Pathway to Japanese Literature

On the hilltop stood a small, dilapidated stone hall, with seven or eight mixed trees standing in a row.
The front was just a plain—with few villages or groves and no farmers visible—a strangely lonely stretch of farmland.
In the distance, a single road stretched out palely.
Beyond that, in the hazy distance where darkness blurred into obscurity, a sea stretched out like a drawn belt, glittering.

On that hilltop, on a thicket at the edge of the grove, they sat down.
A white oak with densely clustered foliage cast its deep shadow over them.
He threw down his hat and stick beside him and wiped his face with a handkerchief.
The forehead wiped free of sweat appeared pallid.
Yet her face—perhaps reflecting the ash-white undersides of the oak leaves—looked paler still.
She kept her eyes lowered, fingers playing with the parasol handle on her lap.

The sky stretched perfectly clear—so devoid of clouds it seemed unnatural—as the midsummer sun scorched every visible inch of land.
The forlorn cries of cicadas hung trapped within the grove.
A parched breeze drifted listlessly past.

“Ah, that one there, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it always like that?”

“On clear days, it usually shimmers.”
“And at night, they say bonfires become visible.”

“Fishing boats’…”

“Yes.”

“What a truly strange view…”

“Why?”

“It’s just an ordinary hill covered in thickets with seven or eight trees at most on top, and a view of flat farmland—isn’t that all there is? It stretches onward, and there at the horizon, a belt-like sea glitters…”

“So I always think—I want to leap all the way there in one bound.”

“But you do go down to the sea sometimes, don’t you?”

“……”

“Did you get angry?”

“……”

“I’m sorry. It’s not... I didn’t mean it that way.”

“But that’s just too much!”

“However, I do think that way. From here, the sea glitters so brilliantly, but when you go up close, it’s still just an ordinary sea after all...”

“The sea may be like that, but…”

“Are you saying it’s different from the sea? But ultimately, isn’t it still the same?”

“No, it’s different.”

“Then how is it different?”

“How... Well, that’s... you’d have to go and see...”

“That’s correct.”
“You wouldn’t know without going to see.”
“That’s precisely where the difference lies.”

“But if you go and see…”

“That might turn out to be surprisingly different—or it might not be different at all. And in that uncertainty lies tremendous charm. That’s all there is to it.”

“……”

“You’ve fallen silent again, haven’t you? Then shall I lay everything bare? I, too, have been drawn to that kind of charm before.”

“Huh? You…”

“That’s correct. There was a time after you came here when no letters arrived. That period. I grew to hate everything, felt lonely, became anxious, and… could think of nothing except you.”

“And then?”

“One night, late at night, I took out a dagger and stared fixedly at its blade.”

“Oh, really….”
“I had no idea…”

“I couldn’t write it in the letter. …Something like ‘what if the worst happened’—you don’t put such things in a letter.”

“But I only wrote exactly as things were, you know.”

“When I saw that, I was struck—I couldn’t stay still any longer and forced myself to come here.”
“Then….”

“There you go again… But I was truly happy, you know.”
“Until I met you, I just couldn’t believe it was real—it all felt like some kind of dream, you know.”
“Even when I went to the station, I was still in a daze, you know.”

“And then suddenly you woke up, right?”
“I was truly happy too.”
“When I saw your smile, I was astonished by how happy it made me.”

“But you did complain, didn’t you?”

“It was a joke. …If you had looked like you were about to die, even I would have been at a loss for what to do.”

“Then, you too….”

“Huh?”

“That’s right, absolutely… Right? Don’t you think?”

“No, that’s a lie.”
“I’m now seeking something entirely different.”
“Something refreshing—something that makes you want to leap up with joy. That’s what I need most right now.”
“Do you remember yesterday at the station?”

