Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimmingriver, For men maycome and men may go,

But I goon for ever”

……………… If I didn’t keep humming some song, I felt I might perish; so I would press the stethoscope’s rubber tube against my ears, dreading every sound around me, and focus on my own heartbeat—yet even then, it seemed I might dissolve into the river’s endless flow, no illness, no dreams, vanishing utterly.

During my long years of dissipated wandering, my dreams were nights turned ashen from pining after my mother. I thought I must return to where my mother dwelled.

I was a patient with tachycardia. I had intended to wait for my recovery before departing，but those ashen nights pressed down harder，only spurring my symptoms more severely without cease. In my hunched posture，all affectation，I could do nothing but make bird specimens. When at pond’s edge，a goose’s startling cry coincided with gunfire echoing over water，I leaned out clutching my half-made taxidermy bird and saw Tona—my wife—aiming at cat willow roots along riverbank.

“Did you miss?” “…………”

Tona didn’t so much as glance my way. Weasel attacks were frequent, and her kept birds were often killed. The weasel would suck the birds’ blood and leave only their carcasses behind. I would always pick them up and make them into taxidermy. Not a single book remained on my bookshelf; in their place, specimens of brown-eared bulbuls, pheasants, jays, thrushes, green pheasants, shrikes, sparrows, and kingfishers lined up their wings. Horned owls, crows, chickens, geese, and their ilk—specimens that could no longer fit even on the bookshelves—had crowded onto the floor, leaving no space to set foot. Tona captured small birds using mist nets and birdlime, then built a communal shed next to the chicken coop. They tied a shrike to a perch and stood it at the edge of the mulberry field; when they made it call out, its companions would descend and get caught in the birdlime. The horned owl and crow nests had been found by Yuzu, the waterwheel attendant, but Tona raised the baby crow, and the horned owl grew so tame it would perch on her shoulder. The baby crow chased after Tona as she did the water chores, keeping company with the geese. Yuzu hunted pheasants, brown-eared bulbuls, and green pheasants, but I refused to eat meat—claiming it worsened my palpitations—and made only my portion into specimens.

Yuzu’s left eye was a glass eye, and for some reason he found it mortifying that it never closed when taking aim, so he absolutely refused to handle firearms around others. Tona had asked Yuzu to fire blanks to scare off the weasels, but even this made him flush crimson, and he would not consent. She loaded his antiquated rifle with live rounds and took aim at the birds’ mortal foe, but when she imagined me—caught unawares—being startled in my sickroom, she boiled with frustration at her own timidity.—Yet I had ceased to be startled by gunfire. Instead, I waited for the carcasses of birds slain by weasels.

“We have been hit again.” Has the enemy made a clean getaway—? It’s already beyond saving. “Throw it over here.”

“It’s just claw marks—it’ll heal.” Tona picked up the goose at her feet and pressed her ear to its wounded chest. “It won’t heal! Stop it! Stop it!” I sharply reached out my arm, but Tona, scowling, withdrew to the hearthside still clutching the bird. Whenever gunshots rang out or birds cried, my figure—leaning out the window as if lying in wait—was, Tona had long seemed to complain, as hateful as a weasel.

II Tona's vigilance proved effective, and the weasel attacks gradually diminished. She had hung a cradle from the ceiling by the hearth and was monitoring the goose's condition. The pond lay completely frozen over, leaving the weasel unable to even target carp. When my taxidermy work ceased, I became nothing but a wooden dummy—lying on my back in the attic bed, doing nothing but listen to the ominous throbbing in my chest. As the boundary between life and death blurred, I picked up a crow's feather and tickled beneath my chin and armpits—much like one overwhelmed by too blissful a dream might stealthily pinch their own cheek—only to be assailed by an unbearable surge of that ticklish sensation through which I recognized life.

I was abnormally sensitive to tickling since birth. Even imagining my own fingertips touching my armpits or soles would instantly send my entire body into a suffocating squirm—a habit I had developed. Of all the folktales I heard in childhood, the one that assailed me with the strangest terror—leaving me ashen—was the story where an evil fox abducts a child, then with that bushy-tailed rump of theirs, tickles and tickles and tickles the child’s entire body until it dies. With the tip of a single crow’s feather, I awoke from a deathly dream with a raucous laugh. I nearly tumbled from the bed and, startled anew by the violent surge of my heart, turned rigid as stone.

It was a dim attic. Beyond the window, willow and cypress trees spread their branches; lowering the curtain of stitched wheat sacks necessitated a lamp even during daylight. There was one small north-facing window and a pyramid-shaped skylight—two shaku square—opened in the warped attic ceiling, but gazing through that tiny window at smoke filled with pitiful wandering—swirling hazily upward in slender wisps—filled me with such anguish that I pulled the cord to close the shutters and merely shut my eyes like a cellar-dwelling spider at the bottom of its hole. On the north-facing window lay an old storm shutter with hinges opened outward above my eyes, yet I kept the lamp lit with the curtain fully lowered. The daytime lamp stood pallid and dim, hazed by billowing rice-hulling dust, resembling the depths of a swamp.

