Pathway to Japanese Literature

A pond—though more accurately a shallow marsh where water welling from the plateau’s edge simply spread wide—had tall reeds growing thickly along one roadside bank, while at its center towered a single large pine tree.
The area was colloquially known as Lone Pine Tree—possessing a rustic charm by day, yet growing somewhat eerie after nightfall.

Late one night, Shimano Hikoichi passed by this Lone Pine Tree.
Heavily drunk on shochu, his mind empty, his feet seeming to float midair.
Not a breeze stirred; the night air hung sharp.

When he neared the pine, Hikoichi halted abruptly.
A sensation as though he’d brushed against some eerie aura.

Off the road—no, not within but upon the reed thicket—stood a figure resembling a boy in traditional clothing.
Moonless yet lit by starlight perhaps, the silhouette emerged stark in translucent gloom.
The figure had noticed Hikoichi’s approach—whether stepping aside to wait or recoiling at their sudden encounter.
Regardless, no footfall sounded, no reeds whispered.
The thicket held its breath while on its surface alone the figure jutted—depthless, flat as paper.

Instantly, Hikoichi shuddered.
It was a feeling of having touched something ghostly—or eerie—or spectral; something of that nature.
During the war he had been conscripted into military life in Hokkaido; during training he had even spent isolated hours in remote mountain valleys through dark nights—yet never before had he experienced such shuddering eeriness.
Terror or shock would have been bearable—but this strange uncanniness was utterly insufferable.
And yet this had occurred within Tokyo’s city limits—where nearby houses stood visible—despite the marshes and reed thickets and air raid ruins.

What was uncanny was that the human figure did not appear to be that of a living human.
Yet nor was it some magic lantern projection.
The particles of shadow had coalesced into solid form—it was, so to speak, a being imbued with a deathly aura.
Even if it were to move about within the reed thicket, it likely wouldn’t make so much as a rustle.

With drunken intensity concentrated in his eyes, Hikoichi stared fixedly.
The boy’s figure seemed to have its hollow eyes directed this way and did not so much as stir.
Hikoichi felt it directly—something that could only be described as a deathly aura.
In an instant, the eeriness transformed into fury.
He took a step forward.
The figure didn’t budge an inch.
He took another step forward and, simultaneously, drove a clenched fist into the side of the figure’s face.

What surprised Hikoichi was the unmistakable solidity of the impact.
The figure was neither shadow nor deathly aura—it collapsed with the raw weight of flesh, and the reed thicket rustled harshly.
The night air swirled and bristled before cooling into stillness.
An intensity without opposition.
Rage and hatred toward nothing at all…

Hikoichi became aware of something hard and heavy at his shoe’s tip.
A stone mass the size of a teapot.
He lifted it with both hands and hurled it with full force at the thing sprawled on the ground.
A defiling, dull thud rang out.

Serves you right, you bastard.
It was a thought spat out like phlegm.
He started walking, and when he suddenly looked up at the sky, the stars shone as if burning.

After that, he emerged onto a brightly lit street and gulped down more shochu at a stall.
He returned to his apartment room late at night.

The incident at Lone Pine Tree had been briefly reported in newspapers spanning from the next day’s evening edition to the following morning’s edition.
It wasn’t treated as a major story, but as an article about the boy’s mysterious death, it had become one filled with many enigmas.

In the roadside reed thicket known as Lone Pine Tree, the boy’s body was discovered.
In his pocket were a suicide note stating his intent to hang himself and a thin cord that appeared intended for that purpose.
The suicide note was in his own handwriting, and the thin cord was from his nightclothes.
However, the corpse was found to have a skull fracture deemed fatal, and nearby lay a bloodstained stone the size of a human head.
Additionally, a contusion was observed on the left lower jaw.
It clearly appeared to be murder.
Still, there were no signs of a struggle, and it did not appear to be the work of a thief.

This boy had been helping at the Chinese soba shop run by his uncle and aunt about a kilometer away. He was somewhat intellectually disabled and had a tendency toward wasteful habits. Whenever he took out the shop's cash, he was constantly scolded. Recently, there had been talk of sending him off to a farm household in Ibaraki Prefecture, and it seemed he had resolved to commit suicide over this distress.

