From late December to early January, I went back to my hometown in Gunma and took a part-time job at the local post office. Ever since my second year of high school, I’d always worked there during long breaks, and since it was the countryside, I had memorized all the delivery routes. Because of that, the staff were thrilled to have an experienced worker back. However, I was assigned to chaperone S, a high school kid who was working at the post office for the very first time. To put it simply, my job was to work alongside him for two or three days and teach him the route. S was a cheerful guy, and we immediately hit it off, joking around with each other. His delivery route only had about fifty stops. While the number of houses was small, the distance to the next stop was ridiculously far—an area commonly referred to as an "enclave."
It was the eighth day of our part-time job. Since S’s and my delivery areas were right next to each other, we usually met up at the vending machine next to the bus stop when heading back to the post office. That day, S showed up riding his bicycle at full speed, his eyes bloodshot and tears streaming down his face. It was getting close to 5:00 PM, which was way past the time we were supposed to be back at the office. He must have fallen, because his face, clothes, and bicycle were all covered in mud. When I asked him what was wrong, he just kept repeating, "It's bad, it's bad, it's bad," making no sense at all. Thinking he might have damaged or lost the mail, I told him, "Let's just get back to the office," and pulled him along with me.
When the manager of the delivery section saw S's state, he rushed over, asking what happened. The manager asked, "What's wrong? Did you lose the letters?" but S replied, "I delivered everything." Since he still wasn't making any sense, I asked him what had happened, and S said, "You won't believe me." Shortly after, a few other staff members returned and asked S similar questions, but he stuck to his guns, repeating over and over, "You won't believe me." Then, one staff member asked, "Did you happen to see the pitch-black scarecrow?" and S nodded repeatedly. Another staff member asked, "Ah, in the woods? Or by the river?" and S answered, "Both."
There is a house called House A on S's delivery route. Judging by the mail, a middle-aged couple seemed to live there. To get to that place, you have to pass through about 300 meters of dark woods, cross a small stream, and walk down a path through the fields. Honestly, it was the kind of place where you'd want to tell people not to build a house. Apparently, House A had caught fire about 20 years ago. In that fire, three people died: the couple's child and an elderly grandfather and grandmother. The grandfather had tried to carry the child to the hospital, but collapsed and died on the path in the woods; the grandmother was found floating in the stream, charred black; and the child was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but died after being transferred there. The current House A stands past the path through the fields, but back then, the house supposedly stood where the fields are now. According to the staff members, the grandfather might still be searching for the child, and the grandmother might still be trying to escape the heat.
"At first, I thought it was a scarecrow," S said. "But the head was pitch-black, and its eyes opened. They were pure white."
I suddenly thought back on it. I was pretty sure there weren't any scarecrows in that field. But this year, I felt like I had seen a scarecrow floating in the river just once.
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