When the waterwheel began turning, the entire cabin started portentously shuddering, and the specimens around me danced in a staccato rhythm of tiny foot-stomps. Because I had awkwardly overstuffed the male goose that was previously killed by the weasel, it kept toppling over incessantly.

"When this female dies—as it surely will despite Tona’s care—I’ll pair it with [the male] and mount them both securely on a thick plank," I muttered, fussily righting such junk specimens as if they were precious, then clutching them tightly to my chest until the vibrations subsided.

In this dim attic like some shadowy bird shop, amid birds startled into shrieks or foot-stamping by crows’ wingbeats, my rigidly perched figure resembled neither woodpecker nor horned owl—yet seemed indistinguishable from the surrounding specimens—or so Tona and Yuzu found eerily unsettling. Indeed, when the waterwheel turned, my seated figure—propped up in bed clutching a goose—bounced with a slightly more comical, rhythmically harmonious vibration than the birds around me, for it rested upon a spring.

Beneath the window was a gentle flow, but the water spray beaten by the waterwheel’s blades showered thickly onto the window covering, summoning a sunshower from the radiant sunlight.

III

Because of this condition, I couldn’t very well have them shorten the waterwheel’s operation, so whenever I could no longer endure those vibrations, I would move my ailing body to the attic of the storehouse directly across from the stable.

The phantom of my mother grew more vivid each day in my dreams. I could do nothing but let out a deep sigh as I gazed up at the distant village path where cliffs upon cliffs and slopes upon slopes overlapped. "I'll wait until the day I can ride you." I stood before the stable, stroking Z's muzzle while,

“When that day comes, please carry this pitiful invalid out quietly,” I whispered in a nasal voice overly laden with theatrical lines. Somehow around that time—whether because I became inexplicably timid in front of people and could hardly speak properly—I would often grab an animal to pour out aimless complaints or put on the act of a sorrowful actor. Yet when Z opened his dull eyes, he seemed annoyed—as though I had appeared to offer feed—and merely expelled a rough, portentous sigh from his listless nostrils. Not even a single blink showed compliance with my theatrical lines. My chest, stiffened into twin rods, could no longer withstand the pressure of that snorting breath.

This old stallion, as if never forgetting how I had despised his innate laziness and greed during my healthy days and handled him roughly, now brushed me off with a flick of his nose—me, who in this belated hour uttered such frail, theatrical lines. As for me too—when I considered all my past deeds toward him—my current demeanor felt shamelessly contrived; yet each time I approached anew, his utter lack of response left me exasperated. Whenever Z saw even a glimpse of a human figure, he would do nothing but crave food; and if he perceived someone who wouldn’t provide it, no matter how much benevolence filled that person’s face, he would become inexplicably sullen and refuse even the slightest familiarity. I wanted to correct his temperament now, even slightly, toward suitability for my own riding purposes given those nags’ nature—but he remained utterly obstinate.

“What a wretched nag you are!” When struck by his ugly neigh, I grimaced at the ruined theatrics of my pitiful act—a shame so acute it nearly made me vomit. At that snort, I too summoned spiteful resolve. Waiting until he’d gorged himself on fodder and sunk into sullen slumber, I stealthily tickled his mud-like nostrils with a crow’s feather. He proved an utterly timorous horse, shrieking and leaping up every single time. Not from true sensitivity—merely his want of endurance and penchant for histrionics. His sire too had been a workhorse here originally—the parent who panicked when a lone horsefly alighted on its nose, leapt into the river, and drowned. Z emitted a monstrous guffaw while trying madly to kick through the doorway’s crossbeam. No chance of him ever growing accustomed—I relinquished effort and thought: *Serves you right for that neigh!* Pulling a hateful face at him, I attempted sleep again—only to creep back on silent feet and torment him with relentless tickling.

The sky was tinged with purple. The shrike's cry was sharp. Under the soles of those walking, frost pillars crumbled, and the smoke of mountain fires drifted distantly. Snnfft! Snnfft! With a guttural sound—neither quite a sneeze nor a snort—Z expelled breath upward, and even from my window across the eaves, I could clearly discern the plume’s vivid white form vanishing into the sky.

“Stop your mischief.” Tona faced my window and showed her fist. When she quietly stroked Z’s muzzle, the clamorous cries gradually subsided. Tona had an innate skill for taming small birds and animals. She often told me her methods, but the relationship between Z and me was increasingly turning into that of enemies. I listened to Tona and Z’s growing familiarity outside the window, blinking my suspicious eyes like a cowardly villain, and with restless hands, flipped through the books by my pillow. Without belonging to anyone, only two or three old books lay scattered by my side.