Generally, the articles were as described above, and the truth remained unclear; all newspapers' reports varied only in minor details.

Shimano Hikoichi happened upon one of those articles.
Then he voraciously read through every newspaper.
The apartment complex had various newspapers.
He went to borrow and read them from the manager’s room.
This was a man who normally wouldn’t even properly look at the single newspaper delivered to his door.

The manager said with a frown.

“How very diligent of you.”

“This incident happened nearby, you know.”

“Was it suicide, or was it murder?”
“What do you think, Mr. Shimano?”

“That is precisely the problem.”
“Well, I suppose it’s a case where he intended to die by his own hand but lost his nerve, so he had someone else help him to die.”

Hikoichi calmly, even with a somewhat ironic smile, expounded his views.

The boy was said to be somewhat of low intelligence and to have had a propensity for wastefulness.
Generally speaking, people of low intelligence are big eaters, and consequently, they’re naturally prone to wasteful habits.
He, too, found that the shop’s Chinese soba alone wasn’t enough to satisfy him, so he would take out money to buy snacks.
In the end, even talk of sending him off to the countryside arose, and this became a major blow.
He must have known about rural labor and coarse food.
And there must have been other matters that the newspaper reporters had not yet uncovered.
The uncle and aunt likely did not speak much about their private lives either.
In any case, with various causes piling up, the boy became resolved to die.

It wasn’t like he received some shock, flared up in the moment, and desperately committed suicide. Like a patient gradually weakening, his willpower steadily waned until eventually he resolved to die. This was the crucial point. It was the same as a withering tree. Such a bastard would’ve died anyway, even without suicide.

At the edge of the swamp by that Lone Pine Tree, he must have gone fishing with other children now and then. There were probably no decent catches like crucian carp or loaches, but for a gluttonous slacker, it made for suitable time-wasting. He would gaze at the pine’s branching form. That silhouette of branches must have lingered in his dim mind—he likely drifted into thinking how perfectly they’d suit hanging oneself. Then late one night, he slipped the nightclothes cord into his pocket and wandered out. Resolve to die? Steely determination? Do such refined notions even exist? That so-called suicide note…it must have been some half-baked scrawl.

Listening, the manager now smiled faintly.

“Shimano-san, you’re just like a novelist.”

However, the middle-aged lodger who happened to be there interjected with a displeased expression.

“However, the problem isn’t about such things—it lies in whether it’s suicide or murder, isn’t it?”

Hikoichi directed a sharp gaze at the man.

“Of course, it’s murder.”
“He was standing there vacantly, as if possessed by a death god.”
“It wasn’t that he had resolved himself—he was just somehow in a state of being ready to die.”
“No—you could say he was already dead.”
“He had no clear self-awareness, just a desire to die… or perhaps I should call it a deathly aura—yes, enveloped in that deathly aura, he stood there in the darkness.”
“This can’t simply be called eerie.”
“If you encountered such a bastard, anyone would want to knock him flat.”
“Even I would do the same.”

“Even so, splitting someone’s head open with a stone—what kind of act is that?”

“That was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Even if it was a spur-of-the-moment act, isn’t that a bit too cruel? If there had been some prior grudge, that would be one thing… According to your theory, the culprit would be nothing more than someone passing by.”

“That’s correct.”

“In that case, one could also interpret that the moment the boy was struck down, he himself hit his head against a stone.”
“And that from the momentum of his fall.”
“In that case, it can’t be called murder.”

“No—I adhere to the murder theory.”

Hikoichi declared flatly and fell into an uncomfortable silence.

The newspaper reports stopped after roughly two installments.
Without detailed reports or conclusions, as if the tide had receded, only a blank stretch of beach remained.
On that shore, Hikoichi felt as though he were exposing himself to the elements.

When the tide recedes, shellfish close their mouths.
Hikoichi too kept his mouth shut and avoided mentioning the Lone Pine Tree incident.

Carelessly, he had engaged in some rather dangerous actions.
Not only had he scoured through every newspaper that came to the apartment, but he had even gone so far as to voice perilous declarations.
There was something that couldn’t be dismissed as mere curiosity-driven speculation.
Had someone been scrutinizing his expression, they might well have harbored suspicions.