“At the station…”

“You were standing vacantly in the shadow of a corridor pillar.”
“While facing the incoming train—with eyes that seemed to see nothing at all, your face slightly averted—you looked less like someone awaiting a person and more like a solitary figure standing in a field.”
And until I approached, you had likely been standing there vacantly in the crowd, maintaining that same posture.
“When I saw that, I felt terribly lonely—quietly approached and spoke to you.”
“Then you—as if waking from a dream—looked bewildered for a moment before suddenly breaking into a smile and beaming brightly, didn’t you?”
“I was astonished, then suddenly became unbearably happy.”
“That’s why I ended up doing such a thing.”
“That… how should I put it… It was a sudden smile—like someone just waking from a dream—or rather, a smile as if one’s soul had leaped up. That smile seized my heart away.”

“Seized away? You say that’s…”

“No, it’s true.”
“It felt like stepping from a pitch-black room into blazing sunlight.”
“Everything lit up all at once.”
“In you—or rather between us—or rather somewhere, there exists that kind of sudden radiance.”

“That too will soon…”

“No, it won’t disappear.”
“You mustn’t erase it.”

“Then what should I do?”

“You must rely on that light and wait.”
“Endure patiently and keep waiting.”
“……I thought about it all last night.”

“But I can’t go on anymore.”
“I hate everything, you know.”
“Even today—I said something careless and came rushing out here recklessly, you know.”

“And Father….”

“Your father might have sensed something somehow.”
“But I don’t care what happens anymore—you know.”

“When I came to meet you here, I initially intended that too.”
“And….”
“You too….”

“However… even today, when we crossed through the town to come here, we took care not to be seen by anyone.”

“Yes, that’s…”
“Because I don’t want to be seen by anyone in town. But here, I don’t care who finds me.”
“Even if my father comes… I won’t run away.”

“That’s right.
“I’d hate it in town, but here I’m fine.
“I don’t care who comes… I felt the same way then.
“I was looking out from the train window…”

“...”

“Let’s say everything.
“When I left home, I took all your letters with me.
“And then, late at night on the train, I kept rereading them one by one, tore them into small pieces, and scattered them all out the window.”

“...”

“Why are you crying?
“You mustn’t cry.”
“……Watching those fragments of letters flutter away and vanish into the darkness, my heart swelled up and I shed tears, but……”

“...”

"Why are you crying like that? ......That isn't what I meant when I spoke."
"I am saying this with different feelings now."
"......"

“If that weren’t true, I wouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Don’t misunderstand.”

“No! It’s a lie! A lie!”
“You’re just fooling yourself…”

“I’m not fooling anyone.”
“Look how broadly I’m smiling… Why are you crying like this?”

“I’m happy.”

“What?”

“So it was true after all.”

“No, that’s not it. ……Somehow, everything’s started glaring before my eyes—it feels exactly like… stepping out from this tree shade into the scorching sunlight.”
“You mustn’t cry.”
“Look—look at the sunlight.”
“It’s shining so fiercely it blinds you….”

From the hill, they could see far below—soldiers were marching along a pale white road that stretched out before them.
At first glance, it appeared as a dark brown winding line, but this was a column of soldiers shouldering swords and carrying backpacks, with the blades of officers accompanying the troops glinting here and there.
Neither its front nor rear could be discerned, stretching endlessly onward as it pressed silently... like ants crawling... along the road winding through sparse groves and villages.
Exactly like wind-up toy soldier dolls, they all maintained rigid uniform postures, moving their limbs in mechanical unison.

It was a procession that seemed utterly dominated by some immense force… a mechanical power.
And it was a procession that seemed certain to continue marching solemnly forever—not a single voice was raised, no one faltered in their step.
It emerged clearly yet distantly in the glaring sunlight.

Strangely enough, one soldier in the column toppled forward as if felled like a stick.
The column curved slightly and proceeded to avoid the fallen soldier.
At what appeared to be a break in the column, a darkly clustered group surrounded the fallen soldier, stopped for a moment, picked him up, and carried him away.

Such things were repeated several times.
However, the column seemed to continue endlessly, soldiers appearing one after another only to vanish.
Even when one among them fell, the column merely detoured around that spot without showing the slightest disruption.
It appeared that their entire existence was solely to march on mechanically for eternity.

The midsummer light was smothering everything.

“Oh, another one….”

