Stories

Evening in Amencho Town: an old phonograph set on the station platform caught the slanting western sun dully. A thin layer of dust lay over its brass horn.

Under the eaves of an Amencho Town house, with the cicada song ringing loud enough to split, Kopo gripped a rolled-up sheet of paper tight. Tomorrow, at last, came the great role of polishing the railing of the Dragon God’s bridge for the “first crossing” — a once-in-a-lifetime moment in the spotlight for Kopo, giving a speech in front of a crowd.

The evening river wind stirred the leaves of the weeping cherry. In front of Tacchi, who sat at the foot of the bridge with his long legs thrown out as if he did not know what to do with them, Spice silently held out a clipping from a magazine.

The station plaza of Amencho Town was so full of cicada song it was almost hard to breathe. Sitting hunched in the shade of a weeping willow , as if hiding there, was a girl with a straw hat pulled low over her eyes. The notebook on her knees did not have a single line filled in yet.

In the grassy field by Dragon God’s Lake, where the cicada shower poured down in a roar, Kopo stood bolt upright. Over his eyes, a spirited red cloth — a blindfold .

It was a morning when the long rain had at last wound up its blue thread, reel by reel. The sky turned suddenly from indigo to lapis , and thunderheads swelled up like the rim of a galaxy . In the back garden of Amencho Town, the plums spread across a whole bamboo tray shone, blink, blink, in the sunlight of a month’s absence. The fruits that had held their breath at the bottom of a dark crock , steeped in salt and red shiso , meet the sky stark naked on this one day alone. It was a small, small solstice festival.

Dusk in Amencho Town still held the day’s heat in full, and only the cicadas ’ song rang on, as if reluctant to let go. The steam from the well-side came loose in the night wind and mixed with the smell of Dragon God’s Lake.

Tonight, and only tonight, the summer Dragon God’s Lake was wrapped in a very human bustle. …And yet Amencho Town’s fireworks are not like the city’s. Because of a legend that “a loud noise startles the lord of the lake,” the number of shells sent up is just three. Every year, someone grumbles about the too-modest count; it has become a tradition. Only the smell of goldfish-scooping water on the hems of the summer robes , and the far-off shudder of a drum, tell of summer in an oddly real-time way.

At high noon, when even the cicada song seemed about to melt, only the storehouse’s thick earthen walls held on to the cool. The hands fanning the children who had fled into the shade could not keep up with the sweat on their brows.

On an evening with cicada song piling up high, a single hand-lantern was lit under the eaves of the storehouse. In the shut-in smell of damp earth and old paper, Sonchō had an old illustrated book open on his knees and, laughing his feh-feh, was reading aloud to the children.

In the Amencho Town morning, a heat haze rose shimmering off the surface of Dragon God’s Lake. It was the hottest day of the year, with the drone of cicadas pouring down hard enough to make you want to cover your ears.

As the morning haze thinned, small ripples overlapped on the surface of Dragon God’s Lake. The one throwing stones was Kopo. Today, though, it was not target practice — he seemed to be struggling with something.

The middle slope of Frog Mountain was full of cicada song from the morning. On the ruins of an old stone wall that had once been a place to “guard” something, the little roof Kopo had packed together from mud — a rest hut for people who had lost their way — looked, today, somehow proud.

The morning in Amencho Town seemed to carry more of a salt smell than usual. Of course, this town has no sea. All it has is Dragon God’s Lake, lying deep in the mountains. “Why does everyone get nostalgic for a place they’ve never even been?”

Pa-pan — a dry clap rang out. What Sonchō struck together was not a storyteller’s fan but an old scrap of wood from the Dragon God’s shrine; still, the rhythm was exactly that of a lecture-hall turn. “Ah — the tale for today is ‘The Neighbor’s Twinkle.’” Before the young frogs gathered under the weeping cherry, Sonchō narrowed his eyes. Once every eleven years, there is a night when a red starlight fills the surface of Dragon God’s Lake. To borrow the words of astronomy , it is Proxima Centauri b — light leaking from an exoplanet a little over four light-years away, the closest to our solar system.

At the far end of Dragon God’s Lake, the sheer rock face has long been called the “North Wall,” and held to be a training ground where only strong men of each generation dared to climb. It should have been nothing but an old saying no one paid any mind. “…This year, for certain, I want to send out a song no one has ever heard.”

Now then. In Amencho Town there are, now and again, tales that cannot quite be measured by the reason of the outside world. Tonight, one of those — a turn upon the “moon crossing” of Dragon God’s Lake. Bear with me a while, if you please. On the night of the full moon, the lake was holding its breath something fierce. The moon’s reflection, fallen on the water, had swollen up fat and round, all by itself, and it pulsed — wobble , wobble. The chorus of frogs had stopped dead, and only the night wind, carrying the smell of weed, stroked the leaves of the weeping cherry — rustle , rustle.

Dusk in Amencho Town: lanterns strung along the river began to light, one by one. A lukewarm wind stirred the weeping cherry leaves, and small ripples spread across the lake in ring after ring. Mixed with the calls of frogs in the distance, the sound of someone practicing a drum came on the wind.

At the drinking fountain in the station plaza, a small wooden board about the size of a palm hung down. On its surface was a frog spouting water, drawn carelessly in charcoal. crude , but with a certain charm.

An evening shower beat hard on the flagstones of Amencho Town, and then, just as abruptly, was gone.