The investigation must have been closing in.
The boy’s background had likely been thoroughly examined.
The body would have undergone an autopsy.
And on that stone, Hikoichi’s fingerprints must have remained.
Could there not have been some trivial piece of evidence left behind?
Could there not have been any witness who glimpsed what happened that night?

That night, Hikoichi was thoroughly drunk.
On top of that, he drank again.
Being drunk wasn’t unusual for him, but that night had been excessive.
And then came the late-night return home.
Where and how he had wandered about, he himself couldn’t clearly recall.
An alibi would be difficult to establish.

However, even when Hikoichi calmly reflected on it, he did not particularly feel any self-reproach regarding that matter. He felt that was not murder. Moreover, while he did not consider assisting suicide to be a crime, he felt it was not even assisting suicide. Then what on earth was that? Disgust and hatred toward something abhorrent—wasn’t that all it was? And weren’t such emotions—and the semi-unconscious actions that accompanied them—a legitimate right permitted to humans?

Being arrested and imprisoned for such things was truly absurd.
He told himself he had to be careful.

Prison life appeared to him, first and foremost, as a restriction of freedom.
It was not atonement or repentance or anything of the sort—merely a concrete restriction of freedom.
It must be avoided at all costs, he thought.

However, on the other hand, he was deeply perplexed.
The more he kept silent, the more a desire to publicly declare that matter welled up within him.
It was something only I knew.
It was something only I felt.
Why must I not speak of it?
Must I keep it hidden in my heart without telling anyone, and seal it away permanently?
He thought of the barber of King Midas and his dilemma.
The fact that he couldn’t speak of it was itself a concrete restriction of freedom.

There was no freedom to the right or to the left.
Blindfolded, there had been nothing to do but walk straight ahead.
Yet paradoxically, the area around that Lone Pine Tree now seemed a place free from all constraints—a zone of unburdened ease.

At first, he avoided taking that path.
However, that place was a shortcut from his apartment to the JNR station.
Deliberately taking a detour would, if someone were watching him, only plant seeds of suspicion.
Moreover, it was precisely there that he could whisper the truth to heaven and to earth.

There lay that stone.
That there were bloodstains on the stone was no doubt true.
What was even more certain was that the stone must have borne traces from his hand.

The old pine tree spread its branches low and wide to the sides.
The reed thicket swayed gently in the wind.
Grass grew on the road surface, and traces of rainwater runoff were visible.
The area was vegetable gardens and wild grassy areas, with houses set quite a distance away, and beyond them, factory smokestacks spewing black smoke.

It was like a dream.
But it felt like a cursed dream.
Hikoichi hunched his shoulders and consciously slowed his pace.

Wait, was it really here?

With the urge to call out to something, he looked around, and his chest churned.

Late at night was especially unbearable.
Before passing through there, he had been gulping down shochu.

The shadow of something hung over that area.
It wasn’t the shadow of that boy.
Nor was it the spatter of that blood.
Hikoichi wasn’t neurotic enough to dwell on such thoughts.
Facts existed as self-contained entities, he believed.
Yet a shadow-like presence lingered there, and he instinctively hunched his shoulders while scanning the surroundings.
A repulsive sensation pooled behind his eyes as hatred surged within him.

That dejected figure—like one possessed by a death god—was what he found most abhorrent.
And having laid hands on that was what he found abhorrent.
Wash your hands.
Wash your hands.
It wasn’t because of the bloodshed.

He grew increasingly reliant on alcohol.
He sometimes drank from morning onwards.

There, pushing aside the tall weeds, was a man persistently poking at something with a stick.
Blue jacket, khaki-colored soiled trousers—a vaguely vagrant-like appearance.

He straightened up, raised his sun-tanned face—that of a man around fifty—and stared sharply at Hikoichi before giving a slight nod.
It was Mr. Tanaka.

He wasn’t quite a madman, but he had a reputation for being rather unhinged.

