During the spring doyō, the ground by the pond was soft, and every step released the sweet smell of mud.
Kopo had been crouched down since morning. There was no particular reason. If pressed, he might say only that he had a groundless conviction that “something’s here.”
“…Found it.”
Something hard touched his fingertip. Digging through the mud, a fist-sized round stone emerged . Its surface was finely uneven, and its weight settled strangely well into his palm. It felt subtly different from an ordinary stone — almost as if it were breathing.
“Spice! Come here a sec!”
Spice set down his workshop gadget and, without a word, pulled out a magnifying glass. His white coat fluttering, he examined the stone closely. Then he quietly pressed something resembling a stethoscope against it.
“…There’s a memory of something living in here. But this is from a long, long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
“Before this town even existed. Before that, even. It’s been sleeping at the bottom of the earth, this whole time.”
Under the weeping cherry tree, Sonchō, plucking at a sakura mochi, turned his eyes to the two of them. He took the stone in his hand and lifted the brim of his top hat slightly.
“There was someone who walked for days across a distant desert, and dug up something no one had ever seen. That memory may have crossed through time and reached your hand today.”
Kopo looked at the stone. It was plain, smelled of earth, and looked like something you might find anywhere. And yet, it carried a weight that seemed to be pulling toward somewhere.
“…What kind of place is a desert?”
“A place you can walk into, precisely because you don’t know what’s there.”
Sonchō laughed, “Feh-feh,” and popped the last bite of his sakura mochi into his mouth. Kopo traced the stone’s unevenness with his finger once more. The spring breeze rippled the pond’s surface, and a pattern of light shimmered quietly across the stone.
Margin note: That night, the stone was placed on the windowsill. Kopo didn’t look up at the moon, not even once.
【Today’s Drop】
- Dinosaur Day: On April 17, 1923, the zoologist Roy Chapman Andrews departed Beijing for the Gobi Desert expedition . He would later discover the world’s first fossilized dinosaur eggs.
- Spring Doyō: Around April 17th falls the period of spring doyō — a seasonal turning point, during which digging into the earth is traditionally avoided in some regions.
This is an English translation of “泥の底の夢”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).