One of the books was a small volume on genetics. It detailed Galton’s law—where 1=1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16… such that Individual A inherits half their temperamental traits from their immediate predecessor, a quarter from the predecessor before that, and so on in an even ratio—as well as Mendel’s report establishing new laws through experimental theories of “superior” and “inferior” traits. Following Galton’s law, when I imagined my ancestors as far back as I could know, idiocy, absurdity, reckless courage, and cowardice were laid bare, calculated with a distribution ratio of 1/2 and 1/4. When I further compared according to Mendelism, it became clear that beings such as Z and myself were specimens manifestly marked by “inferior traits.” “I chatter, Chatter, as I flow……” I was depressed as I listened to the sound of the stream beneath the window.

IV

The letter from my mother urged me, as the eldest son, to return home regarding the Buddhist memorial services for my father and grandfather. ――I was in the midst of a dream where I massaged my mother’s shoulders. The emotions of what one might call a wandering child—yearning for his mother—were being pelted by glittering rain in some indescribably mystical, colorless realm beyond the mountains. ……Beneath the window overlooking the sea, I was decisively pressing my mother’s shoulders. We seemed to be talking about some particularly happy memory. I forgot what we had been discussing the moment I awoke, but as I vacantly gazed at the sea beyond the window—a serene expanse so dazzling it blurred my vision—the seemingly modest wave crests unexpectedly transformed into a tsunami, billowing relentlessly from afar until it pressed in right beneath our window. I could do nothing but gasp in astonishment—Oh... Oh!—and when I finally tried to lift my mother, she had already transformed into a bronze seated statue, utterly beyond my strength to raise. Yet there Mother was, speaking clearly—murmuring something like “Why are you in such a panic?”—and laughing sharply.

“Mother… Mother…”

By my own cry, I awoke. It was a turmoil in my chest like a storm. Even the mere stirrings of a heart within myself that yearned for Mother filled me with such an uncanny cold sweat—a forced insincerity, given that we had never once spoken normally to each other. Though it had been three or four years since I last saw my parents’ faces, and though I calmly let the reproach of being an unfilial son wash over me, how could such a plausible dream arise from nothing but these unbreakable blood ties lingering in some corner of my heart! As I rubbed my eyes, I felt as though I might vomit black blood.

I could not help but run away to the stable's attic. Choking and retching on the billowing fodder dust, I pressed my hands over my eyes and nostrils and collapsed into the dried grass.

Whenever my chest would begin violently pounding with uncontrollable palpitations, I had developed the habit of fleeing to that attic. Yet this storm in my chest would always arise without any discernible cause—utterly capricious—and though there was nothing particular to grieve, without fail when the attack came on, tears would suddenly overflow until finally I could not help but let out sobbing cries. This condition was none other than a type of neurasthenia caused by vitamin B deficiency—even if one were driven by fits of intense laughter, they would likely be assailed by similar results.

Z, startled by the bizarre noise of my crashing in, kicked away the empty feed bucket dangling before his nose; struck by the recoil against his muzzle, he froze in dumbfounded trembling.

“What are you, laughing while…” Tona, who had been chopping straw with the straw-cutter, saw my face—on the verge of tears—as I raced up the ladder steps. “You seem much livelier now.” “Spring’s nearly here…” she said mockingly. The one-eyed Yuzu, finding the straw-cutter work dangerous, was singing as he carried bundles of dried grass to Tona’s hands.

“Z’s eyes went wide after the bucket he kicked came flying back at him.”

I managed to force a smile into being, but this thing called “laughter”—I had never once detected even the faintest trace of it at any extremity of my peripheral nerves. In my frantic dash inside, I regretted not noticing the straw-cutter’s clatter and singing voices that should have carried upstairs—but there was no remedy now, and fearing the collapse of speech itself,

“I want you to go to O-Fuki’s place in Oniyanagi.”

I called out to Yuzu. “My mother wants a massage because of her age…” Though nothing of the sort was actually written in the letter, I wanted to have someone—even O-Fuki—go unexpectedly and thereby save myself from some measure of self-reproach. O-Fuki was Yuzu’s aunt—a practitioner of moxibustion, massage, and bone-setting—but her hearing was so poor that communication was impossible without hand gestures. Otherwise, I would have had to shout loud enough to summon people from the mountain, but someone like me—who couldn’t even muster the voice to curse Z—had no hope of raising such a cry. O-Fuki was inherently poor at communication, often jumping to wild misunderstandings that left others flustered, yet my mother alone had such rapport with her that they could converse smoothly through deft hand gestures. And though in winter they would wait eagerly for O-Fuki’s visits, I—having long ago created reckless debts all over my mother’s town before absconding—was said to be spending each day in bleak desolation, hiding these facts from the world. Since my grandmother’s time, O-Fuki would cross over the mountains once the autumn harvest ended and stay until the snow melted on the distant peaks—this had been her custom.