Near the row of houses by the apartment complex lay a wasteland, one corner of which had become a makeshift garbage dump.
From all around they came to discard trash there.
Amidst the refuse mingled countless paper scraps and fallen leaves.
Then Mr. Tanaka would arrive and set it ablaze.
He typically did this from afternoon until evening.
The paper scraps and leaves intermingled with garbage refused to burn cleanly, smoldering endlessly.
Mr. Tanaka would stir the pile, laboring meticulously to incinerate it.
When dusk thickened into gloom, he would amble away.
The fire kept smoldering.
On windy nights, it became recklessly hazardous.
The flames could easily leap to nearby houses and spark catastrophe.

Tanaka-san remained completely unperturbed by such matters.
About every other day, he would invariably set fire.
The neighbors watched with anxious eyes, but since they considered him half-mad, no one bothered to caution him.

One time, Hikoichi—drunk on a whim—saw Tanaka-san burning a fire, went over, and burned it alongside him.
Both remained silent but occasionally exchanged glances and faint smiles.
When parting, they exchanged slight nods.

After that，whenever the two met on the road，they began exchanging nods．
A sense of familiarity somehow developed between them．

In the weeds near the Lone Pine Tree, Tanaka-san looked terribly lonely.
Hikoichi stopped and called out.

“What are you doing?”

Tanaka-san answered with an expressionless face.

“I’m looking for it.”

Hikoichi also entered into the grass.

“Did you lose something?”

Tanaka-san poked the ground with a stick.

“It should be around here….”

He continued poking around here and there and muttered.

“I don’t know.”

As if giving up, he squatted down in the grass and settled his weight.

Hikoichi also squatted down there.
The weeds stood tall, scented with mint, cut off from the world, the sky stretching blue and vast.

Tanaka-san did not turn his eyes toward Hikoichi and said in a tone that made it unclear who he was addressing.

“There should be a splendid stone lantern around here, buried in the ground.”
“Both its shape and the way the moss clings—you won’t find another like it anywhere else.”

“Is it buried in the ground?”

“No one has stolen it.”
“Only I know about it.”

“So, before the air raid, did you live here?”

“I didn’t live here, but since only I know about it, no one else would have a clue.”

After that, the conversation stopped.
Tanaka-san took out a cigarette and offered one to Hikoichi as well.

While smoking about half of the cigarette, Hikoichi suddenly blurted out.

“In the reed thicket near that Lone Pine Tree, the boy from the Chinese soba shop was killed, you know.”

From within the grass, only the pine tree could be seen.

“The head was smashed with a stone.”

Tanaka-san simply nodded.

“Do you know who did such a thing?”
“No—there’s no way you could know.”
“The police don’t know either.”
“But I know.”
“Only I know.”
“Because I’m the one who did it.”

“Oh, you.”

The reply seemed indifferent.

Hikoichi grew furious.
He glared at Tanaka-san’s face as if to strike it.

“That boy was standing over there.
Possessed by a death god—swaying like he was dangling from a rope—already half-dead.
So I knocked him down and smashed his head with a stone.
What do you think?”

“That’s splendid.”

“What… do you mean by ‘splendid’…?”

“Anyway—it’s splendid.”

Devoid of any emotion in his tone, Tanaka-san merely nodded calmly to himself.

“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m the one who did it.”

“Splendid.”

Without so much as a glance toward Hikoichi or a turn toward the Lone Pine Tree, Tanaka-san gazed vaguely into the distance through the thick grass.
Hikoichi could suspect that he didn’t understand the matter—or perhaps that he had known all along.

However, at that moment, Hikoichi abruptly realized.
Regarding that incident, he had never felt the slightest guilt—nor did he feel any now.
Yet now, something’s shadow had begun to cast itself.
What entity’s shadow could this be?
The unidentifiable shadow loomed over that scene—no—it seemed to envelop even him.

He said while staring at Tanaka-san.

"You must believe me."
"That was entirely my doing."
"I myself carried it out."
"As proof—near the reed thicket by the Lone Pine Tree where that corpse lay—I sense an unidentifiable dark shadow, and it comes to envelop even me."
"Such a thing—no one can understand unless they’re the one who did it."
"You see?"
"Of course I feel no guilt or self-reproach."
"It’s his fault."

