While the March mist still lay thick over the Dragon God’s Lake, Spice knelt at the water’s edge and frowned into the surface.
“…It’s trembling .”
The needle of his wave sensor flickered — faint , but steady. A tremor rising from some distant seafloor , as if someone, somewhere, kept striking a great drum. Ripples spread quietly out of the mist.
“Spice! Let’s march today!”
Kopo appeared, swinging his bug net like a baton . He insisted he’d heard the sound of a drum somewhere, though in truth he was only humming it himself. “March, march! I’ll lead the way!”
“…A drum loud enough to lead a march isn’t a gentle thing.”
Spice murmured it quietly, but Kopo didn’t hear.
Sonchō rose slowly from the bench and turned his eyes toward the mist.
“Somewhere far out at sea, someone is trying to shut a door again. I felt a tremor like this once, decades ago — that time, gray rain fell.”
The old frog’s eyes stayed still for a long moment. Kopo’s net went quiet in his hands.
“…Maybe I should’ve brought a whistle instead. Quieter, at least.”
He said it to no one in particular, and Spice let out a short, rare laugh.
The mist still covered the lake — but for as long as the three of them stood there together, its color seemed, just faintly, to grow a little lighter.
Margin note: That night, Spice’s wave sensor flashed “out of range” and went still. The next morning, a handwritten sticky note was stuck to the screen — it said, “Peace.”
【Today’s Drop】
- Bikini Day: On March 1, 1954, the United States conducted a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryū Maru was exposed to radioactive fallout , making this date a symbolic anniversary for the anti-nuclear and peace movement.
- March Day: A wordplay anniversary based on “March” meaning both the month and the act of marching in step.
- Strait of Hormuz Closure: News of a blockade by Iran raised international tension over the transport of energy resources.
This is an English translation of “海の底の太鼓”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).