“Why not have O-Fuki give you some moxibustion while you’re at it?”

For someone in my condition, those around me had long recommended that O-Fuki’s massage and moxibustion would likely have the most striking effect, but even the mere thought of it made my hair stand on end, and I pretended not to hear. Remembering this, Tona and Yuzu also pressed sharply and recommended O-Fuki’s treatments to me.

“I’ll walk partway, and if it really becomes too much, I’ll try resting at O-Fuki’s place for a while.” I resolved. “But no massages or moxibustion.” “I’ve never once been massaged—just imagining how unbearably ticklish that must be is too much.” “Honestly, if we just held you down and made them apply the moxa, such an unsteady illness would be cured in one go…” Yuzu’s one eye glinted sharply. Involuntarily, I would first notice that person’s glass eye—often feeling oppressed by the intensely eerie light radiating from the wide-open eyeball of a wrathful deity—but when I calmly focused on his right eye, it merely gazed downward as meekly as a sheep’s, timidly blinking.

“I’d like to help out too.” Tona added her voice from beside us. “Just imagine how this stubborn fool would carry on if they actually applied that moxibustion—somehow seems like poetic justice.” “Don’t concern yourself with me.” I shook my head violently.

“Look at that face you’re making—as if you’re having moxibustion done…”

I absolutely detested anything related to moxibustion or massage—I couldn’t even bear to witness others undergoing such treatments. The phrase “O-Fuki’s moxibustion” had long been prepared as a frightening refrain for me since childhood. Even in recent years—let alone childhood—there was a time when Mother, who had long grown weary of my reckless debauchery and drinking, murmured that perhaps having O-Fuki’s moxibustion applied might settle me down. Upon hearing this, I shuddered violently and fled in panic without a second thought. It was said that O-Fuki’s moxibustion was particularly effective on the nervous system—only those with severe enough ailments would seek her treatment—but I vividly remember from early childhood a single scene of my grandfather undergoing that brutal therapy. My grandfather had been employed at Oniyanagi Village office (this was undoubtedly due to extreme neurasthenia, though no one ever affixed such a diagnosis upon the patient), but during his commute he was often bewitched by foxes into performing scenes of unspeakable misery and absurdity—until at last, driven to desperation, he resolved to undergo O-Fuki’s moxibustion.

O-Fuki’s moxibustion likely differed from the common bean-sized variety—she layered copper-coin-sized moxa over pressure points, then lit them while fanning fiercely with an uchiwa fan in a terrifying display. My grandfather’s chest—bared to the waist—yes, recalling now: that emaciated torso like a stiffened fan, enclosing wind-chime-like timidity within its hollows, had been passed down to me unchanged—his ribs stood starkly countable, his abdomen sunken into a spoon-shaped hollow. As O-Fuki began her slow preparations, that spoon-shaped hollow swelled violently under terror’s assault, pulsing like frantic bellows. He clamped his teeth on the window frame like a horse—though no pitying voices murmured *“the fire’s not even lit yet”*—his face hardening into a fierce lion mask glaring skyward while his baton-thin shins rattled at the knees.—Unable to endure watching this revered elder writhe so pitifully in fear, I fled mid-treatment—never knowing whether he endured—yet even decades later that moment remains: Grandfather’s face frozen in my memory like a tangible fierce lion mask. Since then, merely hearing “moxibustion” made my own face twitch toward that same agonizing visage. Mother recounted how Grandfather had whimpered *“Hotsu hotsu hotsu!”*— —and just as flames reached his skin screamed like a stray cat—leaping up scattering embers over windowsill—but I thought this only natural! I sympathized.

“My father, for instance…” Mother boasted about her own father. “Even when they lit three of those moxibustion cones on him at once, he calmly kept smoking tobacco.” “That’s because the skin on his back…” “Don’t spout such nonsense!”

“Don’t spout such nonsense!” Mother was deeply offended. And so it was said that my grandfather—subdued by O-Fuki’s strength, strength enough to pound rice cakes—had moxibustion forcibly applied until his illness was finally cured; but had one continued it for three weeks, twenty-one days (though the first two or three sessions inflicted the greatest agony, and the pain and itching supposedly lessened with repetition—), it stood to reason that most nerves would grow numb.

“Since mine isn’t a nervous disorder at all, I absolutely refuse moxibustion.”

I worried that Yuzu’s excessive kindness might lead to O-Fuki rushing into some premature treatment—a disaster!—and so now, belatedly, I went into meticulous detail explaining my symptoms.