“Yes—the other party is at fault.”

“But some shadow keeps looming…”

“Just burn it all away.”

“Burn it away…”

Hikoichi formed a wry smile, as though awakening from a dream.
“It’s not as simple as scrap paper.”
“No—even scrap paper isn’t simple.”
“So what does that mean?”

“Burn it all away.”

Hikoichi felt anger rising within him again.
By now, he felt like he was becoming a madman’s plaything.

He silently stood up and walked away without a word of farewell.
Tanaka-san remained squatting in the grass, gazing up at the sky.

At dawn the following day, flames rose at the edge of the reed thicket by the Lone Pine Tree.
Of course, since there were no houses in the vicinity, this was no ordinary fire.
Yet with flames leaping high and smoke billowing too intensely for a mere bonfire, nearby residents went to investigate—only to find Tanaka-san burning the reed thicket.
He had piled empty charcoal sacks, straw bundles, and newspapers into a massive heap, lit them ablaze, then scattered flaming embers across the area to ignite the stubborn reeds.
Though still green with autumn’s vigor and resistant to burning, Tanaka-san strained furiously to reduce them to ash.

The people who had gathered were shocked and tried to stop Tanaka-san, but he stubbornly refused to comply.
With an attitude that utterly ignored the crowd and a fearsome expression, he continued silently burning the fire.

That morning, Hikoichi awoke unusually early.
He was an insurance salesman by trade, would sometimes assist with directing at a small theater, and occasionally wrote poetry.
His poetry earned him not a single penny, while his theater work provided only occasional meager income, so he made his living primarily through his job as an insurance salesman—yet to him, their order of importance was entirely reversed.
He had chosen that profession precisely because he believed there was no more trivial occupation than being an insurance company salesman.
Therefore, he was neither diligent nor faithful in his work.
In the mornings, he slept late.

However, that morning, he felt something weighing on his mind, and sensing a restlessness in the air outside, he couldn’t stay settled in bed and got up.
And he learned of Tanaka-san’s incident.

He adjusted his clothes and immediately rushed to the Lone Pine Tree.

Tanaka-san, surrounded by the crowd, was staring at the burning charcoal sacks.
A police officer was restraining his arm.

Tanaka-san shouted loudly.

“I know what happened here.”

He took a short breath.

“I also know that phantom shadows appear.”

He took another short breath.

“It’s because they let the reeds grow this thick.”

He glanced at the police officer.

“Police negligence.”
“That’s why I’m burning away the reed thicket.”

He swept his gaze around the area.
Then his eyes fixed on Hikoichi’s face.

“Ah, you’ve come at just the right time.”
“Now you burn the rest.”

And perhaps having found relief, he followed the police officer’s lead with an unperturbed expression, walking obediently to the nearby police station.

Several people followed behind, and Hikoichi too brought up the rear from the very back.

Inside the police station, he shouted a few words similar to those he had said before.
After that, he didn’t speak another word.
Hikoichi didn’t so much as glance toward him.

A young man who appeared to be a relative of his and an old man who seemed to be a prominent figure in the town were persistently explaining something to the police officers.
After a routine statement was taken, he walked briskly ahead and left, flanked by the two.

He wasn’t particularly a dangerous madman after all.
His family was quite well-off, and he was, so to speak, living in retirement.

The matter was settled there.
The bonfire near the reed thicket was also immediately extinguished.

However, Tanaka-san was not confined, the reed thicket still remained thick, and it was impossible to predict when or what might happen next.
An uneasy air hung about.

Thus, through the mediation of police and influential figures, after negotiations with the landowners of the reed-thicket area, it was decided that all the reeds would be cut down.

Only a single old pine tree remained, and below it spread a shallow mudflat, transforming the area into a tidy expanse.

The boy’s mysterious death remained unresolved, shrouded in enigmas.
"I still desire freedom," Hikoichi cried out in his heart.
And then, before long, he moved far away.

As for Hikoichi, there remained a story yet to be told.
As for Tanaka-san too, there remained a story yet to be told.
Yet now that the two had gone their separate ways, this story ought to reach its conclusion here.