It's hot. Unable to bear it any longer, I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist. Taking a breath, I looked back up the mountain path. The forest road winds repeatedly, stretching down toward the foot of the mountain. I thought I might see the bus stop I got off at earlier down below, but it was hidden by a tall grove of cedars. I could feel the paper clutched in my right hand growing soft and limp from my sweat. When I left the city, I thought it would be chilly today and dressed accordingly, but the unexpectedly strong sunlight and the slope of the mountain path heated up my body, unaccustomed to exercise as I was. "Alright." I was all alone. No one was going to scold me, but I figured I should keep moving. I took a step forward. At that moment, a single droplet of water fell from the high sky onto my cheek. I gasped. They say mountain weather is fickle, but looking up into the far distance, there wasn't a single cloud. Not even the wings of a bird cutting through the wind were in sight. I wiped my cheek with my finger. Moisture in the atmosphere must have passed through a coincidence of various physical phenomena, crystallized, and fallen. Suddenly, I was struck by the sensation that another self, in some distant place, was watching me standing there, stopping to look at the sky. Lately, I sometimes couldn't stop myself from viewing myself objectively like that. I had looked it up in books once, and it seemed close to the symptoms of a condition called depersonalization. Hey. Tilt your head. Strange, I think. And then I'll probably start walking again. Even if it's a little strange, after all, it's just a raindrop. More importantly, I went out of my way, taking multiple buses just to get deep into a mountain like this. Let's keep going. What's wrong with you? Just standing there.
Why let your heart be stolen by such an insignificant event? It's meaningless. Even if you think about it, there's probably no meaning to it at all. Yet you wait. For someone to ask in a quiet voice. "...Do you know about it?" And for them to let you peek into the strange world that exists right next to everyday life. To open a door that was right in front of your eyes, though you never would have imagined it could be in such a place. But you know. That it's meaningless now, too. Come on, let's move forward. No matter how long you wait, that person has already disappeared beyond the door.
It was the winter of my third year in university. It was around the time I was finally able to come to terms with things within myself, ever since the master of the occult arts had vanished. A certain person who knew about the master handed me a map. It wasn't something commercially available. It was hand-drawn on traditional Japanese paper. "You should go take a look sometime." The coffee shop, empty of other customers, smelled of a past I didn't know, making me feel ill at ease. "What is this?" I asked, dropping my eyes to the map marked with a prominent arrow, while he fiddled with the frayed end of his necktie. "A grave," he said. The equinox has already passed, though. Saying that, he turned back to the master behind the counter and gestured to ask for water. I didn't ask whose grave it was. I understood immediately.
It belonged to a woman named Kanako, who was the master's own master. As I heard various stories about her from the master and others, I had grown to feel a sense of familiarity, almost as if she were an old acquaintance, but when I thought about it, I had never seen a single photograph of her. Even though I felt like I knew her character, the version of her inside me was nothing more than an outline. I had never imagined she had a grave. I had felt like she had vanished somewhere far more unreal and distant. "I'll go check it out." With those words, I bowed my head. The wind was dry. I finally started walking beneath a sky that looked like not a single raindrop would fall from it again. I unfurled the map once more. The place I was aiming for seemed to be a bit further up the mountain. As I kept climbing, the paved road eventually disappeared, turning into a rough path gouged with deep tire ruts. Along the way, a mini-truck came from the opposite direction, so I pressed myself against the mountain side to avoid it, but that mini-truck drove with one of its tires hooked right on the edge of the raised mound in the center. The body of the truck tilted at an angle, looking unstable, which I thought was strange, but when I thought about it, if you tried to match your tires to the two gouged ruts, the un-gouged center part would scrape against the underside of the car. I see. This, too, is a local trait, the wisdom of living in this place. I walked right on top of that raised center of the road. On the cliff side, I could see terraced fields spreading across the middle of the opposite mountain. The season of autumn leaves had passed, but the air was clear, and I could see the pleasant mountain scenery far into the distance. Before long, snow would decorate the trees.
Continuing to walk while dripping sweat, I came to a fork in the road. On one side, there was a modest sign saying there was a famous waterfall. Waterfall-something. The characters were unreadable. Just like the map said. I had to choose the path without the waterfall. That was a little disappointing. The call of a mountain pigeon echoed in the distance. As I kept walking, moistening my throat with my water flask, I finally reached it. A modest gravestone standing on the slope of the mountain. It was a place with a good view.
Below my eyes, the village at the foot of the mountain and the river cutting through it possessed the appearance of a snake twisting its slender body. I managed to climb up there by using tree roots as a handrail and said, "Nice to meet you." As if in response, a pleasant breeze blew through. "What a nice place." A single, moss-covered stone standing quietly on a narrow patch of ground. On both sides of it were bamboo tubes for offering flowers, and withered sakaki branches peeked out. I wondered if the master had ever come here to pay their respects. Looking at the blackened traces of offerings, that thought suddenly crossed my mind. I took off the rucksack I'd been carrying and pulled out some incense sticks. I struck a match, lit them, and quickly waved my hand to put out the flame. And when I approached the gravestone holding them, I stopped short with a gasp. Eh? What is this? I didn't realize it right away, but something I never could have anticipated was right there. I stared at the gravestone until its meaning sank into my brain. Gradually, the beating of my heart grew faster. Eh? Eh? Eh? The key of memory made a sound. The true nature of the sense of incongruity that I had half-overlooked began to take shape in a chain reaction. Then what was that? Then, what about that time? You. With a confused head, I tried to organize things one by one. The scent of incense rose, luring me into the flickering, unstable past. You get angry. At your past self who knew nothing. At that person who lived such a life. You feel sad. At your past self who knew nothing. At that person who lived such a life. The incense sticks fall from your hand. A single ant crawls along the stitching of your sneaker. A bird with beautifully colored feathers perches on a drooping tree branch. The sound of spring water flowing can be heard from somewhere. A single tear falls into the sky. And then, in the end, you grow gentle. "What an idiot." Yes. What an idiot.
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