“Anyway, having O-Fuki give you a massage would be best…”

“No way!” “Do I sometimes faint away and die?” “At times like that, even a bird’s feather brushing me makes me so ticklish I jolt back to life—if I got a massage, I’d be tickled to death for sure.” “Oh, I can’t bear it!” I felt compelled to make myself perfectly clear, so I obstinately elaborated on how much I detested moxibustion and massage. Yuzu would murmur something offhandedly, and I’d startle at each remark or shudder in response—

“What a troublesome illness!” he seemed to seethe with resentment. However, when I looked at his right eye, I realized it was twisted into a bitter smile and pursed my lips. Yuzu had a tendency to insist on forcing others into things they disliked, so I was concerned that provoking him would lead to trouble.

From an uncharacteristic dream of Mother—having brought up O-Fuki and such—I found myself thrust into needless discomfiture.

“It’s so far...” I groaned. Nothing afflicted my own heart with such shallow and turbid mire as when I recalled Mother. The more natural a child’s longing for their parent became, the more I found myself drenched in filthy mud beyond a double fence. While I could not fully witness my mother’s life, I only managed the feelings of a child bewildered by her. There was no memorial service or anything of the sort—and so I battled Mother’s hypocrite-style words against my own pseudo-villain-style lingering resentment. Yet abandoning the mask of human morality’s good and evil, the absolute cause-and-effect intervening between parent and child as mere humans was terrifying, lamentable, and starkly simple—there was no path to cast everything aside in the name of morality or fastidiousness.

“Let’s stop talking about O-Fuki.” “At any rate, I have to walk there.” “In that case, shall I prepare a palanquin?” Yuzu pointed to the mountain palanquin in the barn loft, but Tona had long viewed my feelings toward my mother as degenerate. “It’d be just fine if Z threw you off—” She blurted out things like that. Tona misunderstood my feelings, as though I were someone clinging with greedy attachment to possessions, but I had no way to explain. I was terrified of the words she used to insult my mother.

Tona, her skilled fodder-cutting timed to a whistle, paid me no heed. Leaving behind the sound of straw being chopped, I took up a hatchet and went to the bamboo thicket across the river to search for a walking stick to use in crossing the mountains.

**Five**

Our village was called Yadorigi Village, Aza Oninamida. The traces of Oninamida Marsh were now dried up, leaving a damp land thickly overgrown with mugwort and reeds. Tona, who insisted on seeing me partway, borrowed Yuzu’s gun and was accompanied by Roku—a stray dog she had tamed—while Yuzu took hold of Z’s bridle, and I prodded the ground with a catkin willow staff, casting anxious upward glances. Our party set out from the marsh’s edge at the hour when dawn’s stars still glittered. Even if one departed Oninamida this early in the morning, it was customary for even a healthy walker’s pace to reach Otonashi-juku—where the bus route ended—only by twilight.

“To reach Yagurasawa by noon… I suppose we’ll have to ride Z from time to time after all…” Yuzu, concerned that from the very start of our departure my gait—with its sigh-like breaths—seemed overly heavy, kept his mouth firmly shut, breathed only through his nostrils, and cautioned me not to lean my chest forward and so on. Cutting an overly heavy staff would have been too cumbersome, so fashioning one from a willow branch was preferable—though even that was rather thick. Yet despite this, my spine ended up swaying like the willow itself, rendering the walking stick utterly unreliable.

“I have no intention of riding Z, so if Tona gets tired, lend it to her.” I worried about Tona as she led Roku ahead, veering off the path into the woods, but she chased after birds without a trace of fatigue.

Tona shot down a pheasant on the slopes of Tatsumaki Mountain. “Could you keep the prey stored until I return…” “Do you know the goose has completely healed and started walking around? I’d gladly hand over a bird that’s been shot down, but to already be planning to turn a goose that’s still breathing into taxidermy—that’s just greedy. Honestly, you’re insatiable.”

Tona tied the prey to Z’s saddle and once again took the lead along the side path.

“We probably can’t make it to Yagurasawa.” “We’ll likely have lunch around Kitsunezuka.” I recalled the goose that had chased after Tona—who’d been doing water chores—uttering guttural cries, and wondered if that had been the same injured bird now healed. It struck me then. Thinking it wouldn’t last a moment against a weasel, I’d resolved to turn it into a specimen at once—but could something recover so effortlessly with proper care? Reflecting thus, among the birds lining my room there must have been those that might’ve kept their lives without being taxidermied. Turning these thoughts over, I hastened along the path behind Z.

“Granny O-Fuki might’ve come to Kitsunezuka for all I know.” “Lately her massage business has gone downhill—she’s been busy helping pound winter rice cakes instead.”

