Created •
a serialized online story
by Tommy Schmitz
Chapter 8 - Superstition and allowance in Hebi-yama.
(here is the link to Chapter 7.)
Oba-chan watched Taya-san and Kaneko-san
from the Japan Foreign Ministry,
discuss their alternatives and tactics
to find the girls;
first on the list:
Comb Hebi-yama with agents and dogs.
"They are not in Hebi-yama." Oba-chan said. "They are forbidden
to step foot in there. And for that matter,
I forbid you to search for them in there.
"It's . . . "
Oba-chan pauses.
"haunted."
Oba-chan pauses again.
"occupied,
you might say.
And you do know what I mean." she stated flatly.
She pauses once again.
"I might be a physicist," she continues,
"an electronics engineer
and a patent attorney,
but I am also a grandmother.
And I am sorry.
Bit if you enter, even with the best of intentions,
that bamboo sanctuary,
You will bring great hardship
upon my life
and upon all the lives in this home.
And I repeat: You do know what I am talking about."
The men stared at her without a word.
"Would you care to give notice to the neighbors
and get their opinions on this matter?
Every body around here knows these - things - about Hebi-yama,
and most have felt this way for generations.
And do you know why?" she paused.
"Perhaps you would like to test
what effect these spirits might have
upon your own lives?
Your own families and futures?
Surely you know
what sits beside us in Hebi-yama?
And how many
dozens of generations
of your ancestors", she paused, "and mine
are sitting-up right now
across that bamboo forest
taking notice as we speak."
The men just stared.
"Fifty? Sixty? Seventy generations?"
The men continued staring.
"Then," Oba-chan folds her hands in front of her, right over left, "Let's not put a fox hunt in Hebi-yama
at the top of the list of ways to find the girls, okay?" Oba-chan said,
"It would be a waste of precious time."
She was walking to the door by now, and grabbed the door knob.
"Gentlemen? she paused. "A thousand apologies for this inconvenience.
And a thousand thank you's for your help."
"Who are you? Katie asserted.
He let go of her arm, and took a couple steps back into the darkness.
"Who are you?" Katie repeated.
"I cannot tell you who I am at this time.
"You're an old man. I can run faster than you and turn you in."
"Yes, you may." he said.
"You'll never get out of here." Katie said.
"That, Katie, is another matter."
The man moved toward his dark makeshift hut,
pulled up a flap, and crawled inside.
Katie noticed a shielded glow of candle inside and followed.
"How do you know my name?"
"Is there anyone at the moment in Japan who doesn't?
"The television would never say our names." she said.
"You've been blogged."
Katie rolled her eyes.
"You can help get my mother and father back?" Katie said. "My brother?"
He was silent.
"Why are you here" she demanded.
He was silent.
"This is dumb. There are agents just beyond the opened window there.
Surely you know this.
I could scream no matter what your intentions are."
"Yes you may."
Katie took a long look at nothing into the glow inside the hut.
"Go retrieve your sister.
Or not.
or go finish your homework
and forget about this.
Or not." he looked in her direction, and continued.
"Susan, right now, is crawling your path."
He looked Japanese, all right.
But he didn't look like
he had been working and drinking
with the same salary men
for eighteen hours a day,
six days per week,
every single month
for the last 40 years of his life.
"Then again", she wondered, what other look do I know?
And on a sixty-five year old man in Tokyo Japan?
This look,
his look,
was not the same.
The muscles in his face sat differently somehow under his skin.
His eye brows
hard to say, she thought.
soft. relaxed. accepting.
But intense, she thought.
No.
His face is not intense.
His entire presence is.
(chapter 8 continued here.)
