Partway up Frog Mountain, there is one patch of soil with a different color from the rest.
Kopo found it the night before. Seeing Mocchi, unusually distant-eyed, say “someone’s carrying something heavy they can’t even talk to anyone about,” Kopo found himself climbing the mountain before he knew it. The morning star was still in the sky; it was still dark.
The soil was blacker than he’d expected. Touching it with a fingertip, it wasn’t cold — it held a faint warmth. Kopo began kneading it with both hands.
The first change was in its weight.
The more he kneaded, the heavier the soil grew. As if it were absorbing something. Kopo put strength into his arms and kept going without stopping. Somehow, without being able to explain it, he understood — that everyone’s “unspeakable weight” in this town was gathering into this mud.
At that moment, the scenery changed.
The black soil in front of him vanished, and in its place, all of Amencho Town spread out far below. A coarse, scanning-line monochrome image. Hasshi’s eyes, Kopo thought. Before he could put it into words, the image kept flowing in — the roof of Spice’s workshop, the stone bridge’s railing , the weeping cherry’s reflection on the river, the veranda where Sonchō hung out cloth to dry. Across that whole panorama , he thought he could see countless small “weights” scattered about.
The mud dropped, with a heavy thud.
He couldn’t lift it. Kneeling before the mud, at a loss, a shadow fell over him.
“…Heavy, isn’t it.”
Hasshi was on a pine branch above. Wings folded, watching quietly.
“Trying to take it all on yourself?”
Kopo said nothing. Hasshi’s mouth moved slightly.
“I don’t think that mud exists to swallow everything whole. It just needs — you to give the weight a name. Do that, and you can carry a little of it.”
Kopo put his hands on the mud again. Not kneading this time, just pressing down. Closing his eyes, he counted, one by one, in his chest, like calling out names, the weight flowing in from the town.
The mud grew, just slightly, lighter.
By the time he came down Frog Mountain, dawn had begun to blur the ridgeline .
Back at the plaza , Mocchi was, as usual, silently burying seeds. Kopo said nothing. He just crouched down beside him and put his hand to the soil.
Mocchi, his narrow eyes unchanged, only said, “I know.”
Margin note: The next morning, when Kopo went back to check, the mud’s color had returned to normal. But around the mud, a single set of unfamiliar footprints remained — footprints that belonged to neither Hasshi nor Kopo, heading toward the center of the mud. In the direction leading away from it, there were none.
【Core of the Tale】
- Phenomenon or prop used: gravity-absorbing mud (Frog Mountain), Hasshi’s shared sight
- The story’s hidden theme: taking on a weight and giving a weight a name are two different acts
This is an English translation of “重さに名前をつける泥”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).