At the teahouse in Kitsunezuka was Yuzu’s mistress. Yuzu had already passed forty yet remained unmarried, ashamed of his one eye that refused to close even in sleep. Fearing to rest even beside that mistress, he would flee back over the mountains to Oninamida even at midnight. For Yuzu, the path to Kitsunezuka held no hardship at all—but accompanying such a feeble-legged companion must have made it dreadfully tedious. “To think she can still pound rice cakes at her age!”

I marveled at the old woman’s immense strength. Before long, my voice no longer reached Yuzu. From deep within the oak grove, gunshots occasionally resounded. Because we were descending the ravine, their echoes multiplied and layered above our heads, ringing out like lightning. Each time, the hindquarters of Z—walking ahead of me—leapt up lightly, while on the slope’s rocky unevenness, his listless hooves grew prone to stumbling. And the empty saddle clattered as it bounced upward.

“No matter what, I can’t ride that.” If I fell too far behind, Yuzu would try to make me ride that saddle, so while striving to maintain at least a distance where my voice could reach them, I followed from behind—though at times I had to break into a jog to keep sight of Z’s shadow. The sight of myself trailing behind with such a suspicious, faltering gait was surely no different from that goose who had only just healed from its injuries—I grieved over this. My breath only grew rougher with each exhale, and I bitterly regretted this hasty march.

I was seized by the fear that at this rate, we would not even reach Oniryū by dusk. Tatsumaki Mountain, Kijigafuchi, Dokuta, Yagurasawa, Kitsunezuka, Fubukigawa—and finally Oniryū’s forest—but merely reciting these names now filled me with such dizziness that the ground seemed to ripple like waves before my eyes. And yet, why must the names of these villages around here be written with such bizarre characters?—As my thoughts wandered into such irrelevant musings, they began to appear like villages inhabited by demons, piled one upon another in the path of warrior apprentices from folktales.

In my healthier days, I would catch my breath at Oniryū Station, then tighten the reins and descend swiftly to Itachidani Valley, cut through Rakan-no-Mori Forest, follow the riverbank from Niōmon Gate, and whistle my way across the three-ri embankment to Otonashi-juku—but comparing that to this now, the difference was truly as stark as that between the tortoise and the hare. Even when choosing detours to avoid steep slopes as much as possible, resting to drink water, and soothing my chest—all in the faltering gait of a stroke patient—I grew doubtful whether I could even manage descending to Kijigafuchi and climbing to Dokuta now. I had resolved countless times to call back Tona and Yuzu, but with those ahead soon disappearing from view and the nightmare of solitude’s shadow seizing me, I found myself panting as I dragged my legs forward.

Yuzu, who had been waiting for me to catch up by the roadside stone monument while tapping his pipe, gazed intently at my labored breathing and sympathized.

“I suppose a palanquin really is necessary after all.” “Let’s tough it out until Kitsunezuka.” “Once we get that far, even if we turn back, they can arrange a palanquin...”

On these paths where even a horse’s back could not be ridden by the sick, the traditional mountain palanquin remained the sole recourse. It consisted of nothing but the form of the path my grandfather had grown accustomed to traversing and natural scenery that likely remained unchanged even now—a remote district devoid of notable landmarks or potential for development, a backwater so deep that even electric light was deemed unworthy to venture as far as Otonashi-juku. Beneath the Japanese larch of Yagara Pass where my grandfather—frequently transformed into a fox—had left countless tales of absurdity and tragedy still lingering on people’s lips, that very larch now spread its branches skyward before us like leaping dancers, ethereal sway summoning wind—a sight perfectly suited for infusing mountain spirits’ hypnosis upon a neurasthenic’s solitary path. Even as constellations shifted, the flow of time caught between me—standing at the larch’s roots oblivious to existence’s shifting patterns—and my grandfather’s generation amounted to nothing more than an ancient mountain trail unnoticed even by myself.

Even supposing we managed to borrow a mountain palanquin at Kitsunezuka and reach Oniryū by day’s end, descending to the town where my mother resided would require rising at dawn the next day to head toward Otonashi-juku and locate the bus route—a plank path along a gorge so treacherous that even healthy people, their hearts leaping in their chests, often preferred to walk. Thus of course I would have no choice but to endure over half a day’s journey in the palanquin before finally arriving at Yamakita Station where steam whistles could be heard. In realms like Oninamida Swamp and Kitsunezuka such mountain palanquins raised no eyebrows, but to advance toward bustling station roads where automobiles and locomotives belched the smoke of civilization—hoi-hoi-hoi! No matter how briskly vigorous those hoi-hoi-hoi calls might sound, ultimately I could never summon the courage to charge forth and ride. What greater humiliation could exist in this modern age?

