"Leaves" Chapter 3

Paul moved away from the village to a town further west and up in the mountains. The sad river and the leaves, he left behind.

In the mountain village, it seemed everyone knew each other. There was a middle-aged lady, Mrs. Kawai, who had been a teacher years before and when she found out Paul had moved there, a real English speaking foreigner, she quickly set to work organizing an English conversation circle. They were to meet on Wednesday evening at her home, only as she related it to Paul, it was to be a party welcoming him to the village.
Continued...
On that evening, they sat on the straw mat in her house, Paul and four middle-aged women, the women laughing and plying him with Concord grape wine and asking him if he could use chopsticks, whether he liked the country, did he cook for himself every night and many other questions which he answered to the best of his ability in between drinks of the cloying, but pleasant wine. Then Mrs. Kawai announced it was time to eat and the women brought in little charcoal grills, the kind made for grilling strips of beef and vegetables at the table. The kind that are sometimes also used in this country by people who meet on the internet and plan a group get-together/suicide on isolated mountain roads by rolling up the windows and burning a little charcoal inside the car to bring on the slow asphyxiation.

But this evening, the grills weren't being used for suicide. This was English conversation! Just as Mrs. Kawai lit the charcoal, the last member arrived, and Paul was surprised that it wasn't another middle-aged woman, but a rather less middle-aged girl with a pleasant smile and a pleasant face and what seemed to be a pleasant shape as well. She showed Mrs. Kawai the cake she had baked for the occasion as the ladies cooed and then she took a place next to Paul on the mat, sitting in that peculiar way women sat in this country, with their legs bent at the knees to either side of their thighs and rump, all flush with the floor. It was cute, but it looked painful to Paul.

"My name is Shizuka," she said and smiled brightly.

"I'm Paul", he said.

"Yes, I know."

Word got around in the village, it seemed.

"How do you like Shimoyama?" she asked as she stared into his eyes.

"I quite like it here."

She smiled again, her eyes still fixed on his. Never believe what they say about this land, about people's eyes never meeting.

"You have blue eyes," Shizuka said.

"I thought they were green."

"Green?" she said,　surprised. "I think blue."

"Hmm..." Paul said. "Maybe you're right. What the hell do I know?" He laughed. A little too loudly, from the wine, and she laughed with him.

The other ladies were still busy ferrying plates from the kitchen into the room and placing them around the grills set on the low table.

"So what do you do for a living?" Paul asked.

"Sorry?"

"Umm... Do you work?"

"Yes! I'm a nurse," she said.

"A nurse?" he said. Then "Good answer," under his breath.

"Pardon?"

"Umm... So can I call you when I get sick?" he asked.

She laughed, with her face lighting up. "Yes! But only if you are pregnant."

Paul's eyes widened.

"I'm a..." she said, then turned to Mrs. Kawai and spoke for a moment.

"She's a nurse at the obstetric clinic," Mrs. Kawai said.

"Oh!" Paul laughed and all the ladies looked over at him.

"Do you help during childbirth?" he asked her.

"Usually, I deliver the babies," she said.

"Really?"

"The doctor only comes if there's... if there's some difficulty."

"That's too cool!" He was impressed that this girl sitting next to him, this pretty girl, delivered babies.

But she hadn't understood completely. "Sorry?" she asked.

"That's really..." he started. "That's great!" he said finally.

Shizuka smiled and was still staring into his eyes.

After the Fact

After the Fact snow After the Fact Intro

After the fact Intro

About that poem yesterday. It looks on the face of it like just another poem about snow. "Ooh, footprints in the snow... how romantic...yawn..."

But it's actually a bit more sinister.

You see, there's this mountain trail not far from where I live. It's linked to a set of trails that are quite popular. So popular, that when you walk one of them, you'll meet other hikers every 5 minutes or so.

But this trail is different. Most people who go hiking out there don't seem to know it exists. It's sort of hidden, and merges into one of the main trails from behind a hill with an old, gnarled ginkgo tree on it.

Well anyway, way down along this hidden trail, there is a small path that branches off and goes up an incline and down the other side into the forest. One time I was mushroom hunting my way up the hillside from below that forest and when I came to the top, there was a small clearing. It was a nice enough place. Secluded, lots of oak and beech trees around. And there was a path leading away from the clearing, so I set out on it, figuring it would lead into that main (but rarely taken) trail I mentioned above. And I was right. But there was something curious...
Continued...
Along this path, someone had written something with yellow paint on a few of the trees. There was

"In this area there are many suicides"

and another tree, further along had this

"Here someone hanged themselves"

Kind of a screwed-up thing to find out on an otherwise lovely hiking trail, but there it was. I figured it was just some kids messing around.

Going back there over the following months, I noticed that the words were periodically erased with black spraypaint, but that the yellow text would show up again. And one strange afternoon, I actually encountered a middle-aged man wearing camouflage, creeping along in the forest. I hoped he was just another mushroom hunter. But I also wondered if it wasn't kids messing around, but rather some older guy with a twisted sense of humor. I wondered if the guy I saw could be the person who enjoys writing strange things on trees in the forest.

Well, that's fine by itself, if a little strange. But there's one more thing...

One afternoon wandering along the trail, I spotted a mushroom over in the trees. I walked over to it and my foot got caught on something. I looked down and saw that it was a wire that had been strung along the forest floor about 6 inches off the ground. I wondered what the hell it was for, but then I think I found the answer. I noticed something among the dead leaves that didn't fit. There was a very sharp stake made from bamboo sticking up. I looked around the area and noticed another. Then three or four others. This was no longer just a place where someone with a twisted sense of humor came. It was a place where a really fucked-up person came.

I plucked the mushroom gently from the soil and walked out of there slowly, carefully and stopping every few paces to listen good and hard into the forest. You could say the place was spooking me, and that may be the goal of my fucked-up "friend", and I guess it was working because I don't go there so often lately.

But last weekend it snowed. And from reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls", I know that snow offers the opportunity for the hunter to become the hunted. (Of course, you don't need to read the novel to figure that out, but he painted quite a vivid picture of the peril of snow). I knew that I could go out there and I'd be able to see just how many people walked that path and where they went and how long it had been since they walked it.

I worked up the hillside through the trees rather than taking the path from where it branched off the main, but neglected trail. Before I knew it, I was up in the clearing. There they were. A single set of footprints in the snow. Smaller than my own, but probably still a man. The footprints were a little rounded from a couple of days of melt and re-freeze. Just one set of footprints, going along the path, a day or two before me. The yellow paint on the trees was there. The sharpened bamboo stakes were there, piercing the snow, now clearly seen. Eerie, but the prints' age set the mind at ease. But still eerie to be walking along in the footsteps of my strange "friend" with the twisted sense of humor.

It could be that the person is not twisted, but trying to be helpful. Trying to warn of a bad vibe in the forest there. It could be.

But anyway, that's the story behind the poem. Now go and read it again.

snow

in the forest
footprints in the snow
who am I following?

"Writer's Block"? Or just "Lazy Ass"??

Well, I've written two versions of a third chapter for "Leaves".

And they both stink. But the thoughts are "a swirlin" and I may just get out of my gumption-less funk and post a new version soon.

In the meantime, I'll try to divert attention from all that by posting a little poem.

Second Thoughts

In doing some year-end cleaning, take down the 2005 calendars (yes, somehow I ended up with three...) One is a "Provence" calendar with nice photographs of some places I've been: Les Baux, Avignon, the Abbey at Sénanque. Brings back memories.

last year's calendar
into the trashbin
second thoughts