“He collapsed from sunstroke.”

“Did he die?”

“Well…”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s a forced march, you know. They deliberately choose a sweltering day like today and begin marching from dawn. The sacrifice of one or two soldiers can’t be helped for the sake of the entire army. Their sole purpose must be to keep marching endlessly.”

“...”

“Is something wrong?”

“...”

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“Somehow... my head feels dizzy...”

“Lower your head and keep your eyes closed.”
“It’s likely from staring too long into this glaring sunlight.”
“But… it feels odd…”

“Huh?”

“Being pulled toward somewhere down there… like I’m about to fall any moment….”

“It’s because you’re looking down from a height.”
“And it’s because the sun is shining too intensely… You must feel like you’re being swept into a glittering whirlpool, about to be dragged under.”
“Yes.”

“It’s all right. You mustn’t keep looking over there. Hold on to me and keep your eyes tightly closed. It will pass soon.”

“But…”

“When you climb to high places, you tend to feel that way. My friend told me something like this—whether it was Yarigatake or Shirouma-san, one of the Japanese Alps peaks—when he reached the summit and looked downward, sunlight suddenly streamed through a break in the clouds that had been covering the sky until then. Then the ground below transformed into a vast glittering whirlpool, and overwhelmed by the sensation of being swept into it, he staggered forward as if to leap in. Fortunately, he didn’t tumble all the way to the valley floor—only slid two or three ken—but he said he felt utterly unable to resist.”

“...”
“But since this is such a low hill here, that’s simply your imagination.”
“As long as I’m holding onto you like this, you’ll be all right.”
“Oh, another one….”
“Oh… He’s been struck down… The sunlight’s too intense…”
“What’s happening?”
“The wind seems to have died down.”
“If it’s like this even here, then up on that road…”
“It’s glittering all over…”

“You mustn’t stare so intently.”

“In the rice fields too—nowhere can you see a trace of people or even a dog—only soldiers on that white road.”

“...”
“And then, the sea began to glitter so intensely…”

“......”

“Somehow… I feel both terrified… and yet happy…”

“......”

“Oh, your face is so pale…”
“What’s happened to you?”

“No, just a little…”

“Huh? What...”
“Tell me, come on, tell me.”

“......”

“I...”
“No—wait, if I stay silent...”

“How strange….”

“What?”

“I recalled all sorts of things at once.”

“What kind of things?”

“That’s right—there was always a sudden burst of sunlight streaming down.”

“No—just tell me everything properly, please….”

“I’ve… seen corpses several times.”
“That was always…”

“……”

“It’s mysterious.”
“There was always that sudden burst of bright sunlight streaming through.”

The first time he saw a corpse was when he was attending higher elementary school.
To get from home to the town school, he had to pass through a pine grove.
In that pine grove, there was a hanged corpse.

It was a crisply clear morning.
While heading to school with four or five friends, as they passed through the pine grove, villagers in groups of three and five came running through the fields beyond.
In the fields, soybean pods had ripened.

They couldn’t tell whether they had actually heard about the hanging or had intuitively sensed it, but immediately everyone ran through the fields, school tools clattering.

Where the pine grove ended stood a dimly lit thicket of low-growing trees.
Within it lay a deep waterless ditch dug for some unknown purpose, overgrown with ferns and weeds.
From a small camphor branch extending over the ditch hung a middle-aged man.

He had joined two dirty hand towels together and was hanging from them.
His head hung limply, as if his neck had been broken.
From his shoulders down to his chest had flattened out, and his abdomen had swollen strangely.
The area from the knees down was hidden in the ditch and couldn’t be seen.

A considerable number of days had likely passed.
There was a strange smell.
The dark blue kasuri-patterned lined kimono, still damp from the previous day’s light rain and not yet fully dry, clung stickily to the body.
The flesh of the face had fallen away, and from beneath the earth-toned, stiffened skin, the cheekbones protruded.
The eyes had sunken in, with the centers of the closed eyelids swollen round in imitation of eyeballs.
From the unnaturally misshapen nose to the parched, shriveled lips clung dried foam mixed with dark blood, swarmed over by mountain ants.
A fly flew in from somewhere, landed near the side of the forehead, twitched its wings repeatedly, then flew off to some unknown place.

