Shiki Volume 1 Chapter 9 part7

Seishin had just spread out his manuscripts when the phone call came. Getting it first before Ikebe who moved to take the phone, Seishin picked up the receiver. From the other end of the line, he heard Toshio's voice, sounding somehow stiff.

"Toshio, is it? What is it?"

Toshio's response was short. "Fuki-san's dead."

Seishin was momentarily lost for words and his first supposition was suicide. This summer, the old woman had lost her son and her brother. It was already the 21st of August and the sun and the wind all had the scent of fall to them. Even now the summer heat remained intense but the signs of a season's passing were clearly on the air. It wouldn't be unusual for an old woman who had suffered many losses to take stock of the past summer. That's what he'd thought.

As if reading Seishin's thoughts, Toshio continued. "But it wasn't suicide. I think it was probably acute renal failure. It was last night. ---I just got back from the Gotouda house. Yano Tae-san from Shimo-Sotoba found her."

Seishin lost his words. Something solid lingered in his throat. His own voice, replying, is that so, sounded like Toshio's, he thought. Ikebe looked back at Seishin with uncertainty.

"After I have contacted the funeral manager, I think that I will be out that way to contact you directly."

"....Got it. Thank you."

Toshio's voice as he said "Later" and hung up the phone was more devoid of emotion than necessary. Seishin didn't know how to take this news of death. He couldn't say it was a surprise, but that said he couldn't stay calm. Perhaps, he thought, Toshio was the same.

"What's happened?" Ikebe asked Seishin who had hung up.

"It seems that the Gotouda's Fuki-san has passed away."

Eh, Ikebe started then stopped. "That wasn't, possibly...."

"He called it acute renal failure. She passed away last night but it seems she was discovered this morning."

Seeing the expression that rose on Ikebe's face, Seishin felt that Ikebe had the same thought pattern. Mitsuo was just returning to the temple office with Tsurumi; they must have sensed the strange atmosphere, as he asked if something happened. When told that Fuki had died, Tsurumi straight out asked: "It wasn't suicide, was it?" When saying it was not, he looked to Mitsuo.

"...Again, is it?"

An awkward silence hung over the temple office. The lump in Seishin's throat was precisely that. The word "again." This summer, how many reports of death had their been? And in only half a month. Shuuji, the three people from Yamairi, Megumi, Giichi, and this made seven.

"I tell you what," Mitsuo said with a heavy sigh. "It's been that kind of year. Hadn't it been like this before?" Mitsuo said, then wore a strained smile as if realizing something. "Ah, the Junior Monk was still small then, you can't remember?"

"It had been." The one who agreed was Tsurumi. "It was more than twenty years ago, wasn't it? In the rainy season there was a flash flood, and it started when two children were washed away by the riverbed. Back then the incidents continued. There was nothing but accident after accident at the waterfront."

"Right, right, we lost the former head monk that year too, at the beginning of the fall season."

Mitsuo said emotionally; Tsurumi's eyes widened.

"That's, a terribly ominous statement. Mitsuo-san."

"Ah, no---I'm very sorry. That's not how I'd meant it."

Ikebe questioned mildly. "Uhm.... Was what happened with the Predecessor also a water related accident?"

Seishin wore a bitter smile. "No. It was stomach cancer."

Staring at Ikebe's face, who looked like he wanted to say 'that's all?', Seishin felt self-derision in his heart. Yes--that was all it was. Misfortunes, at least in some fashion or other, never ceased. Even if everything which happened was a matter of probability, they didn't happen uniformly. But, unpleasantness left a strong impression on people. People's death, of all things, was the utmost example thereof.

Even if when looking at it in the long term everything went according to reasonable probabilities, it had the impression that it was a strange string of events, and once you had that impression, that preconception's ability to warp reality was striking. Tsurumi had said "accident after accident at the water front," but the reality of it was that Seishin's grandfather was lost to stomach cancer, and while certainly Tsurumi of all people shouldn't have forgotten that, the impression of "accident after accident at the water front" had eclipsed and made hazy his awareness.

Seishin let out a breath. Death occurred randomly. Events occurred in isolation, there wouldn't always be a sure connection. But, people's minds gathered those discontinuous occurrences together and bestowed them meaning, connection. It wasn't that there "was" meaning but that meaning was conferred. For example, constellations; in fact they were merely stars with no relation to anything, between which people agreed on the supplementary lines in order to give the constellations meaning; it was similar to that phenomenon.

The deaths were not serialized, they were just manifesting in a way that left the impression of continuity. Fuki, too, was near seventy. Already in advanced age, she had made arrangements for her own grave herself, as an old woman who was already having the life slip out of her bit by bit. And further still was the severity of this summer, there wasn't just the intense heat, but the loss of her son, the loss of her brother, making it, for Fuki, an emotionally insufferable summer. Her body would have began failing even without that, and going through the crisis back to back like that must surely have worn her down. Losing her brother and son surely also had her depressed.

There was nothing particularly suspicious about it, a reasonable death----.

While thinking that never the less, he realized something within trying to convey something to himself.

(But, what?)

Seishin reflected on his thoughts and then found the unease within himself. It was that which he felt when it was Megumi. Something felt very improper about it. The bad premonition he'd had when it was Giichi's time. He was sure to be faced by circumstances that were by no means reasonable or natural, thus all the more reason why he had to eagerly tell himself that it was valid and proper.

(....Is that what it was?)

As if to voice consent to that realization, he felt something queer sinking in his gut. It was Fuki wasn't it, Seishin thought. ---Not Shimizu nor Hiroko, nor even Tokrou. Facing the desk, Seishin remembered clearly the day of Megumi's service. Looking older than their years (It would be best to be prepared), Tokurou and Hiroko. Their backs hunched and rounded like Gotouda Fuki's. Shimizu patting Tokurou's back (as if clinging), his eyes cast sharply down. Huddling together, bearing against the unreasonable shock they'd suffered, the strange sense of dread that could be felt from them.

---When children cry the oni come.

Not Shimizu, nor Hiroko nor Tokurou.

It was Gotouda Fuki.

Yes, Ohkawa Gigorou died, Murasako Hidemasa died, Mieko died. Shuuji died, and Fuki fell to it. There was no sense hierarchy to it. Just as Shuuji fell to death before Fuki did, just as Megumi fell to it. It was just, ---spreading.

Contamination, the word sprung to mind. Sudden, unforseen death. That death was contaminating nearby relatives.

Shimizu was well. He hadn't heard talk of Hiroko or Tokurou collapsing either. Mieko fell to it, Fuki fell to it. Hidemasa's wife, Shuuji's mother. And Giichi. Those with no resistance, in close contact.

Seishin clenched his fist. ---An epidemic.

Closed off land, a society made up of only those within, intricate regional and familial bonds, the custom of burying their dead.

Once that spread the village would be, beyond a doubt, annihilated.

Chapter end