In any case, even if it took me days, I had no choice but to set out with my cane for Yamakita Station. Even so, with each step my toes took toward the path ahead, my heart seemed to hear the calls of horned owls and jays summoning me back to the dim attic of Oninamida—as if in inverse proportion. Though I was one returning for the rites of ancestral spirits, as the illusion of my mother—drawing closer to reality—began to take shape, the images that had swelled into various forms were suddenly split by a sickle like straw, shattered into fragments and scattered into the gale-swept sky.

Tona shot down three bulbuls in addition to pheasants and suggested they would make good souvenirs while remarking, “We can’t afford to dawdle any longer—I’ll have you take the lead ahead of Z.”

slung the gun over her shoulder and mounted the saddle.

“At this rate, we’ll barely make it to Kitsunezuka while there’s still daylight.”

“Your walking’s so damn slow, I started dozing off mid-step!” Yuzu began, but—immediately fearing others might imagine how his glass eye would look if he dozed—he blinked his good eye fiercely and set about preparing lunch. Z, for a horse, had shown dejection over this short distance—much like myself (*though his was plainly lazy exaggeration!*)—but when Tona took his reins, he raised his head with enthusiasm never shown in my presence. As I tried to rise while glaring sideways at the beast’s eyes with burning hatred, Z acted as if—

“Get moving already—quit dawdling!” Z snorted, shaking his muzzle as if swatting at a horsefly and trying to nudge my shoulder, so I leapt forward in surprise. As I twisted my body to slip beneath his chin in that instant, I wanted nothing more than to land a swift slap across his cheek—but the slimy bubbles of drool clinging around his mouth were too repulsive to touch. The shaded mountain path from Dokuta to Yagara Pass was especially steep, the narrow, ribbon-like ochre slope path buried in deep withered grass.

“See here, if you walk like this, you’re quite the picture of health—it’s just that being too careful ends up doing more harm than good.” Tona shouted encouragement from behind me, laced with mockery.

“At this rate, maybe you could even make it all the way to Yamakita in three days.”

“Of course I can walk. Even if it takes three days or four... just keep going straight to Odawara...” Odawara was our destination.

The path gradually narrowed until it became extreme, while the distant mountain range had already been colored by evening’s hues. I now maintained complete silence as I devoted myself to climbing, though only my expelled breath remained conspicuous—with each passing moment sinking deeper into a snail’s pace. Each time I reached every corner of the lightning-shaped mountain path, I drew a deep breath and tilted my canteen. But before I could hesitate even briefly, Z’s lukewarm breath—thick with rancid-smelling wind—suddenly lunged at my neck, startling me so thoroughly that I had no choice but to leap forward like a frog. The beast too appeared to be blowing bubbles of considerable exhaustion by now; each time this breath—carrying a tactile sensation akin to a fox’s tail—struck me, my entire body transformed into gooseflesh. I trembled from head to toe, thrusting only my neck forward like an injured mantis, yet whenever possible my straw sandals sank into frost columns and stuck fast, leaving me no recourse but to sway unsteadily at the hips. The moment I faltered even slightly, Z’s snout would immediately loom over my shoulder—and before I could blink—fierce steam erupted from both nostrils. It collided with the frozen upward-sloping ground and rebounded onto my face like water from a pump striking a wall. I suffered this dismal blinding assault and began choking.

“Watch out! You’ll be crushed under Z’s belly.” “You need to walk faster—” Tona pretended not to see Z’s and my dire state, abruptly straightened up—Yuzu had already reached beneath the Japanese red pine and was warming sake over burning dead branches! She kept urging me onward.

If I could just climb this, today’s ordeal would be over! I ground my teeth and barely managed to wriggle out from under Z’s jaw to escape the steam’s blinding assault—only for his breath to stretch three, even five shaku and lunge at my neck. Instinctively retracting my neck like a turtle’s, I writhed in an attempt to stretch my legs beyond that eerie breath’s reach, but soon they refused to lift as though forged from iron rods.

Though I longed to abandon the climb and turn back, it was only the beast’s relentless pursuit that had driven me this far. Now trapped on a perilous slope where any misstep would see Z’s hooves kicking me into oblivion, I sank my teeth like a lion into withered grass stalks and surrendered to the savage rhythm of piston-breaths—staking everything on this moment. As we climbed higher, the path narrowed further, ears of desiccated pampas grass hanging from cliff walls brushing against Z’s flanks from both sides. Z released a neigh identical to the hoarse cry he’d made when I’d once prodded his nostrils with a bird feather, then began emitting an unbroken stream of flatulence. I involuntarily gasped “Ugh!” Choking, I pressed both palms fiercely over my nose and mouth.