Pushing through the shrub thicket, a crowd of people stood lined up.
They would occasionally whisper furtively among themselves, only to fall silent again moments later.

A considerable time later, a policeman arrived with over ten people, chattering noisily.

It was then that he noticed for the first time—the sunlight was streaming through gaps in the grove’s thicket as countless tiny bright lines.
The ferns and weeds along the ditch’s edge held moisture too slight to be called dew, which took on an oddly lusterless sheen, and the lines of light falling there were merely a hazy brightness.
Yet on the corpse, undeniably bright spots were marked.
The morning sunlight filtering through the thicket had turned into something like gold foil, clinging tightly to various parts of the corpse.
On the head, face, and chest as well, the gold foil had embedded itself here and there so deeply that it seemed no wiping could remove it.

It was during his fourth year of middle school.
He had stayed home from school for two or three days with a cold, but lured by the balmy autumn day, around ten in the morning he went out for a walk to the coast about three blocks behind his house.

A calm inland sea, a gentle coastline, a white sandy beach, a sparse pine grove—over all these, crystal-clear autumn light streamed down.
While the open sea lay calm, he walked steadily along the tideline where waves hissed against the sandy beach.
Hardly any human figures were visible.

And after walking five or six blocks, a cluster of people stood gathered on the distant shore.
Some emerged from and vanished back into the pine grove.
It all appeared against the backdrop of the vast sea and long beach, quiet as a dream.

As he drew nearer, the details of the scene became clearer.
With something at their center, a group of people stood arranged in a circle.
From within the pine grove, one or two more people at a time emerged and joined the ring.
At its center lay a drowned corpse that had been washed ashore by the waves.

The drowned corpse lay on its back two or three feet from the tideline. A single wet old mat had been placed over it. Protruding from the mat were only the head above the forehead and everything below the knees. The long hair lay winding and twisting like seaweed washed ashore on rocks, each strand aligned yet undulating in an oddly reddish-brown hue. The exposed area below the knees had swollen purple. The thin skin stretched so taut it seemed ready to burst like a balloon at the slightest pressure. Beneath the mat, the torso had swollen up roundly like a tuna or a [fish+boar].

In the bright sunlight, steam was puffing up from the mat.
He wondered why they had covered it with a wet mat, but at that moment it lay there as harmoniously as if someone had draped it over a large fish, perfectly settled into place.
People kept gathering one or two at a time, yet no one seemed to have any idea what to do; they simply stood staring with vacant, indifferent eyes.
Right beside them, light waves swished in and out against the sandy beach.
And the crystal-clear early autumn sunlight enveloped the entire area.
The sky was a deep, towering blue.
The air was quiet with the morning calm.

Pale steam rose swaying gently from the wet mat over the drowned corpse and vanished into the sunlight.

Not long after entering university, during summer vacation, I visited a friend a three-hour train ride away and returned on a train past two o'clock the following afternoon.

The train compartment was not crowded.
The passengers sitting apart from each other had all fallen silent and were dozing off in the weariness of the cloudy afternoon.
Aimless, distant thoughts; fragmented scenery flying past the window; the rhythmic clatter of wheels; yet a tranquil silence... Sporadic, nearly invisible raindrops left long trails down the windowpane.

It seemed a steam whistle had sounded… but it might have been an auditory hallucination.
Everything was eerily calm.
As he thought vaguely in the distant recesses of his mind that something felt off…, the train began to slow its speed.
With a single clunking jolt, it came to a complete stop.

It was in the middle of a field that wasn’t a station or anything of the sort.

Suddenly, one of the passengers stood up and leaned his head out the window to peer outside.
This spread like contagion through everyone, and they began leaning out of the windows one after another.
From the windows of other compartments too, faces from the cars were lined up in perfect rows.

