you need to pee?”

It appeared she had already relieved herself, as Matsu listlessly shook her head.
Though emaciated to skin and bones, there was still a core of strength about her that suggested lingering vitality.

“Grandma, Mr. Ryūkichi is coming back!”

When Chiho whispered into Matsu’s ear, the expressionless Matsu stared fixedly into Chiho’s eyes.
Chiho felt uncomfortable under that gaze.
She felt lonely thinking that if Ryūkichi returned, she would be abruptly severed from this quiet life along the river.
Chiho, unable to bear it any longer, went out to the back door.

A soft late spring sun under a half-clear sky cast its light upon the river.
She went down to the water's edge.
Already cornered, she felt utterly helpless.
"I'll die!"
Chiho muttered to herself.
Even though I can't die, my heart keeps saying such things.
While her body remained confident it wouldn't perish, her weakened mind alone kept throwing a tantrum, screaming, "I'll die!"

The surroundings glowed faintly bright, barley in every field stretching up lush and green.

Standing on the wooden plank bridge slippery with moss, Chiho gazed at the water flowing away. Straw scraps drifted downstream. No matter how often she looked at the water's surface, she never grew tired of it. Where does this Edo River get all this water to flow so abundantly? she wondered—pale blue water creating tiny ripples that lapped at the muddy banks. Over the expanse of water, blue-tailed birds skimmed so close to the current they seemed to graze it as they darted back and forth. A bicycle passed by on the rear embankment. Chiho abruptly remembered the retreating figure of the earless man from earlier.

What tormented her was this utter inability to will herself toward death. She truly didn’t want to die. The moment she thought she didn’t want to die, sadness welled up again, and Chiho pressed her eyes firmly with the drawstring of her mompe. She wanted to break free from this torment at full speed by any means necessary…….

Tomorrow, Ryūkichi would return.
She couldn’t not feel happy.
After so long, she would see Ryūkichi’s face with its protruding white front teeth.
Looking back now, she couldn’t understand how things with Yobei had ended up like this…….
They had somehow naturally become entangled like this, and a pitiful baby had come into being.
Perhaps from having crouched so long on the bridge, her thighs had gone numb.
Chiho hopped lightly down onto the muddy bank, pushed into a clump of grass, and squatted to relieve herself in a posture like bowing to someone.
It felt good.

(January 1947)