“Hss, hss-hss!” Even Tona panicked beyond measure and kicked Z’s belly in one swift motion. As we approached the pass, sunlight began to appear, and when that steam struck the ground beneath my arm, a hole formed in the frost columns just large enough for my straw sandal to sink into. Z’s anguish reached a ghastly extreme, and the raucous sound of his breath—alternately expelled toward sky and earth—resembled a locomotive’s smokestack. The bare earth was flesh-colored red clay; my straw sandal, caught in the hole, painted on the frost-covered ground a waterfall in strokes of vigorous brushwork. Hot! Before I knew it, I had stretched my limbs out beneath Z’s nose.

Later, according to what I heard from Tona, the sight of the horse—anxious not to trip over the object ahead while irritably watching my movements—had been far more pitiable, but at that moment, his dejected breath—a ceaselessly raw, fishy wind pouring from the nostrils and mouth hanging over my nape—pressed down on me like a plank until finally, a sticky string of drool dripped down my neck. I felt as though my entire body were being tickled by centipede tentacles—more repulsive than a fox’s tail. The raw, fishy icicle slowly stroked through from my back to under my armpits, circled around my chest, and extended its tentacles toward my lower abdomen. This torture was truly lethal for me.

Truly, if I were to recall the eeriness and suffocation of that time, no matter how many preposterously exaggerated adjectives I might conjure, they would still fall short of describing the torments of purgatory it was. When I recall that time the filthy horse’s drool seeped into my very being, I shudder a million times over, on the verge of transforming into a rokurokubi in an instant.

Collapsed like a frog, I nevertheless tried to rise again, and as I used my straw sandals alternately to draw two or three lines of a waterfall with immense force on the frost-covered ground, Z’s hoof finally crushed my thighbone with all his might.

After over two hours of lifelessness, I revived beside a bonfire burning like an eerie flame within the deep evening haze. ——Long ago, my grandfather had his soul stolen by a mountain spirit’s malevolent aura—so people said—and there at its base he would often lose himself in pitiful delusions of amusement. The great Japanese red pine now stood alone atop the bald mountain, spreading its mighty arms in a giant’s dance. The tree’s trunk bent beneath winds that had blown for a thousand years from the eastern plains, its form arched backward in wide-eyed astonishment at the stars’ splendor overhead—arms outstretched as if exclaiming *This! This!* The moment I revived, I thought: *Is this some unseen corner of death’s realm? What magnificent giant stands beside me—what could astonish it so?* In such a state of mind, I gazed vacantly at that same distant sky. In the east, Pisces’ stars glimmered faintly. The town ahead lay by an unseen sea far to the east.

Yuzu carried me on his back and descended the mountain pass.

“It hurts! It hurts!”

I screamed at the top of my lungs, “No more of Granny O-Fuki’s bone-mending…!”

“If it’s not Granny O-Fuki, no one can handle it. Whether you like it or not, once we’ve worked over your whole body and set the moxibustion, you’ll have no complaints.” Yuzu went tearing down the slope.

“When we near Fox Mound, hold back your crying.” Tona whispered from Z’s saddle and, with a swift motion, overtook us, plunging into the evening haze.

“No! No!” “No massages!” I kept resisting wildly, but Yuzu’s footwork leapt through the air, matching even the horse’s speed. Starlight fractured in my tears as Z’s figure galloping through the dimness appeared to dance with delight before my eyes. In a storm of indescribable madness and grief—wondering whether I was an adult, an infant, or no longer human at all—I screamed with every ounce of strength and kicked Yuzu in the side.

*

As for me—still breathing without having died like that—there would be no need to lay down the brush here as one does in novels; a brief note should suffice. I was still sitting among the taxidermied birds in the Oninamida Waterwheel Hut. Even so, though that long winter had now given way to summer scenery with fireflies flitting about, all I could conjure in my mind was how those perilous mountain paths remained far off in the depth of impassable snowmelt—as if I had even forgotten what it meant to harbor human-like worries. At times when Yuzu appeared to vent grievances about his livelihood, his one eye would glare sharply, chilling my chest—but once I recognized it as a glass eye, my trepidation vanished. Calmed by the dim light that would likely conceal my scrutiny, I merely observed his face lost in a nap’s dream—the sudden flicker of his opened eye’s gleam—as if observing an unfinished bird specimen. Tona was attempting to gather fireflies to send to friends in Tokyo, yet all the while she carried a gun to shoot weasels—a bizarre spectacle that bore little resemblance to a peaceful firefly hunt. Though I had yet to handle any animals, I merely listened to the “chatter-chatter” of the stream below my window, harboring expectations that if a weasel were successfully killed, I might attempt to make it my first animal specimen. My leg remained impaired, and whenever I needed to travel even a moderate distance, I required crutches. With just one more bird it would form a pair—the male goose, still unrepaired and missing its counterpart, continued to topple over immediately whenever the waterwheel began to turn. And the revived female goose had begun laying eggs.