From near the locomotive came two men—the conductor and fireman.
Peering under the train’s undercarriage, they worked their way gradually toward the rear.
“Run-over corpse…”—the voiceless phrase seeped into every mind from indeterminate origins.

The conductor and the fireman soon came to a stop and exchanged brief whispers. Then the fireman suddenly crouched under the train, thrust both hands forward, and dragged out something large with a heavy scraping sound... Small feet clad in white tabi socks, then two pure white shins, pure white thighs, then buttocks tangled in a darkish kimono’s crumpled folds, and then... cleanly severed at the waist. Centered on a spine jutting out four or five inches, something that was neither flesh nor cloth twisted into a vortex-like tangle, stained crimson with blood. The fireman carelessly tossed it into the grassy area beside the tracks.

When peered through the window on the opposite side, a pitch-black object lay far toward the rear.
It was the head of a woman with disheveled hair.
Like a pumpkin, it lay thrown out.
Nothing else was visible.

The conductor and fireman returned to the locomotive and boarded the train.
A steam whistle sounded once.
The train began to move forward.
The passengers sat in gloomy silence.
On the embankment of the distant stream, six or seven farmers stood gazing fixedly in this direction.
The rain had stopped, and a faint wind was blowing across the surface of the rice fields.

Then, as they passed two or three stations, the pale sunlight of the cloudy day gradually intensified until it became a glaring direct beam.
It was a blinding beam of light after the light rain.
Outside the train compartment was a midday so dazzling it blinded the eyes.

The corpse of the run-over victim engraved in his mind emerged into that glaring sunlight.
The vivid crimson gash at the twisted waist, the perfectly round pure white legs, the beautiful toes clad in white tabi socks, and then the head with disheveled hair lying sprawled—all appeared before him as if floating in midair, rendered with horrifying clarity.
The sunlight was blindingly bright.
Enveloping the fragments of the corpse, it simply blazed across the entire scene.

“I had developed a habit of thinking only in dark places... only in dimly lit spaces.”
“So whenever I spoke of the dead, I could only picture them on overcast days, or days of drizzling rain… in some gloomy atmosphere. But the truth is…”

“You’re saying it’s the same as soldiers collapsing from sunstroke, aren’t you.”

“Yes, that’s right……Have you ever seen a corpse?”

“No.”

“Not even once?”

“Yes.”

“Then I suppose my account makes little sense to you.”

“...”

“You’re smiling, aren’t you.”
“No.”
“But….”

“I remembered something strange…”

“What was it?”

“It was the evening when I received your letter saying you would come.”
“I couldn’t tell whether I was happy or sad—grew unable to stay still—and felt this strange urge to just hurl whatever was within reach… It was such a peculiar sensation.”
“When I looked, there were so many insects flying around the lampshade, you see.”
“So I—into the lampshade… it was a deep one, you know… I sealed them all inside with paper.”
“They were beetles and small moths and long-winged mosquitoes and such, but when I saw them buzzing furiously around inside the shade, I became so engrossed…”

“Did you kill them?”

“They died on their own, you know.”
“I sealed them up until they died, you know.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“It was something horrifying… I was just so absorbed in it, you know.”

“……”

“The younger sister saw it and was shocked.”
“But I was just… so focused on you coming, you coming… that before I knew it, the inside of the lampshade grew hot, and the insects that had been desperately flying around went pat-pat against the paper and died, you know.”

“They were done in by the electric light.”

“Is that so?”

“If the light becomes too strong, they die, you see.”
“Even humans will collapse and die if they stare at the sun for thirty minutes straight, they say.”

“Then I…”

“Shall we try it?”

“………”

“Ah… I like that smile of yours.”
“Stay still….”

“I feel so happy… truly… from the heart…”

“………”

“Hey—you’d resolved yourself already, hadn’t you.”

“……….”

“Before you came here…”

“I had made preparations for an emergency.”

“About the emergency situation…”

“It was in your letter, wasn’t it.”

“I was truly driven to despair at that time, you know.”

“Now….”

“Even now.”

“Even now….”

“Yes.”
“But… I’m happy, you know.”
“What should I do….”

“Then… I will….”

“………”

“I brought a dagger. I’ll… give it to you.”

“The dagger.”

“Yes.
Late at night, I would take it out and gaze at it many times.
But such a thing…”

“I’ll take it.”
“Are you really giving it to me?”

“I shall give it to you.”

“I’m happy.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll keep it safe.”

“Surely….”

“……”

“You’re smiling again.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing.”
“But…”

“Hold me tight, please.”
“I’ve somehow gotten this strange feeling.”
“It’s like I’m dreaming….”

“……”

“Oh—the soldiers came without us noticing.”

“They must have already passed through. And everything…”

“‘Everything?’”

“I feel like I’m dreaming too.”
“And... like after dying....”

“……”

“It was just like this when my friend died....”

That friend had been hospitalized for about ten days with acute nephritis, but his condition failed to improve, and he ultimately died of heart failure.

Because his condition had been critical since the day before，that night he went to visit and stayed with him through the night.
In the hospital room were only a mother and uncle who had come from their hometown and a nurse.

After emerging from a uremic coma, he had continued through a period of mild manic agitation until around three a.m., when heart failure finally claimed him.

The uncle departed at dawn.

The remaining three continued sitting silently in a corner of the hospital room.
Their faces bore the vacant expressions of those who had cried themselves empty.

The corpse, wiped clean and covered with a white cloth, lay at the exact center of the bed. Both its chest and abdomen had flattened out, appearing like a deflated rubber pillow. As he stared fixedly, it seemed the chest area might swell up at any moment and release a breath. No—in fact, it appeared to be breathing faintly.

With a sense that he must be suffering... he stood up, approached, and gently lifted the white cloth from the face.
In an instant, everything fell utterly silent, and the corpse flattened into stillness.
The eyes had sunken in, the nose sharpened, and the lips clung shut against the teeth.
Over the entire face—now drained of all color and luster—lay a faint semi-transparent film like gossamer spider threads.
When he touched the forehead, a coldness so profound it seemed to reach into the very marrow of the bone.

Yet, having covered its face with a white cloth, when he stepped back and gazed from a slight distance, the corpse still appeared as though it might at any moment let out a breath.
The mother also gazed fixedly in that direction.

And a long time dragged on.

He sank into a trance-like state—seemingly deep in thought yet thinking nothing at all.
Then, when he suddenly became aware, a crimson light was already streaming through a gap in the eastern window curtain.
In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a brilliant beam and streamed sideways through the room.

It was a brilliantly clear red light beam unlike any ever seen before.
It had emerged vividly within the gloomily stagnant space of the hospital room, streaming sideways from a gap in the eastern window curtain to the western wall surface.
In the shadow below it, the corpse lay quietly.
It no longer even seemed about to breathe, having stiffened rigidly.

He had died completely.
He had vanished completely.
What lay there was no longer him, but merely a cold mass of bone and flesh.
In the space above it, only a single beam of morning sunlight stood out vividly, clear and radiant.

When he opened the window curtain, it became a refreshingly bright space flooded with morning sunlight.

“Why are you crying?”

“……”

“You mustn’t cry.”
“Please smile…”
“A smile suits you best…”

“And… for you too…”

“Huh… Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“I am smiling just like this.”
“I am too.”

“Let us smile…”
“Let us keep smiling forever.”
“Together—the two of us…”

“I feel… somehow dizzy…”

“The sun shines too harshly.”
“The glare is overwhelming.”
“But… don’t you agree it’s bearable?”

“Yes… Whatever may come…”

“Whatever may come…”

“I’m smiling now.”

“Indeed.”

“Ah—your eyes grow moist…”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m happy.”

“I’m not going to think about anything anymore.”

“And… just one thing…”

“Yes—just one thing, only one thing.”

“……”

“Hey—let’s walk.”
“When I stay still... I get this frightened feeling.”
“Let’s walk through sunny spots... circle round and round the hilltop.”

The scorching midsummer sun beat down mercilessly.
Everywhere they looked, the light glared with a blinding intensity that made their eyes ache.
In the distance, the sea was shining.